Recruit Open Houses were held this past Wednesday both during the day and in the evening. Between the two sessions approximately 50 people stopped by to find out more about the opportunity, a very good turnout. One of our keys to success is our own firefighters who were able to take the time to help out and answer questions at this event.
Interested people appreciate the time to get first-hand feedback on what it’s like to be an Eden Prairie Firefighter. Over the next two weeks there will be practice Ability Test sessions to get potential recruits comfortable with the process. On May 30th the Ability Test “Final” will be conducted to determine which recruit candidates move forward in our process. This year we are looking for 8-10 great recruits to join our ranks.
It is not too late for folks to get into our process so if you know some great people please have them go to the website and fill out an application and come to the events listed on the process document for recruits. The link is: www.edenprairie.org/fire.
Nearly every year the Eden Prairie Fire Department has a recruiting process that begins in the spring with a recruitment open house. The purpose of the open house is to give interested women and men the chance to visit an Eden Prairie Fire Station and meet some firefighters, ask questions and find out more about what it takes to become an volunteer Eden Prairie Firefighter.
This year is no different. The 2012 Open House is tomorrow, May 9, and there are two time slots during the day when our doors will be open at Fire Station #1 to welcome those interested potential recruits in to find out more. The time slots are from 9 a.m. to Noon and then again from 6 p.m. til 9 p.m. This is a great opportunity to find out from our current firefighters what its like to be a part of the Eden Prairie Fire Department.
We’ve created a video this year as well to give folks a chance to hear right from some of our firefighters…
In addition to the video you can go and visit our website and find out more about the steps involved in becoming an Eden Prairie Firefighter, the Open House is not a required step in the process - but if you’re interested, it’s a good idea to attend.
Click HERE to learn more about becoming a firefighter.
KARE11 reporter Boyd Huppert will be doing a feature on two issues at the forefront of Fire Safety in Minnesota today.
First, on Monday, April 30 at their 10p show will be a report on kitchen fire safety – the leading cause of building fires in Minnesota and the cause of 3 of the 5 fatal fires in Saint Paul last year. Saint Paul Fire Investigator Jamie Novak did a kitchen fire safety demonstration in the kitchen of a house to be burned for fire training. Few people get how fast fire spreads, after watching this, there won’t be any doubt…
The next night, Tuesday, May 1 at 10p will be a timely report on the need for residential fire sprinklers in new dwellings. The Saint Paul Fire Department built two identical rooms and burned them – one sprinkled and one un-sprinkled. Be sure to watch, and behold the magic of fire sprinklers!
Full legalization of fireworks (H.F. 1774) is in play this session. Whether or not you believe in allowing all available fireworks to be sold and used in Minnesota, there is a significant problem with the bill in terms of allowing any control at the local level. What this means is that cities in Minnesota would not be able to limit the use of fireworks by time of day, proximity to special properties like nursing homes, gas stations, day care facilities or public lands, to name just a few examples. I think there is a good chance that some sort of fireworks bill will pass, but it needs to contain language that allows folks at the local level to determine some rules about use in their own city. One last thing, this bill as currently written would allow for fireworks to be used 365 days of the year and 24 hours per day….
If you are concerned about this bill as currently written please contact your local legislator, both in the house and in the senate. A link to find your local legislator is below. It is important when contacting your legislator, or anybody else for that matter, to be factual and respectful. While you may disagree with them on this issue there will be other issues where they are in step with your opinions and burning bridges over any particular issue is never a good idea, in my opinion. The link is: http://www.gis.leg.mn/OpenLayers/districts/
Today was a near miss for a large scale wind driven fire at a 3 story apartment building. Today, however we all got lucky when a passerby called in to report a fire on the second floor deck of an apartment building. The passerby was also able to notify property management and they were able to quickly make entry into the apartment, get to the deck and put the fire out while it was in it’s early stages of development. Winds were out of the east at 15 mph with gusts to over 20 mph at the time of the incident, creating the potential for rapid fire growth, lots of damage and lots of potential for lots of bad things to happen. Virtually all big fires start small, it was only a matter of a few more minutes and this fire could have been much worse.
The cause of the fire…….. an improperly discarded cigarette. This cause is a common one, locally and nationally. Click here for more info on the problem prevention. Folks need to be much more careful with their smoking materials and make sure that they are discarded in a proper metal container and are all the way out. Today’s fire could have impacted numerous other residents of the apartment complex for months into the future.
Last year there was a bill that finally got passed out of the Minnesota Legislature and signed into law by the Governor that limited the liability of Fire Departments that donated equipment to another Fire Department for their use. In some cases a department might be upgrading their equipment to reflect a changing mission or technology but that equipment might be still valid in another setting.
Such was the case just a few months ago when the Eden Prairie Fire Department took delivery of new turnout gear. What this meant was that our previously front line gear now became the back-up gear and the old back-up gear from the 80′s and early 90′s became obsolete. Enter the Mapleview Fire Department, an organization that operates on a very small budget and hasn’t had new gear for quite awhile. They heard about our obsolete gear, came up to take a look and took some of the better stuff back home to their department.
Over the weekend they were out fighting a grass fire and the local newspaper shot some pictures. Click on this link and if you scroll down to the last photo and blow it up a bit, you can see the old EPFD on the back of their turnout coats. A good piece of legislation in action!
Earlier this week members of the media were invited out to the jointly owned Fire Training Tower (SMPSTF) to get a first-hand look at the newest fire training equipment.
This is something I wrote about in my last blog as well.
The reason for this update on the topic is that KSTP TV did such a nice job of covering what’s new that I wanted to share …
A great enhancement to an already great facility is nearly done at the South Metro Public Safety Training Facility. The addition of new fire burners and flash over simulators is just about complete and should be in full operation by the time the cold weather ends and the facility is ready for lots of hands on fire training activity. I had the chance a week or so ago to see one of the new fire burner props in action and shot this video…
The video is pretty poorly done, I won’t quite my day job anytime soon, but gives an idea about the scope of the fire prop. The flash over burner you can hear referred to in the audio, was demoed a short time later, but that video didn’t turn out at all.
The Training Facility has been an incredible asset to our fire department and the two other member fire departments we share it with. These new additions will make it even more challenging for our firefighters and prepare them for the worst conditions so they will know exactly what to do for a successful outcome.
A week ago today the EPFD got a call for a possible structure fire in a multi-family dwelling. This development is a large cluster of multi-family buildings built in close proximity to one another. For many years it has been the adopted code in Eden Prairie that when you build a multi-family building in it must have fire sprinklers. Countless times in my career I have seen the benefits of these systems in action.
In the case of last Friday, the cause of the fire was combustibles in a closet that were too close to the gas water-heater. The items caught fire and if not for the quick work of the fire sprinkler system, would have begun consuming the building and filling it with deadly and destructive smoke. Instead the fire was held in check by a single sprinkler head. See for yourself how little damage was done. One word, Effective!
In Eden Prairie we get a fair amount of car fires, in fact in 2010 we had 10 car fires. Sunday evening we got a call for a car fire as a result of an accident. The short version is that a car crossed over the median and struck another vehicle head-on. When the two cars came to rest the vehicle that was struck, burst into flames a few minutes after the accident occurred and just seconds after the driver got out.
Most of our car fires are caused by mechanical failures, overheated parts or the home repair gone wrong.
Below are two pictures I took. The first one is right before Engine 11 arrived and the second picture is as the fire was being extinguished. One person was transported to the hospital as a result of the crash, not the fire.
