Police calls were slightly up in 2017, largely due to the wildfires, according to Staff Sgt. Svend Nielsen.
In 2016, RCMP attended to 4,346 calls or an average of 11.9 per day. In 2017, RCMP attended to 4,413 calls or an average of 12.1 calls per day.
“I suppose you could say we averaged 12 for both years, but there is a slight difference,” he says. “Of note, an interesting variable was during the Gustafson Fire: in 2016 from July 7 to 23 there were 232 events, but during 2017 when the majority of the area was evacuated, there were 282 files, accounting for the majority of the increase (50 files) for the year.”
Break and enters were up from 53 in 2016 to 61 in 2017, with residential as well as seasonal residences break and enters increasing from 12 to 29 and three to six respectively but business and other (i.e. sheds or outbuildings) break and enters decreasing from 24 and 14 to 16 and 10 respectively, according to Nielsen.
Overall accidents increased from 201 to 210 from 2016 to 2017 with only accidents with damage over $1,000 going up (from 118 to 129).
There was a slight decrease in the number of common assaults (no weapon or aggravating injuries) from 76 in 2016 to 72 in 2017 although of those 26 were unfounded in 2016 compared to 17 in 2017.