Jr. Fire Inspector

Just completed the 3rd Open House for Eden Prairie Fire Department. This years open house included a number of partners including:
American Red Cross
Eden Prairie CERT
Centerpoint Energy
The Home Depot
Car Fires
Auto Extrication
and much much more.....

Including the Jr. Fire Inspector program which included a badge, pencil, flashlight, bag and the check list below. The goal of this program....to get kids empowered to make change at home. We see it every day with learning new concepts and bringing them home to share. This program teaches kids they can hold their parents accountable for making their home fire safe!

Training

Just climbed station 4 hose tower 12 times in full gear...on air.
Sucked a 45 minute bottle down in 18 minutes after 720 stairs up and down.

Three Month Summary

Over the last three months .........
2 house fires, an apartment fire (deck), a few medicals and bunch of false alarms.
Supported a number of block parties, bday parties national night out and....
A lot of training. Back to regular posts.

Safety First

Safety First
100% preventable Fires.   Take away mother nature which none of us want to mess with and 99.99% of everything else (as it relates to fire services) is preventable.
Buy and maintain your smoke alarms.  Although by the time these go off the prevention is past tense….but it will still get your butt out and keep you alive
Buy and maintain a fire extinguisher.   This is a difficult one because again…..once the fire has started the prevention is past tense….but you might be able to keep a small fire from getting large.   BUT…you also have the weigh the risk of knowing when it is time to just get out and leave it to the professionals.
Buy and maintain  CO alarms.  Not fire related but definitely will save your butt from death!
Use LED candles
Quit smoking or at least properly dispose of the Butts.
NEVER leave your kitchen cooking unattended.   NEVER.  Grills too!
Clean your dryer vents (and the big vent behind your dryer too)
Keep combustibles away from furnace and heater
Throw away old extension cords
Properly secure flammables in your garage.  
 
 

Close Call

Happened to be at station one when a page went out for a kitchen fire.  This was a close call.  Turned out to be a residential home that was also a day care.  By the time we arrived the fire was out but the stove and microwave looked something like a Salvador Dali piece of art (think of melting clock).   The good news was all the kids were outside and got treated to hanging with a bunch of fire fighters.   Great scene as a  number of fire fighters in full turnout gear were each helping a child put on their little shoes.  

Ethical Leadership

Ethical Leadership

Talk about a game changer.   I have only been on the EPFD for 3 years but I have learned a lot…..about strategy & tactics for fire suppression, providing emergency medicals services, rescue, public education, etc……  the list goes on and on….I have learned that we are very fortunate to have such an incredible training program within Eden Prairie which includes the leadership, the curriculum, the equipment and safety as well as the opportunities.  But I was very surprised when I attended last weeks session on Ethical Leadership which was conducted by Chad Weinstein, a….(click to read his profile and to get a sense of his experience and passion.)    Chad has been working with the officers for the last few years but this was the first time they brought this level personal leadership training down to every fire fighter.   

I expect this type of investment from my professional career where I manage people; customers, resources and there is a high expectation for performance but from a volunteer organization?   Well, when you think about it the fire ground requires the same level of investment….managing a squad of people, interacting with the community, using public resources and think about the expectations that are put upon the fire service (life, safety and the preservation of property).  

Anyway, ethical leadership training was one of the better ‘classroom’ training session’s.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take practicing fire suppression or auto-extraction any day over sitting in a class room but this type of professional development training…..being offered by the fire service….for a volunteer organization…..is pretty cool.

CO Alarm Saves Lives

For as many CO alarms we go to that are false (alarms) because the owner does not know they need to change battery’s, clean the unit or replace it every 7 years, we do come across a few that are legitimate. It is amazing how deadly CO can be. This evening was the third incident for me in last 6 months where a properly function CO alarm saved a life or two. Tonight’s call pointed to a faulty furnace pushing out nearly 10,000 PPM of deadly CO (we go on air at 35ppm). It is pretty simple, if the couple did not have an alarm or worse yet, had one with dead batteries they too would likely be dead by tomorrow morning.

Fire Statistics

Interesting read from "Firesafety.gov for Citizens". The number of residential fires hit an all time low in 2009 (good) but when looking at the trending over the last 10 years I would have expected the results to be much better than they are. In fact, the difference between 2000 and 2009 is less than a .6% improvement. Injury & death as a percent of fires is even better with a 16% improvement.

Year Fires Inj & death as % of Fire
2000 379,500 4.93%
2001 396,500 4.72%
2002 401,000 4.17%
2003 402,000 4.29%
2004 410,500 4.24%
2005 396,000 4.26%
2006 412,500 3.77%
2007 414,000 4.07%
2008 403,000 4.05%
2009 377,000 4.14%
Source: National Fire Protection Association Fire Loss in the U.S. During 2009
Not sure what my point is but we know fire safety is much stronger today then it ever has been. But fires still happen. Every Day. 1032 per day to be exact. 43 per hour. Almost one residential house fire every minute.
Test your smoke alarms and be fire safe.