September is the new January.

At least when it comes to new beginnings. Besides school getting a fresh start it seems the fire department get its start in September. We picked up 10 new rookies this month….which gave me a chance to review my first post under this blog. Actually, station 4 picked up one rookie so now we are up to…..14 or 15?

Last few weeks have been very slow. I can’t think of the last call I was on where I actually ‘worked’ a scene. However, from the training perspective it has been busy and the preparation for the Oct 9th Open House.

This week is the physical agility test (annually)…..4:58 seconds is the goal.

Bi-annual photo

 

This past Thursday we had our quarterly business review. Beforehand we had 95 firefighters, all dressed in class-A get our department and station photo.

The business review meeting covered the retirement of CH4; a few promotions and a couple of 10 year service awards (plus a 25 service year award. Listening to the accomplishments of the department over 25 years, the bonds of family and friendship and the opportunity of servicing the community just validates the reason i joined the department two years ago. I wonderer what the deparment will look like in another 23 years?

Training Operations

Wednesday evening I participated in a multi ciy training event at the burn tower in Edina. Participating cities included Edina, Hopkins, Bloomington, Edina, Minnetonka and St. Louis Park. The scenario was to test, practice and learn how to manage and function in a large scale multi-jurisdiction call.

Our scenario was a multi-family, multi-story fire (7 storey apartment fire). We were the 3rd apparatus in and took T21 to ladder and ventilate. The problem was, it took us three tries before we could actually get our vehicle positioned to reach the part of the roof requiring ventilation. Embarrassing, problematic but a good learning experience. Fortunately i was not operating but felt the pain and learned the lesson.

In the end we got the job done. Overall this was a great training experience.