Well, fast forward to earlier this week and the old Crash Truck was headed off for it’s next assignment as we have upgraded to a new more versatile piece of equipment. Crash 11, as the old truck was referred to here in Eden Prairie is headed off to Dallas, Texas. In Dallas, the truck will be taken completely apart, sand blasted, repainted, outfitted with some new electronics and have other worn out parts replaced too. Once the truck is reassembled it will, most likely, be sold to the United States Military for use overseas protecting our nation’s military pilots.

Crash 11 was a good investment for us, we paid $1.00 for it and got $35,000 for it in trade. In addition we have provided a valuable service to our local airport by being able to protect more completely the pilots that fly in and out of the facility. With our new truck, Engine 12, we have a single truck that replaced Crash 11 as well as Engine#2. Engine 12 has enough pump and roll capacity to handle the types of aircraft that might fly into Flying Cloud Airport, and also can perform quite well, at structure fires of all sorts. So here they are, Crash 11 loaded and ready to go to Texas and new Engine 12 ready and waiting.

Last year the leading organizations in the fire service put together a program to encourage seatbelt use, and educate firefighters about the dangers of not wearing their seat-belts. Along with the program came a process to get all firefighters to sign a pledge to wear their seat-belts 100% of the time.

I am glad to report that in Eden Prairie, seatbelt usage has always been a priority and compliance has been outstanding, but we still asked each of our firefighters to sign the pledge and in doing so, we achieved 100% buy-in from our staff on the use of their seat-belts. I know that we will continue to focus on this important message and our folks will continue to wear their seat-belts.

United Way

. Eaton is a model corporate citizen in Eden Prairie and a corporate sponsor of the

United Way

.

AS I understand it, each year, the EP Plant identifies various activities throughout the week to encourage employees to support the

United Way

while having fun. The Plant purchases gifts and receives donations from other local businesses that are used as prizes for the various games (bingo, basketball, dunk tank, golf, etc.), raffles or auctions. Through employee pledges and money raised from the activities during the week, $25,000 – $30,000 is typically raised for the

United Way

. Eaton’s Charitable Contribution fund will then match employee donations $0.50 on every dollar.

This year a volunteer participant, Fire Inspector Chuck Schaitberger from the Eden Prairie Fire Department, agreed to sit in the dunk tank. Chuck has always been a strong supporter of fund raising activities for a good cause and this event clearly met that criteria. another good corporate citizen in the Minnesota vikings. At this event they sent some of their Cheerleaders to participate as well.

A big thank you to Eaton Corporation and all their great employees and to Eden Prairie Fire Inspector Chuck Schaitbergerfor his willingness to help out too.

Below are pictures of Chuck Schaitberger poised in the “Dunk Tank”, then getting dunked, and then posing with the Minnesota Viking’s Cheerleaders. All in a day’s work in community service.

Nine teams competed in the event and the times were very close. The winning team is pictured below with their trophy, which was awarded last night.

Pictured from left to right are: Firefighter Nate Maier, Lieutenant Jeremy Hoehn, Firefighter Keith Puchalski, Firefighter Casey Hoeschen and Firefighter Eric Meiners.

Here you can see a few pre-delivery pictures of the truck. The truck sits up higher than our typical engines since it is a four wheel drive configuration. We hope the truck will be put into service, officially, at our Open House on October 10th.

Preventing fires is the single best way that we can protect people against suffering a loss from fire. Almost all fires are preventable, what is lacking is people’s commitment to lead a fire safe life. As a profession the fire service needs to continue to ramp up efforts to get the word out about how to prevent fires in the home and workplace. Friday’s event is a good kick-off to helping people understand the importance of fire prevention wherever they live and work.

Checkout the You tube link below that was made at last year’s Fire Prevention Day at the Fair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuLTU65ri4s

House fires while not a regular occurrence do happen with some regularity in Eden Prairie on a yearly basis. Every house fire presents it’s own unique circumstances to be dealt with, but we have a fairly big bank of experience to draw from. The first fire was on Burr Ridge and was a major fire from the instant it got called in. Upon arrival our crews found a major house fire underway and the primary mission became preservation of the neighboring structures as well as salvaging what was possible from the house where the fire originated. Crews did an excellent job under intense pressure to meet both objectives. In the second house fire the challenge there was the weather. the fire occurred on Sky Lane and appears to be the result of a lightening strike. While on scene the lightening persisted, making utilization of our 100′ aerial truck a bit of a risk. Everything went well operationally on this fire and like the Burr Ridge fire there were no civilian or firefighter injuries, always a good thing.

Plane crashes, on the other hand, are a lot less frequent and thus present additional challenges to the commanders and responders. The plane that came down last week was unique in that it was not our typical smaller two or four seater, but a twin engine aircraft on a slightly larger scale. Sadly both occupants were deceased upon our arrival, apparently having been killed by the impact of the crash. When a plane crashes it is a big story and news agencies from all the local and a few national outlets showed up. Our Police and Fire Commanders did an excellent job of dealing with the media, as did our City of Eden Prairie Communications staff. I would also like to commend our 911 Center staff for their outstanding work during the plane crash event. After listening to the audio from all of the inbound callers into our 911, our Dispatchers truly do an amazing job of juggling a lot of missions at once.

Emma has now donated those smoke detectors to the Fire Department so we can get them out in the community where they are most needed. Emma met with Fire Inspector Chuck Schaitberger to hand off the smoke detectors, thus completing the final step to get her Girl Scout Gold Award! Only about 5% of registered Girl Scouts complete the Gold Award requirements. Thank you, Emma for your work in the area of fire prevention and congratulations on your prestigious award!

Well this year, due in large part to the tough economy, it was tough getting a local meteorologist to commit to coming to Safety Camp and making a presentation to these 180 eager campers. Seems a lot of TV stations are cutting their community affairs departments and sending their camera people and all of their stuff costs money too. Well local Fox 9 Meteorologist Ian Leonard stepped up to the challenge and came to Safety Camp and did a terrific job, at that. Ian was engaging with the kids and delivered a powerful message about how to keep safe if bad weather strikes. Ian also committed to Safety Camp organizers that as long as he lives in Eden Prairie he will always come and deliver his important message.

It is easy to take shots at members of the media, but Ian Leonard is proof that there are a lot of great people out there that put the kids first and will be there to help educate them and give them safety skills for life.

Thank you Ian Leonard for your commitment to Eden Prairie Safety Camp kids, present and future!

What can we as first responders do to help spread the word about prevention of these kinds of events?

Well, first of all, we can model good safe practices ourselves. Whether we know it or not, other folks watch what we do and how we do it, whether at home or on an emergency scene, especially the kids. Take a moment and ask yourself before every project if you have taken all the precautions needed to insure a safe outcome.

Secondly, take a look at this website link for some solid prevention ideas for all sorts of common everyday activities that are known to have risks. A little prevention goes a long way. It wasn’t too long ago when seat belts were considered a little utilized option, yet today, most of us wouldn’t think about driving without one. That same story can be true for these other common risks, if we just take the time to think about what we are doing before we do it.

Here’s hoping you have a safe and productive summer season!