My first saved life….rescue.

Yes, what every fire fighter dreams of…the epitome of our work. Rescuing a kitty a from a tree. Honestly. This Saturday we had a call come in for a small cat that was stuck in a tree. The cat had been up there for a full day and half. It was not the residence pet so we approached it carefully. The little guy was stuck about 20’ up in a tree and with a little tug on the back of the neck he came down with ease.

I didn’t think we responded to those types of call but I guess we do.

Mutual Aid Call

3:00am call for Mutual Aid support in MTKA. Fully involved……total loss. This was a major house fire. Million dollar home in a billion dollar neighborhood. This was my first look at….what use to be a house. C side was gone. Literally. All three floors were a pile of burning ruble. Cedar shake siding and roof gone. We spent two hours throwing water from the C side. Other crews spent the time managing brush fires around the densely wooded neighborhood and keeping the other roof’s from going up.

Total loss but we keep it contained. A lot of cities involved including Minnetonka, Mound, Excelsior, Eden Prairie, Hopkins, Edina (and I am sure there were a few more).

Late Night or Early Morning?

Two Friday nights in a row. Last week a chimney fire. This week a fairly significant car crash around 2am. Fortunately, there were no significant injury’s but the call did require forcible entry into the hood, remove the battery and so some general clean up around the area. The vehicle was lucky the median guard rail stopped its momentum as another 100 ft was a 80 foot drop to a rocky ravine.

Lost some sleep but still made it to Zimmerman by 8am for the MNCO AR Race.

First House Fire

Received a page around 9:30pm for a chimney fire. By the time I made the station the call had escalated to “fire is spreading”. I made the station and was 5th on the tower. We don’t see many fires in our city so everyone was a bit stoked to see some action. Pulling up we could see the flames and smoke over the trees. By the time we reached the scene we set up the Tower our crew took an interior attack although the fire never breached the attic space.
The exterior crew was able to suppress the fire from reaching the inside. We spent the next few hours tearing the exterior chimney apart which showed a lot of smoldering siding.
All in all a good showing. Fire was suppressed early enough to prevent significant spreading. Got some exposure in the process of managing a scene, did a ladder work with a chain saw and saw a little hose time (very little).

FF II and Haz Op's---Passed.

Over 200 hours of class. 37 chapters. Dozens of instructors. 6 demolished cars. Gallons of coffee. Four cities. Numerous tanks of supplied air and Tons of hands on experience.

Fire Fighter I; II and Hazardous Materials Operations and CPR. Done.

Eden Prairie started with a dozen new recruits (yellow helmets) and we all finished last week with class. Bloomington, Hopkins and Mound also graduated a number of FF’s. For Eden Prairie, the official graduation (black helmets and badges) won’t happen until early June. Now we focus on maintaining our active calls as well as the normal Thursday evening training sessions.

Future certifications will be Operator and EMT (not sure which order).

Five Classes Left

Vehicle Extrication

Going into the home stretch for Fire Fighter II. Tonight we took the liberty to cut, pry, lift, pull and smash a fleet of cars. K12, Jaws of Life (Spreader & cutter) center punch, haligen, axe, cribbing, and a little elbow grease.
We started with a fully intact Pontiac 2-Door

After cutting the hood open (K12) we cut the connections to the battery to prevent the airbag from going off.

Then all the window were removed/broke (center punch & halligan) including the windshield.

Next came the doors. Hydraulic Spreaders & Cutters (jaws of life) followed by the cutting of the A & B posts.







Finally, the roof is rolled back and complete access to the interior.

Seat Belt Seat Belt Seat Belt

We have started our training on vehicle extrication and focused today on the techniques around working with airbags. As much as airbags save lives during crashes they can be a disaster when working around them.



Seeing the aftermath of some wicked accidents.....wear your damn seat belts. Next week we cut apart a few cars.