HomeMy WebLinkAbout07 28 14 Work Session - Police and Fire memo
4646 Dakota Street SE
Prior Lake, MN 55372
MEMORANDUM
TO:
Mayor and City Council
DATE:
July 28, 2014
TH
RE: JULY 28 WORK SESSION – POLICE AND FIRE REPORT
Police Report
Chief O’Rourke will provide a PowerPoint presentation at the meeting outlining the activity in
the department over the past year, as well as upcoming challenges.
Fire Report
Attached is an article titled 2012 FEMA Grant Finally Delivers for Lake Johanna Fire De-
partment for Councilors’ reference. The article outlines some of the issues communities can
face in replacing SCBA equipment. SCBA replacement will be one of the topics of discus-
sion. Chief Hartman will also provide a PowerPoint presentation updating the Council on ac-
tivity of the Fire Department over the past year and other challenges they will face looking
forward.
2012 FEMA grant finally delivers for Lake
Johanna Fire Department
Submitted by admin on Wed, 07/23/2014 - 5:42pm
By:
Mike Munzenrider
Just prior to being loaded into firetrucks and distributed to other stations, Lake Johanna Fire Depart-
ment’s 60 new airpacks were on display at the department’s headquarters July 16. (photos by Mike
Munzenrider/Bulletin)
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Engineer Bruce Carlson loads one of the department’s new airpacks into a firetruck. The brackets that
hold them are built into the truck’s seats.
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Captain Nate Berg wearing the new equipment.
Lake Johanna Fire Department Chief Tim Boehlke said the difference between the department’s new
self-contained breathing apparatuses—airpacks, in station parlance—and their old ones, is “night and
day.”
While giving a rundown of the features on one of the department’s 60 new backpack-like oxygen tanks
that firefighters wear coupled with a mask, to keep themselves safe and breathing during fires, Assistant
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Chief Eric Nordeen made a technological analogy: comparing the old airpacks to the new, he said it’s
like a “block \[phone\] to your iPhone.”
The occasion for the fire station show-and-tell was made possible by a $338,229 FEMA Assistance to
Firefighters Grant awarded to the fire department in 2012 expressly for the purchase of the new air-
packs.
The airpacks, which must be replaced every 15 years based on federal testing standards, cost $5,200
each; to outfit every one of its 60 or so firefighters, the airpack upgrade would have been a significant
investment without the grant.
According to Boehlke, the airpacks are one of the firefighters’ most important pieces of equipment,
something they put on daily as they deal with calls. The daily use shows—the department’s outgoing
14-year-old airpacks, which would not comply with federal law come 2015—are banged up, the tanks
speckled with paint and the shoulder straps threadbare and frayed.
The fire department, which, according to its website, serves 41,000 people in Arden Hills, North Oaks
and Shoreview, would have looked to the cities to cover the cost of the airpacks; the FEMA grant pays
for 90 percent of the price with the three cities covering the rest.
Without the grant, Boehlke said, a total cost of $371,000 would have been paid by the cities once the
department’s old tanks’ compliance expired, with Shoreview covering 61 percent of that cost, Arden
Hills 27 percent and North Oaks 12 percent.
Shutdown woes
Boehlke said the department applied for the grant in three consecutive years—2010, 2011 and 2012—
each year getting a little bit closer in what he described as a “highly competitive” field of 16,000 fire de-
partments of varying sizes from across the country.
With the grant application narrowed for the third try, only requesting funding for the airpacks and the
brackets that would hold them in the department’s fire trucks, Boehlke said the grant was awarded April
5, 2012.
Boehlke said the department waited until new federal testing standards were in place in 2013 to start
their search for new tanks, and then last summer’s government shutdown and sequestration spending
cuts, according to Boehlke, further delayed the acquisition of the tanks, shuttering the federal agency in
charge of testing standards.
Once the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the agency responsible for testing,
cleared its backlog in March of this year, Boehlke said, the department was able to move forward with
its purchase, taking delivery this month, finally loading the airpacks onto firetrucks July 16.
The waiting period was “very frustrating,” Boehlke said.
Fresh gear
The new airpacks, sleek and contained in their design (It “lessens the threat of getting entangled in
things,” Nordeen said), are smaller yet hold more air at a higher pressure than the old, 45 minutes’
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worth as opposed to half an hour’s, and feature a plethora of built-in functions that enhance firefighters’
safety.
For instance, as Captain Nate Berg gamely demonstrated by suiting up, the new airpacks feature motion
sensors that sound a three-stage alarm if a firefighter stops moving; from the first stage’s firm alert to
the ear-splitting screams of the third stage, the alarm most likely will not be missed.
Beyond the airpack’s alarm, its most important function is to ensure that firefighters have enough good,
oxygenated air to breath. The airpacks have a heads-up-display in the mask that helps firefighters moni-
tor how much air they have left using a color-coded system, while the back of the packs offer something
similar, lights that change color as the pack’s air is used, visible to other firefighters as a backup.
“\[The airpack’s features give\] our guys extra time to get out of a hazardous environment,” Nordeen
said.
Boehlke, a 29-year veteran firefighter, said, “They’ve come so far to make these very user friendly,
dummy proof.”
Lake Johanna Fire Department’s old airpacks will be donated to places with less rigorous testing stand-
ards, most likely South America or the Philippines, Boehlke said, where they’ll be used another 10 to 15
years.
For more information about the Lake Johanna Fire Department, visit www.ljfd.org.
Mike Munzenrider can be reached at mmunzenrider@lillienews.com or 651-748-7824. Follow him on
Twitter @mmunzenrider.
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