Matt Helms

Detroit Free Press

Detroit officials said today that the city is on track to report the second lowest number of Angels' Night fires.

The Detroit Fire Department said it responded to 26 fires between 12:01 a.m. and midnight Sunday. Combined with the previous day, the department responded to a total of 40 fires, the department said.

It’s up from 28 last year in the first two days of the campaign.

► Related: Trick-or-treating forecast for metro Detroit not too scary

Thousands of volunteers help patrol city streets each year Oct. 29-31 to help reduce the number of fires set over what used to be called Devil’s Night. Patrols continue tonight.

“Over the course of the first two days of our patrols, what we have seen so far is not much different from our success last year,” said Fire Commissioner Eric Jones. “The efforts of volunteers continues to make a difference, and we know they will be out again tonight as children celebrate Halloween.”

The city said the three-day total for 2015 was 52 fires, down from 97 in 2014. The total for 2015 was the lowest in the 20 years the city has had Angels' Night patrols.

The Fire Department said 20 of the 26 fires on Sunday were structure fires, six of them deemed suspicious, and causes of the remainder are still being investigated. The city said firefighters typically respond to about eight structure fires daily. There also were two garage fires and four trash fires.

► Mitch Albom:What can you wear? Halloween’s latest trick

The city said more than 6,000 volunteers registered for street patrols this year.

The patrols grew out of a response to mass fires set on Devil’s Night in the 1980s, with more than 800 fires set in 1984.

Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @matthelms.