The Fire Chief’s Blog

This is a picture of my good friend and colleague Fire Chief Nyle Zikmund. Nyle is the Chief of the Blaine/Spring Lake Park/Moundsview Fire Department. Nyle is a progressive thinker in the fire service and his fire department reflects that vision with a very strong fire prevention and inspection program. Nyle is also very involved in the legislative process and knows his way around the scene at our legislature.

In this picture Nyle is on-scene at a fire in Spring Lake Park. He was riding along with one of his staff people when the fire call came in. Nyle got right into the thick of things helping to pull lines off the truck and making the hydrant connection. Way to go Nyle!

Last Saturday was the first ever Women’s Fire Service Expo put on by the Eden Prairie Fire Department as well as Bloomington, Chanhassen, Edina, Hopkins and Minnetonka.  The idea was to give women that were interested in the fire service an opportunity to experience some of the challenges first-hand.

The planning and coordination for this project was intense and has been going on for several months.  Each of the six departments provided a staff person or two to be involved in the planning and coordination efforts.  It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that firefighter Kim Hanlon from the Eden Prairie Fire Department was the overall leader of the effort.  She would be the first to tell anybody that she couldn’t have done the event by herself and the additional help was critical to the success of the big day.

Forty-six women attended the event and spent an entire day on-site.  The comments that were received on the evaluation cards were strictly positive in nature.  Already we have received 4 new female applicants to our current recruiting process and I have been told that Minnetonka has received applications from last week’s group as well.

We hope to make this an annual event and expand the range of our efforts to include additional interested fire departments.  Thank you to everyone that helped to plan and execute this ground-breaking program!

Last night was our Quarterly Business Meeting. The agenda was fairly light this time as there weren’t any retirements or years of service recognitions taking place. We were able to focus our attention squarely on a two key events.

The first event was presenting plaques of appreciation to Eden Prairie Legislators, Senator David Hann and Representative Maria Ruud. These two fine elected officials representing Eden Prairie both supported the Fire Safety Account bill. The bill was signed into law by Governor Pawlenty late last month and will have a positive impact on the fire service as a whole in Minnesota. Our legislators support is important to the future of the fire service, not only in Eden Prairie, but around the state. We are grateful for their support and wanted to show it.

The second event of the night was the promotion of Ray Carlson to the position of Captain at fire station 3. Ray has had a stellar career with the fire department and is a role model for others to follow. Ray’s wife Karen pinned his new Captain’s Badge on, while daughters Ellen(right) and Molly(left) looked on proudly. I know Ray will continue his outstanding career in his new role as Captain.

After the meeting was over the entire department and guests were treated to cake and ice cream. It would be rare to find a hungry firefighter anywhere in the country, Eden Prairie is no exception.

Susan Anderson (pictured left) and her Father, Mark Anderson, were camping on Memorial Day weekend. Mark and Susan are son in-law and Grand-daughter, respectively of Woody Walters a longtime fire service devotee with over 41 years in the business.

The cabin Mark, his wife and daughter Susan rented near Danbury Wisconsin developed an LP Gas leak and blew up. Mark was blown out of the cabin and Susan, on her 3^rd exit attempt crawled on her hands and knees out of the rubble of the collapsed burning building.  Susan suffered 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns on her face, legs, feet, arms, hands and back.  She has of this date over 8 hours of skin grafting so far and will need to under go many more.  Susan is missing her classmates and is a real trooper during this life-altering nightmare.

Any assistance you can find in your heart to help this young woman would be greatly appreciated. Donations can be sent to the address below:

P.O. Box 520
North Branch, MN 55056-0520
651-674-5000 

Below is a picture of Eden Prairie Firefighter Nate Wiley who is currently on deployment in Iraq.

It was good to hear from Nate and to see he apparently is doing well, given the circumstances. Nate has always loved being around kids, so it was really no surprise that this picture has kids in it. Nate truly believes in service above self as evidenced by his committment to his Country as well as Eden Prairie.

Nate is scheduled to return home early next year, it will be great to have him back!

Nate and two little friends at Al Fawaz. Achmed left and Hassan right.