Island County Fire District 3 had a busy start to the New Year, responding to 17 calls in the first 24 hours of 2009.

“We were busier than a one-armed paper hanger, but nothing really significant,” Deputy Chief Mike Cotton said Friday. “Lots of medical calls, a fire alarm here, a water emergency there.”

“We didn’t burn anything down, let’s put it that way,” he said.

Cotton said the district responded to 1,913 calls last year, compared to a few more than 1,800 in 2007 and a few more than 2,000 in 2006.

He said the district is keeping a tight grip on its budget and has no major projects in the works, other than to put two new Medical Emergency Response Vehicles into service.