The Fire Chief’s Blog

Several members of the MnFAC Group were present when Governor Pawlenty conducted a ceremonial bill signing of the Omnibus Public Safety Bill yesterday. MnFAC is the Minnesota Fire Association Coalition and represents about 95% of all the people involved in the fire service in Minnesota. Member Associations included are: State Fire Chief’s Association, State Fire Department Association, The International Association of Arson Investigators Minnesota Chapter, Minnesota Relief Association Coalition, and the Fire Marshals Association of Minnesota.

Chiefs Bill Mund (St. Cloud), Nyle Zikmund(Blaine), Bruce West (President MSFCA), Marty Scheerer (Edina), joined Training Chief Jim Hansen, Fire Marshal Kip LaMotte along with Senator Linda Higgins and Sherry Munyon of Capitol Access in the ceremony (picture below). The specific provision in the bill was the fire safe cigarettes that was a primary initiative for the session this year. The bill also contained the language and funding for the Fire Safety Account, funding for the ARMER system, and language to allow the training board to hire staff.

For the past several years the Fire Department along with the Police Department has hosted the “salad” portion of the Eden Prairie Senior’s Progressive Dinner Party. At 5:15 pm, sharp a bus pulls up to Fire Station #1 and the seniors are treated to red carpet service by firefighters and police officers who serve them freshly made salads and bread from Buca.

Both Police Chief, Rob Reynolds and I support this event and encourage our collective staff members to participate as well. This is a great opportunity to interact with our seniors, share some stories about Eden Prairie in the “Good Old Days”, and answer a few questions too about our operations.

The event only lasts about an hour at the fire station and then it is off to St. Andrews Church for the main course. This year there were 85 seniors that stopped by, up from around 65 last year.

With this year’s event now past, we are already looking forward to next year’s event!

Getting off the bus, fresh salad awaits

The first course over, it’s off to St. Andrews Church

No real blog this week, I am taking a few days off. Below is a picture of the sun setting on Lake Vermilion in northern Minnesota, This is my favorite place to spend time. A few close friends have been joining me for all or part of my time away. If you ever want a real woods experience with lots of walleyes to catch, try Lake Vermilion, you might get hooked like I did when I was 8 years old.

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This was a week of actively doing things with kids. First off, Fire Inspector Scott Scott Taylor and Rick Hammerschmidt joined me on a trip to Red Lake to help their Fire Department out with their Safety Camp activities. Joining the three of us were retired firefighters Curt Oberlander and Jim Matson as well as Minnesota Viking Matt Birk. And last but not least, also attending the event were Eden Prairie Police Chief Rob Reynolds and Sergeant Greg Weber. Curt is the one who actually began our long standing relationship with Red Lake Fire and continues to be very involved with their program. We all had another great two days up there, working with their kids to instill those life long safety behaviors.

Today six firefighters and the Fire Marshal took part in a morning long event for all 700 or so First Graders attending Eden Prairie Public Schools. The event was sponsored by the Eden Prairie Noon Rotary and focused on encouraging kids to read books and enjoy the printed word on paper. I stopped by briefly and both the kids and the readers we fully engaged. Police Chief Rob Reynolds is a member of the Noon Rotary and as you can see from the picture below, he was an active part of the program.

MN Viking’s Matt Birk and Tribal Chairman “Buck” Jourdain

Scott Taylor with a nice catch at Red Lake

A lucky winner from the drawing for a bike at the Red Lake Safety Camp

Police Chief Rob Reynolds reading with some of the 700 First Graders present for the My Book Day event

Firefighter Bill Beumer also reading to First Graders at today’s My Book Day event

Once a month many of the Chiefs from the metro area and beyond meet to discuss the pressing issues that face our profession. There are chiefs from all volunteer departments like Watertown, from combination departments like Eden Prairie and Plymouth and career departments like Minneapolis, Richfield and Burnsville. This is one of the best meetings of it’s kind that I attend on a regular basis. Why, you might ask? Well for one thing a lot of the chiefs that are involved in issues that effect the profession on a state and national basis are members of the Metro Chiefs Organization, in addition the meeting is monthly so the information is timely. Every meeting begins with a closer look at a specific topic impacting the fire service. This past Monday the topic was tracking firefighters on the scene of an emergency. The presenter gave a closer look to all of us on some of the new tools that help automate the process and allow integration with other systems currently being used.

Below is a picture of some of my esteemed colleagues as they discuss some items of interest.