ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — In November alone, Albuquerque Fire Rescue crews responded to more than 1,000 calls for outdoor fires or smoke investigations – and the majority are coming from one part of the city.

AFR hopes a new pilot program can help them get to fires quicker. They are looking to staff another truck that will be in service 24/7, solely dedicated to putting out those outdoor fires.

“Any fire that’s unattended or doesn’t have a water source nearby does have a potential to spread, so that’s also what we’re trying to get ahead of as well,” Lt. Jason Fejer with AFR told KOB 4.

There were two fires at Sais Food Mart in southeast Albuquerque in November, destroying the store. Fejer says those started as outdoor fires, that spread to the building.

Most AFR calls are from southeast Albuquerque, which is partly Engine 5’s District – the busiest crew in the city.

“There’s a number of reasons we could look at,” Fejer said. “From some of the unhoused populations that are up in those areas, the resources for those populations up there, and also some of the density of some of those neighborhoods demand a lot of calls for service.”

As temperatures drop, calls to AFR go up. During warmer months, like in May and June, AFR crews respond to more than 500 calls. This November, AFR responded to more than 1,000.

Fejer says a lot of it has to do with people who are homeless and trying to keep warm.

“A lot of these fires that we are responding to are cooking fires, warming fires, nuisance fires, little trash fires,” he said.

So, putting a 24/7 truck into the mix will save the bigger engines for the bigger fires.

“This is a smaller truck, this is a lighter truck, it’s only staffed with two versus four,” Fejer said. “Sometimes we don’t need a 2,000-gallon pump and 500 gallons of water on scene to extinguish some of these fires.”