Metro East Sun

Signal Hill Fire Department responded to 63 calls in 2017 - 1.6 percent more than the previous year, according to data from the National Fire Incident Reporting System.

The calls in Signal Hill included 31 fires - 11 structure fires, four vehicle fires and 16 other fires.

In all, the department saw $35,800 in fire loss - or about $1,155 per fire.

The department also received 32 false calls, including two malicious calls and 30 other false calls.

The calls resulted in one civilian fire-related injury and one civilian fire-related death.

The Signal Hill Fire Department had an annual budget of $524,566 in 2017.

The Signal Hill FPD Firefighters Pension Fund, which has one active employee and retired or inactive employee, was $4,917 positive as of May 2016, according to the fund's mandated filings with the Illinois Department of Insurance. That amounts to $189 for every fire in 2016.

	2016	2017	Year-over-year change (%)
Structure Fires	13	11	-15.4
Vehicle Fires	7	4	-42.9
Other fires	6	16	166.7
Total Fires	26	31	19.2
Total Calls	62	63	1.6