We had a Captain’s meeting today and our Chief updated us on a briefing that he had recently given our City Council.
Kind of a “State of the Department” if you will. Our “numbers aren’t that bad. In my mind, there were 2 “stand out” categories… “Dollar Loss” … in 2010, we had around 3.6 Million Dollars in fire damages. I know … you’re thinking 3.6 mil doesn’t sound so good to me right? Well, there were 2 more factors thrown in there. We had 2 Major fires in the City last year .. that took a BIG chunk of that 3.6 The other factor was the “Pre-incident dollar value”…. what it was worth before it burned. That number was over $185 Million. All the fires were valued at over 185 million and we held damages to 3.6 That means we saved 181.4 MILLION in property!
The other “number” that hit me is our percentage of holding our fires to “the floor of origin“. We dropped off in this category falling to only 62%. Now generally, we do a GREAT job of holding our jobs to the “room of origin” (we are on a fire in 4 minutes or less 90% of the time) so I was shocked to learn that our numbers had fallen as to the floor of origin. Why the drop? ARSON
Our Arson numbers are higher than ever (38%) and climbing. Our Chief explained to Council that it’s even a “different” arson than what you might expect. We are not seeing “arson for hire” (where an arsonist is paid to burn down a building so the owner might collect on insurance) we are seeing intentionally set fires out of vengeance. The story even made the front page of today’s paper .. here’s their “on line” abbreviated article.
The fire from the story (where the fire was out on arrival) is not the only example of “arson for vengeance” here in the City. We had an employee of a local Pet Smart set a fire during business hours, in broad daylight causing over a million in damages. See that post from the “Melrose Misfit” days HERE .
Anyway, I thought that was an interesting fact ….. moving on
I wanted to share a few more shots from Baltimore and EMS Today.
Here’s one of me and PJ Cane. PJ follows the site regularly and was the first guy to come up to Rhett and I when we arrived. PJ not only follows my site, he often takes the time to post comments. I have been wanting to meet him for some time now and was glad to have the chance.
He was there with his soon to be wife and that in itself is a whole other story… I’ll post more on that and PJ soon.
Here’s another shot of me and Dave Statter.
I always enjoy getting up with Dave on these out of town trips because it gives me a little help busting Rhett’s balls…LOL
It is a little embarrassing that everyone else is eating steak and lobster and drinking beer while Dave orders all that fancy / smancy “organic pod of split pea” soup and white wine … LMAO
The good news is that he really is a great guy who’s fun to be around … OK..OK .. the honest answer is that he bribes us to hang around him with wallet photos of his wife…LMAO (just kidding Hillary)
Here’s another of me and my new found “Aussie Medic” buddies and then some fellow bloggers / friends..
We had a really good trip and only met one person who I wish I hadn’t. I don’t know this guys name but he was hanging outside our window Friday morning. Hanging … literally.
Now, we stayed at the Sheraton which by most standards is a fairly fancy joint. The rooms were comfortable and spacious. They had hot water. The heat and AC worked. We had a fridge and the drink / ice machine was on our floor and near by.
I just figured that they would have had a better “wake up call” system in place.
I don’t know “what” this guy was grinding on all morning but what ever it was sounded like finger nails across a chalkboard …. YEA … that’ll get ya out of bed in the morning!
Ok, my post on Snowbird’s custom made Fire Truck Bar was a huge hit. The bad news is that I didn’t even show ya all there is to see. There are so many things, big and little; that he did that I couldn’t cover em all in one post.
One part I didn’t talk much about was the back bar.
If ya look closely in the pic to the right, you notice how the bar top looks like broken glass. It is.
I don’t know how he even came up with half the stuff he did! For the back bar, he used 3 sheets of glass … 2 tempered, 1 laminated (he could NOT use the actual windshield from the truck because it was curved and not flat).
Anyway, through trial and error (it took him a few trys) he figured out to lay down a sheet of tempered first. Then he placed the sheet of laminated glass on top of that. He added the 2nd tempered piece (after placing decals on both the top and bottom sides to give it a 3 dimensional look) on top of that.
His outside framing allowed for room to pour a 1/8″ coat of bar top to seal and protect the glass. THEN, he drilled a hole and hit the laminated piece with a window punch. It “spidered” perfectly and looks super cool! Check out the video of him making the punch..
COOL huh??? Anyway, I talked to Snowbird earlier today and we’re gonna do something here @ Ironfiremen to add a complete slide show or something so you guys and gals can see the entire process .. start to finish.
That’s gonna about do it for tonight … they are calling for heavy rains again tomorrow so I had better try to get a little rest. I’ll check back in as soon as possible. Until then, stay safe and in house!
Captain Wines