The Fire Chief’s Blog

Eden Prairie’s CERT program is alive and flourishing! Two weeks ago we “graduated” 20 new members, bringing our total to 69. We already have about 30 more people interested in getting involved in our Spring 2006 class. Our long-term goal is to get to 100 CERT members.

Our CERT members are an important part of our public safety response strategy and we are fortunate to have such excellent community support.

Thank you to all those that have been able to dedicate the time and the energy to make this program a success!

One of our fire fighters, Nate Wiley (on the left), was recently deployed for an 18 month assignment. Nate will spend the first 6 months training in the U.S. and then be shipped to Iraq.

Nate is one heck of a good person and will be missed by our fire department while he is gone. It is my pleasure to send a birthday card to each and every active and retired member of the fire department. Today, I was preparing to send out cards to this week’s birthday celebrants and discovered that yesterday was Nate’s B-day. I went to his website and posted my B-day wishes instead of the “snail mail” alternative.

Nate has a place for people to leave messages, so I am linking Nate’s website here. Nate also has his own blog and a lot of interesting pictures of life while in training.

If you have time, leave Nate a message, I am sure he will appreciate it.

Thank you, Nate, for your service to all of us!

Ever wonder how firefighter’s protective gear is manufactured? Well, three of our staff members went to Morning Pride, a gear manufacturer to view their processes. We are always in the process of evaluating our suppliers and their processes. As we look for ways to keep our firefighters as safe as possible in all facets of their duties, turnout gear often comes under scrutiny. Is there better gear, more cost effective gear and so on.

Recently the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) released a new standard that will become effective in early 2006. The standard is extensive in it’s coverage of all aspects of turnout gear. One of the more critical pieces of the standard is tracking the gear throughout its useful life for how often it is professionally cleaned and repaired. This new standard creates an additional level of reporting and record keeping that will further burden organizations that provide fire protection services.

Morning Pride has responded to the new mandates with an innovative program that includes providing the gear and all required reporting requirements throughout the life of the gear. This could be a great program for us and similarly staffed fire departments.

We are considering their system for use and wanted to visit their plant and their people to get a first-hand view of the entire process. Included in the visit was a tour of the facility where gear is made. The pictures are from that visit.

I got quite a few responses to last week’s contest question. As they say, the early bird gets the worm and in this case the early bird was former Police Chief, Jim Clark.

The correct answer is that the pictures are of the former Nike Missile Site in Saint Bonafaciaus, MN. The site is now owned by 11 western metro fire departments and has been owned by this group for many years. The site is known now as the WAFTA site, Western Area Fire Training Association.

Currently work is underway to determine the amount of contamination and how much clean-up will be needed. We (the WAFTA Group) received a federal grant to conduct this study. Once we understand the level of possible contamination we can get a grasp on what the clean-up might involve and move forward on that process. The study results should be ready for review before the end of the year.

Thank you for all that were able to take time to respond to my question, maybe I’ll do it again.

Here are two pictures from a dumpster fire we responded to a few weeks ago. This fire lined up perfectly for use of our “Deck Gun”. This nozzle is so named because it sits atop the fire truck on the deck.

Using this nozzle has some advantages, one of which is that we don’t have to take any hose off the truck, which saves time and maybe someone’s back. Combine the power of the deck gun, 2000 gallons per minute, and the technology of firefighting foam and you get a powerful tool.

In this case the fire went out in about 10 seconds, and with foam it stays out.

Guess correctly where these pictures were taken, the location, and I will buy lunch for the first person to email me with the correct answer. Lunch will be at Mr. Q’s, a fine dining establishment in Eden Prairie.

I will give a hint: This place has a specific name and is located west of our fire station #1.

Good Luck

Periodically city buildings receive a fresh coat of paint, a good way to protect and preserve our city assets. Fire station #3 is no exception and late last week the painting process began.

It has been one of my goals as Fire Chief to have the department have a traditional look and feel, all the good stuff about tradition that brings positive images to mind.

One of the changes is now taking place at station #3, getting rid of the battleship gray paint and going to a more reddish brown color. The picture above captures the difference nicely.

I think the building looks more like a fire station now, in the traditional sense.

This past Monday I was fortunate enough to accompany State Fire Marshal, Jerry Rosendahl and St. Cloud Fire Chief, Bill Mund to Red Lake. The purpose of our trip was to present an Award on behalf of the Minnesota State Fire Chief’s Association.

The award was presented for the actions these department’s firefighters took last March, during the school shooting incident.

I am happy to report that the firefighters seem to be well into the healing process, none have left the fire service and all report having mostly good days, now. Recovery from being involved in such tragic events will take a long time, according to counselors I have spoken with. The good news is that Red Lake and Ponemah Fire Departments have provided their firefighters with a lot of support and the outlook is good.