The Fire Chief’s Blog

At last week’s Hennepin County Fire Chief’s Association meeting a check was presented to the group by Fireman’s Fund Heritage. The check was in the amount of $11,838.50 and was the second time they have made a donation. The money is to support the county-wide fire investigation team (FIT) and their ongoing operations. The team was put together by Fire Marshal Ed Anderson from the Golden Valley Fire Department. The mission of the team, in a nut shell, is to provide cause and determination resources for any community in the county that needs a fire investigated. A lot of fire departments within the county have donated the use of their Fire Inspectors and Fire Marshal’s time and energy to support the team. The advantage for the community receiving the resources is that they have access to a much broader set of skills than what they normally would have in-house. More resources and skills to the scene often mean a better investigation process. The Fire Departments that lend people to the teams also gain tremendously by getting their people to more fire scenes, which means exposure to more investigations to further sharpen their skills and so on…..

The initial donation was used to set the group up with the tools needed to begin any kind of an investigative team. The latest donation was used to purchase and outfit a trailer the team takes with them to each scene. The trailer contains all the tools most likely to be needed on the scene, including lighting and a generator. The trailer also includes a separate interview area to talk with witnesses and victims involved.

The Hennepin County Fire Investigation Team is a valuable asset to all of the cities in our county and a big part of their start-up and ongoing operations are due to the generosity and foresight of Fireman’s Fund.

This week I am in class every day taking a National Fire Academy course. The course is a “Train the Trainer” class for handling complex emergency scenes. The two instructors from the National Fire Academy are top notch professionals and have been around since the original Incident Command System now in use was developed, impressive. Both gentlemen have some incredible experiences to share and make their experiences relevant to the topic. While being in class 8 hours a day for a week is not normally on the top of my list, this has been a great class so far, and I expect it to continue.

My classmates for the week are mostly other Fire Chiefs and Emergency Management types from around the metro and the state. Also from Eden Prairie are Assistant Chiefs, Scott Taylor and Steve Koering and Lieutenant Jay O’Connell. Jay is a volunteer with Eden Prairie but is a full-time Fire Inspector with Lakeville Fire. The person getting the most attention in the class is Eden Prairie’s very own Police Chief, Rob Reynolds. Why all the attention, because normally police and fire don’t attend the same conferences on handling large scale events, but Rob is all over this kind of training as being highly valuable. Despite the required good natured ribbing from his fire counter-parts his presence is truly appreciated and shows his vision as a public safety leader.

Hard-working classmates in action.

Over the past year the Fire Department has been selling some older fire trucks, specifically pumpers from 1988 and 1989. The trucks are being sold to make way for newer pumpers. The last of the older pumpers was sold a month or so ago to the Hokah Fire Department. Hokah is down in the southeastern part of the state. The Hokah Fire Department is a smaller rural agency that serves a large geographic area, not uncommon in more rural settings. The designated decision makers from Hokah came here in November to look our truck over and were impressed by the excellent condition it was in. The excellent condition is due to two main groups of people, the firefighters and our fleet mechanic staff.

Taking great care of our assets is a primary responsibility of all city staff, and this was a clear case of getting more value from our used fire truck due to the commitment to good public stewardship by everyone that uses or services the trucks in our fleet. Below is an article from the local newspaper detailing the transaction between our two cities. The article below, came to me today along with a “Thank you” card signed by the entire Hokah Fire Department. If you enlarge the picture, you can see where I underlined the reference to the Eden Prairie Fire Department.