There is no question that there is an increasing volume of emergency calls for West Grove Fire Company's ambulances That trend has continued since WGFC first began ambulance services nearly some 60 years ago. The increasing volume has never been more evident than in January 2020, when WGFC recorded its busiest month in the history of the ambulance service. EMS dispatches received last month totaled 254, surpassing the previous record set in November 2018.

With 254 calls in January, this represented an average call volume of 8.2 calls per day. Many of those dispatches occurred while other calls were already in progress, which happened 65 times during the month; 94 percent of the time WGFC covered the calls. Mutual aid agreements with neighboring ambulance services, like those in Avondale and Oxford, assure coverage among all services when multiple calls are in progress at the same time.

The increasing volume is a national trend, largely fueled by community growth and an aging population. For WGFC, there has been a rapid rate of growth over the past 10+ years driven by an influx of 55+ communities, with another large 55+ community under construction with several hundred housing units planned. In addition, the mandated flow of patients to specialty centers for trauma, pediatric and stroke cases requires patient transport to hospitals well away from West Grove, keeping crews on calls longer. This requires staffing to be available for additional calls while the longer transport is completed (for example, a round trip call to A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children is at least 90 minutes).

West Grove Fire Company provides Basic Life Support service, operating three BLS ambulances, based at the stations in West Grove and New London. Career crews staff ambulances 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and are supplemented as needed by volunteer personnel. WGFC's ambulances serve nearly 81 square miles of territory, including portions of Londonderry, London Grove, Franklin and London Britain Townships, and all of Penn and New London Townships, and the West Grove Borough.

In 2019, WGFC Ambulances handled 2,442 calls. With January off to a record start, the service is anticipating another busy year.