Council Hears Update from Carlisle Fire Company

At a recent meeting, Milford City Council received an update from Carlisle Fire Company. Newly elected Chief Brennan Fountain thanked council for allowing them to provide updates.

“For the month of December, we have been a very busy department in terms of fire responses and emergencies,” Fountain said. “We had 60 total fire calls that ranged in variety of response. We finished 2025 with 836 emergency responses, an increase of 17.3 percent from the previous year of 713.”

Brennan explained that the company responded to 547 calls within city limits and 289 outside city limits. Of those, 390 were in Sussex County and 445 in Kent County. He also stated that fire police made 11 responses to assist with traffic control other than emergencies but in support of Milford Police Department.

“Our EMS calls increased by 11.2 percent from the previous year with 5,069 responses,” Fountain said. “Within city limits, we responded to 4,075 calls and 1,561 outside of city limits. Sussex County had 3,278 responses with Kent County at 2,358. Something to take into consideration is the transports to nursing homes and healthcare facilities. We had 3,981 of those making up over 70 percent of the calls.”

According to Fountain, the busiest day of the week is Tuesday, and the busiest time of the day was between 10 and 11 AM.

“As you are aware, some of the projects we are working on is our new substation project which s going to assist response time in these areas and make sure we are covering the city adequately,” Fountain said. “Another project we are looking forward to is our EMS quarter renovations.”

Brennan also invited council to a fundraising event on Friday. The company is hosting “Joey and Gina’s Italian Wedding” comedy at the fire hall starting at 6 PM.

“I just want to say thank you to the fire department for the quickest possible response time that I have ever seen coming to my business,” Councilwoman Madula Kalesis, whose restaurant was damaged in a fire in late December, said. “I think it took me two minutes to get there when I left my house and by the time I pulled up, there was someone from the fire company pulling up. It was 4:15 in the morning. I just wanted to say thank you. It was a very, very busy day because they left my restaurant and headed to another fire in Lincoln.”

After the presentation, Deputy Chief Kevin Donovan and EMS Captain requested funding from the Fire Enhancement Fund in the amount of $33,000 to cover the cost of renovating the house next to the fire company for an additional EMS crew quarters.

“When we moved into the house almost 20 years ago, it was more than accommodating for what we needed,” Donovan said. “Over the last couple of years, we have increased our staff, increased our call volume, increased our equipment.

In 2022, we only ran 4,000 calls and now we’re close to 6,000. This month alone, it is only the 12^th, and we have over 200 calls just in EMS, so we’re trending toward more than 6,000 calls this year.”

Donovan explained that the $33,000 would be used to renovate the house to accommodate sleeping quarters for another EMS crew. The company also wants to create a handicap accessible entrance as the current entrance requires climbing steps.

“This used to be the Carlisle Enhancement Fund, but now we call it the Fire Enhancement Fund,” Mayor Todd Culotta said. “This money comes in from permits and a variety of things. It’s really their money but they have to come ask us for it.”

City Finance Director, Lou Vitola, explained that there was currently a balance of $76,001 in the fund and the city averaged around $7,000 in collections each year to replenish the amount.

Council approved the request with a vote of 7-0 with Councilwoman Katrina Wilson absent.