The Fire Chief’s Blog

You know what they say, if you want something done give it to a busy person. Well, Firefighter Rick Thompson is another one of our firefighters that exemplifies that to a tee. Rick joined the Coast Guard Reserves as one of their oldest new recruits, a testimony to his desire to serve and getting himself in excellent shape. By the way, he used our local Community Center for the bulk of his training work, which involved a lot of work in the pool.

Below is a picture of Rick on his graduation day standing in front of a US Coast Guard fire truck at the Cape May Training Center, how fitting. Way to go Rick! Thank you for your service to the city and to our country.

A fundraiser for the Special Olympics will be held in Eden Prairie beginning on June 6th and running thru June 8th. The event is called “Cop On Top” and has police officers atop a local business in sort of a marathon event to raise money for the Special Olympics. Last year, Minneapolis Police along with other agencies around the country held their events, this year Eden Prairie Police will hold an event here.

I am not sure, but I am hoping that some Eden Prairie firefighters will join in this fund raising effort, just like we did with the Polar Plunge held earlier this spring, an event that raised approximately $40,000. Below is a picture from last year’s event in Minneapolis. The location for the Eden Prairie event is planned for Rainbow Foods. I have been told that Channel 9 will be there during the event to help further promote this worthy cause. You can go to this link to find out more http://www.specialolympicsminnesota.org/Cop_On_Top.php

When your biggest fire in quite awhile is in a dumpster, things are going well on the fire prevention side of things. Last night the “West District” stations responded to a fire in a dumpster. The dumpster was fairly close to the house that was being remodeled, but there wasn’t an immediate danger of the fire spreading. While these fires are usually fairly routine, you never know what might be in there burning, so caution is always the watch word.

This fire went out smoothly and there was nothing that points to arson as the cause.

My hope is the rest of the year is equally quiet and we have another low fire loss figure to report. We continue to ficus our fire prevention efforts on causes that we have seen in the past and keep fire losses minimal.

Below is a picture of three firefighters lifting the hose up and into the dumpster to help extinguish the fire. All the firefighters are wearing their full compliment of protective gear, just in case.

AED’s, Automatic External Defibrillator’s, are an inexpensive and easy to use device that save 40,000 lives per year. Click on this link to view a story on the most recent save with an AED in Eden Prairie. For quite awhile now both Eden Prairie fire and Police vehicles carry these life saving devices and as the story points out they do save lives. A few years ago the police and fire departments raised over $60,000 in private funds to place AEDs in all the government owned public gathering spots in the city. Quick access to an AED is a proven winner when it comes to children and adults in cardiac arrest. That initiative was called HeartSafe Eden Prairie.

Now police and fire are on a new mission, a drive to get all Eden Prairie businesses to purchase an AED to further reduce the time it takes to get the life saving device to a person in need. We have over 1000 businesses in our city, everyday thousands of people are coming and going to these businesses and chances are someone will experience a cardiac event that warrants the use of an AED to save their life. While response time by fire and police is short in our city, having an AED on site at the moment it is needed can help dramatically improve the survival rate of cardiac arrest victims. Don’t delay, if you own a business or are an employee of a local business give us a call and get involved in our initiative to get an AED at your place of business. As the latest example shows it is not just for customers, it might be for one of your employees or you!

Assistant Fire Chief, Steve Koering is taking the lead on getting AEDs into the Eden Prairie’s business community, you can contact him directly at: skoering@edenprairie.org to get the details.

Okay all you women out there, you now have a great opportunity to “try before you buy” when it comes to the fire service. The Northstar Womens Firefighter Association is holding their third annual Womens Fire Expo. The expo will be held on May 31st and it is FREE. You must register though, by May 23rd. Click on this link to get your FREE registration completed.

For more details on being a women firefighter check out this link to a story that aired on women in the fire service yesterday afternoon on KSTP’s Twin Cities Live program. The program features Eden Prairie Firefighter Kim Cummings and gives a little insight into being a women in the fire service. Last year there were 30 women that took part in the expo and some became firefighters in Eden Prairie and elsewhere in the metro. The Womens Expo is put on by the Northstar Womens Firefighter Association and is sponsored in part by fire departments from: Bloomington, Chanhassen, Eden Prairie, Edina, Hopkins, Minnetonka, Plymouth, St. Louis Park, Savage and Victoria. Also supporting the event are our friends at Hennepin Technical college.

So come on, try it, you might like it and either way it will be a great experience!

Last week firefighters Kim Cummings(left) and Lee Schneider(right) gave a fire truck ride to school to three lucky Eden Prairie kids. The Fire Department donates these truck rides to school fundraisers for their silent auctions. The Spanish Immersion School got three certificates for truck rides and these kid’s parents were one set of the lucky winners. Last year each of the three truck rides raised $700.00 and this year the bidding was even more fevered and each ride went for $800.00, wow that is some great support for the school!

As part of the truck ride, the kids got a T-shirt, donated by Eaton Corporation. Eaton is a big supporter of the Fire Department’s fire prevention efforts. The kids also got to dress up in kid sized turnout gear and then ride from their Eden Prairie home to this Eden Prairie Spanish Immersion School. Once they arrived, Lee and Kim gave a brief fire prevention talk and answered questions from the kids.

Fire prevention is a key component in our efforts to reduce fire damage and injury. Hopefully these kids will learn from the information passed along to them during the visit and be a part of the next generation that has a better fire safety record than previous generations have had.