The Fire Chief’s Blog

Saturday morning the Fire Department was called to the report of smoke coming from an electrical appliance in the basement of a residence. Before he even arrived, Assistant Fire Chief Rick Hammerschmidt could see smoke billowing from the neighborhood. This was substantially more than a smoking appliance.

Sometimes those initial reports can be misleading, clearly this fire had gotten a good head start before it was discovered by the occupants of the house. Good fortune was in play and everyone, including pets, was out of the home before this fire mushroomed into the blaze it quickly became.

While the house is not a total loss, at least part of it will be salvaged, the destruction of personal items was almost complete. Fire, smoke and water damage all take a large toll on personal property. Total loss on this fire is estimated to be around $350,000, eclipsing last year’s entire fire loss total of $249,000. Although the exact cause is still under investigation it appears to be accidental in nature.

I hope the next eleven months are a lot less eventful and we can have another low fire loss year. Below is a picture taken shortly after the first trucks arrived. As you can see there is a lot of smoke and steam emitting from virtually every opening of the home.

I ran across this word, ambiguation, a few days ago while searching for information on google. What exactly does this word mean anyway? I dug deeper and got the following definition: “Noun to establish a single semantic or grammatical interpretation for a word”. My word crazy, and very smart father gave me a concise definition: “To give clarity” is what he told me. Okay then, I now have a new word to add to my vocabulary.

My Dad has often given me clarity throughout my life, sometimes it was a bit painful, but ultimately his sage advice has always been a benefit to me.

Thanks, Dad, for your ever present help and clarity. Below is a recent picture of my dad, Thorwald Esbensen, he is now 85 years old.

Usually in Minnesota when there is a headline like the one above, it refers to the temperature, not so in this case. What I am referring to here is the record low Eden Prairie experienced for fire loss in 2007.

Over the past several years the fire loss in dollars in Eden Prairie has been in the $1,500.000.00 range. Usually the primary contributors to this level of fire loss is in our apartment buildings, where a fire in one unit can spread rapidly to other adjoining units and the subsequent fire, smoke and water damage adds up fast. In 2007, the first full year of our rental housing inspections program, our inspection program has taken steps with the property owners to eliminate numerous potential fire hazards from multi-family properties. The big one that has been reduced has been the illegal BBQs on decks, followed closely by improper kinds of ash trays on decks. In 2007 we did not have one serious fire in a multi-family building, thus no big loss fires.

The goal for 2008 is to keep our record low fire loss streak going. We will continue our efforts of constant inspections and a strong public education program in place. What can be achieved for the long haul remains to be seen, but so far the results of the efforts has been encouraging!

USFA Kicks Off Smoking and Home Fires Campaign
IAFC and the Fire and Life Safety Section Urge Fire Departments to Take Part

Fairfax, Va., Jan. 9, 2008… The IAFC is a proud partner of the public-safety campaign announced today by the U.S. Fire Administration to end the number one cause of preventable home fire deaths: fires started by smoking materials.

The campaign includes a number of tools, available in English and Spanish, that fire departments can use for public education and awareness. The IAFC and the Fire and Life Safety Section urge members and others in the fire and emergency services community to review their public-education efforts around smoking and home fires and to use the resources provided as part of the campaign to enhance their programs as needed.

The IAFC, with the leadership of the Fire and Life Safety Section, continues to move forward on the national level to enhance public awareness and efforts on a variety of home fire-prevention issues, from reduced ignition-strength (”fire-safe”) cigarettes to residential sprinklers and a combination of photoelectric and ionization smoke alarms.

“This campaign is a model of the grassroots efforts that are critical to preventing deadly home fires,” said Chief Steven P. Westermann, IAFC President. “We can make great progress in the reduction of home fires by working with government and industry, but education of the public-and particularly smokers-can have immediate life-saving results.”

Tools provided by the campaign include statistics, free brochures and posters, as well as electronic resources such as English and Spanish-language websites and downloadable web banners.

More information on the campaign, including free educational resources, can be found online at www.usfa.dhs.gov/smoking (English) and www.usfa.dhs.gov/fumar (Spanish).

Over the course of each year the fire Prevention staff has conducts meetings with local businesses that are interested to educate employees about fire safe behaviors and steps to be taken around the home to help prevent injury and fire.

I just received an email from a business leader that reads as follows: “The safety training held back in December by the EP Fire Department was very helpful, as one of the items mentioned for safety was to clean the dryer vent. Thought of that as I was vacuuming over the Holidays and mine (dryer vent) was completely clogged. The presentation may have saved my house from a fire. Thanks to you and the EP Fire Department.”

This is exactly the kind of response and actions taken that proves that our efforts to have an impact on making people’s live safer. Clearly this once of prevention may have saved at least a pound of cure! Have a safe and enjoyable 2008!