Gwinnett firefighters responded to more than 2,000 calls during winter weather

WSBTV.com News Staff
·2 min read

Gwinnett County firefighters responded to more than 2,000 calls over the Christmas weekend, including multiple major fires that forced dozens of families to rebuild.

Channel 2′s Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Matt Johnson was in Duluth, where an early-morning fire broke out at the Cortland Portico apartments on Christmas morning.

Shanelle Binger and her 6-year-old daughter still wake up in tears thinking about how they lost everything on Christmas morning.

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“The other night she woke up screaming and crying,” the Gwinnett County mother said.

Binger said they rushed out of their home, leaving decorations and gifts behind along with everything else. They’ve started a GoFundMe to help replace what was lost.

“We just have the gratitude that we’re alive,” she said.

The fire was one of seven major Gwinnett County fires over the weekend during freezing temperatures.

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From Friday through Monday , Gwinnett firefighters responded to 2,067 incidents, although most were not fires.

“We were seeing upwards of 500 calls per day,” said Capt. Ryan McGiboney with the Gwinnett County Fire Department.

Firefighters helped turn off water when they responded to 485 calls for water in a building. They helped with 8 weather related medical emergencies along with hundreds of other calls.

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He says they had enough staff for the demanding weekend which saw twice the number of calls than average. Fire fighters were given heating stations to help with the work in the freezing cold, said McGiboney.

“A lot of them were still going into the wee hours of the next morning,” he said.

For Binger and her mom and daughter, it’s tough to rebuild, but they’re thankful no one lost lives in any of the fires.

“You can’t replace a life,” she said, “all those other things can be replaced.”