The Fire Chief’s Blog

The newest addition to the Fire Department arrive in the Twin Cities last week from E-ONE in Ocala, Florida. After it’s 2000 mile trip there are always a few warranty items to be addressed. E-ONE’s warranty facility in this area is Emergency Apparatus Maintenance (EAM) in Lino Lakes. EAM also happens to be Eden Prairie Fire’s repair and pump testing vendor of choice, they do an excellent job and are available 24/7/365.

There were only a few minor issues to be addressed with Tower 41, a big improvement from other newly delivered trucks over the past 5 years. Next up will be adding the graphics, then get the tools placed and the radios installed. It is anticipated that Tower 41 will begin responding out of Station #4 by the end of September. The official dedication of the truck is planned for October 13th, the day of our Annual Fire Prevention Open House. The Open House will be held at Fire Station #1 and will run from 11:00 am until 2:00 pm.

Last night fire officers reviewed the newest recruit class profiles. We do this so we can understand how each of our recruits is best able to be nurtured through the early part of their careers here. This year will mark the fourth class that will be taught entirely in-house on the subjects from Firefighter I & II, CPR Skills, Haz Mat, MnNIMS and the other skills needed to be able to perform the basic duties necessary on an emergency scene. Our classes are taught by our fire officers and our partner in the in-house process, Bloomington Fire.

Classes are twice a week on Monday and Wednesday nights and will begin on September 10th and end in April, quite a commitment for the recruits as well as the officers from both departments. We train in-house to be sure we get lots of time with our recruits and to be sure we can instill our culture and values in our newest people. We have an agreement with Hennepin Technical College so that college credits are earned for the coursework which enables our recruits to continue with their AAS degree in Fire Science if they so choose.

We are lucky here in Eden Prairie that we continue to get excellent recruits for our organization. this latest class will bring us close to our authorized strength of 95 paid-on-call firefighters. Below is a picture that shows just how lucky we are, a rainbow that points to EPFD!

Over the past 5 years our city has averaged over $1,000,000 in fire loss annually. Most of the bigger losses have been in multi-family dwellings and most of those have been in our larger apartment buildings. So far this year our fire loss stands at just over $100,000 for the six month period ending June 30, 2007. This is a very surprising and welcome trend that is developing. If this continues at anywhere near the current rate, it begs the question as to why.

I am not sure I can answer that question with absolute certainty at this point but I do believe there are several influences that may be taking hold to effect our current reduction in fire loss.

First, over the past 5 years we have increased our Fire Prevention staff from 2 people to 5 people. We are now doing more than just inspecting the new buildings as they go up. We now have the resources to get into all of our commercial properties on a regular basis. Routine inspections are excellent opportunities to educate building owners and property managers about safe practices within their spaces. A more informed owner/property manager generally results in better fire safe practices.

Second, our fire department continues to be very active with public education programs, visitng schools and going to neighborhood gatherings. While a lot of the time spent with the younger crowd is showing them the trucks, we also spend a lot of time talking to them about fire safe behaviors.

A third factor is that one of our fire inspectors is assigned to get into every apartment complex at least once per year and into every apartment or civilian rental space at leat once every four years. This new program has been in effect for a little over 12 months and the resutls so far have been impressive. Over 100 illegal grills have been removed from the decks of multi-story apartment buildings, as well as hundreds of improper ashtray containers. Almost all of our apartment bulding fires over the past 5 years have been the result of one of these two causes.

Finally, we could be experiencing good fortune. I am sure this is part of the equation for our dramatic decline in fire loss so far, but I hope that over the next few years the trend continues downward and our increased efforts are the defining factor in reduced loss and not counting too much on good fortune.

Below are a few pictures of what we find and remove as it related to unsafe situations and code violations in some of our rental housing units.

Allison Curtis is pictured below getting a congratulatory hand-shake from President Bush for a job well done at the scene of the 35W Bridge tragedy. Allison is a member of the Red Cross team that provides resources to support the incident activities.

Allison is also a member of Eden Prairie’s CERT team. It is always amazing to me how many busy people find even more time to help out their communities in various ways, Allison is a shining example of the old phrase, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person”.

On today’s MSNBC website there is a slide show depicting scenes from last night’s bridge collapse over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. The collapse is a major event both locally and nationally and will have huge impacts for years to come. Moments after such a disaster it is often people nearby that render aid to those most severely impacted, there was a lot of that going on from the video and pictures I saw on the news coverage.

One of Eden Prairie’s firefighters, Eric Meiners, appears on slide number 4 of the slide show on the website. Eric has First Responder medical training. Eric is in the white shirt on the front right of the shot, he happened to be driving by when the collapse happened and stopped to help out. You can see his orange First Responder bag slung over his shoulder, that is something we provide all of our firefighters that are either First Responders or EMTs to carry in their personal vehicles in case they happen upon a scene where they can use their skills to render assistance.

In this case Eric’s training and his desire to help resulted in some immediate care being delivered to injured people on the bridge. Eric has been with the fire department for nearly 6 years and reports to fire station one. Eric is but one example of the benefits that everyone gets by having trained emergency responders equipped to assist even during their “off duty time”. Nice job Eric!