The new Salt Lake ambulance started operating out of the Airport Industrial Park on Dec. 30. The ambulance has responded to 163 calls, including a few cardiac arrest saves.

There are now 19 full-time and two part-time ambulances to serve all of Oahu’s residents and visitors. Nakano said crews respond to about 90,000 calls annually, and that the number of calls is rising by about 5,000 each year.

Memphis has 90 fire halls, 49 more than Nashville and only a couple hundred thousand more people covering 785 square miles to our 526. Young points out the population of Nashville is increasing while the population of Memphis is decreasing.

Knoxville with 230,000 fewer people than Nashville has almost the same number of fire halls and covers the same square mileage. Young explains, “Our city is growing and neighborhoods are being built further away from a fire station, response times to that area is definitely delayed.”

Our previous Project Nashville investigation shows our firefighters are answering nearly triple the calls compared to two decades ago, but with fewer people.