Fire Chief

April is a strange month. It starts off lightly with April Fools’ Day, becomes stressful midway through the month with tax day, and ends with anticipation while waiting to see if all those showers will give way.

For the fire service, April is a full month of meetings and conferences starting with Vision 20/20, the Congressional Fire Services Institute events, and FDIC — and that’s just the first two weeks of the month.

I’m just catching my breath before the last two weeks bring the International Association of Women in the Fire and Emergency Services’ Eighth Biennial Fire Service Women’s Leadership Training Seminar, April 24–27 in Glendale, Ariz. That event will quickly be followed by FIRE CHIEF’s 2008 Station Style Conference April 27–29 in Phoenix, and IAFC’s Metro Chiefs Conference, starting April 29 in Virginia Beach, Va.

Before we rush into the final weeks of April, I have collected a number of items from my correspondence that might make you smile — or just make you shake your head in wonder.

Disregard the noise. An article in suburban Chicago’s Daily Herald recently reported on the trial of 28 Chicago firefighters who are suing Federal Signal for hearing loss purportedly from siren use. The trial was interrupted when the fire alarms sounded on the 16th floor of the Daley Center. The judge had tried to postpone the alarm-testing drill, but failed. Instead, he had to instruct the jury that the alarms were not part of the trial.

Detour. Erlanger, Ky., is located on one of the nation’s busiest stretches of Interstate 71/75, which also is the main corridor from Michigan to Florida. According to American City and County magazine, Erlanger Fire Chief Tim Koenig is frustrated that the department responds to hundreds of accidents on the highway each year, most of which involve drivers who are just passing through the area.

“Our citizens are paying,” Koenig said. “It’s their tax dollars that are putting the fire truck on the expressway.”

In January, Erlanger became one of many cities across the nation that charge out-of-town divers’ insurance companies emergency services fees. On average emergency response calls costs the Erlanger Fire Department between $500 and $700, so the city has contracted with an Ohio-based company to bill and collect money from the insurance companies. According to the article, municipalities in 18 states have implemented similar fees, including Ocala, Fla., where 70% of the accidents (3,300 annually) involve non-city residents.

You who? A couple years ago, Chicago Fire Department Commissioner Ray Orozco told me the department was making fire prevention videos for YouTube. “You have to get the message to the people [who] need to see it,” Orozco told me, and was he ever correct. Currently there are 2,840 fire-safety videos on YouTube.

Fresno Fire Department’s public-service announcement on fire sprinklers has had more than 57,000 views, and rightly so. Introduced by the very professional Chief Randy Bruegman, it quickly captures viewers attention and delivers the message. Watch it and consider this medium to send your fire-safety message. Philadelphia; Renton, Wash.; and South Terre Haute, Ind.; already have.

Passion and coffee. A recent issue of Michigan’s South Lyon Herald featured a story about Tom Malcolm, a firefighter with Lyon Township, paramedic with Huron Valley Ambulance, husband and father of two small children. Malcolm “works 24-hour shifts for HVA on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, and then goes straight to work for the fire department on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on call for the department in case anything happens overnight.”

Malcolm said that “passion and a pot of coffee” help him get through his 100-plus-hour work week. While he naps frequently, the firefighter has even “stayed up for 72 consecutive hours without sleeping” and considers eight hours of sleep a “waste.” Passion is admirable, but sleep deprivation causes accidents.

And you thought April 15 was taxing.