HomeMy WebLinkAboutrepfeb15.pdf
September 16, 2015
Honorable Kate Supron
Board of Trustees
Village of Cayuga Heights
Monthly Report January 2015
There were 41 calls for the fire department in February. There were 17 calls in the
Village of Cayuga Heights, 15 calls in the Town of Ithaca and 9 mutual aid requests. We
had 22 EMS runs and 19 fire calls. Once again, in February, we ran multiple mutual aid
calls. While we do not get many structure fires in our district it is extremely beneficial to
our department that we are requested to fires outside our district. Not only do we help
our neighbors when they need us, but it allows our firefighters to get a lot of experience
with structural firefighting. When we respond to mutual aid fires we staff the truck wit h
all interior firefighters. When we arrive with six interior firefighters at the scene of a
working fire our entire crew is usually assigned, as a full crew, to a section of the fire and
tasked with suppression. We gain a huge amount of experience at other people fires.
Checklist work is done from the Fall 2014 Recruit Class. We started the class with ten
recruits and seven made it through their checklists and have moved to exterior firefighter
status. Of the seven who made it though the process, four are in the Firefighter 1 class
and two are enrolled in the EMT class at TC3. It was a good group and they are
motivated and moving on with more advanced trainings. We are not going to run a
spring recruit class. We had our dinner in February and four people attended. We
identified that three of the attendees would be eligible for membership and decided that
the commitment to run an entire class for three people would not be the best utilization of
our spring. Instead we are planning on using the spring to work on getting our exterior
firefighters trained up and moved to interior status. We are planning several live burns at
the training center throughout the spring. We trained like this two years ago when we did
not run a spring class and it worked out very well for us.
We will be having a memorial service for Fleet Morse at the station on March 28th. Fleet
was the last surviving founding member of the department. Fleet has been carried on our
rolls as Member #1 for many years. We have been in contact with his family and they
have asked if the fire department would host the service at the station. Fleet was an
amazing man and extremely dedicated member of our department. Fleet’s nephew called
from his apartment at Longview after he passed away and during our conversation the
department got a call and I heard Fleet’s pager in the background. Family and staff state
he carried his pager every day. He will be much missed around the station.
We are looking forward to the 2015/16 budget process. We have a meeting scheduled
with the Town of Ithaca to keep them informed of upcoming budget plans. There is a bid
spec prepared for the new engine that we will be requesting this coming year. I would
like to ask permission to advertise for the new engine and send out the bid March. In
speaking with several truck vendors they did say that there is a good chance at better
pricing if a truck is bid and prices are set before June when the parts prices are raised. I
did confirm this information with Jeff Frisbee. We would like to release the spec in
March for a June bid opening.
There has been an ongoing problem at 825 Hanshaw Road with a moldy smell in the
house. We had Enviro Tech come in and do mold testing and found that there are not
high levels of mold in the house. At this time we have determined that the smell is
possibly coming from the furnace in the basement. The furnace is original to the house
and is rusting and has not been cleaned or serviced in recent memory. The furnace is an
old “gravity feed” unit with no filters in place. We have contacted HSC and received a
quote to remove the old furnace and put in a new forced air unit with a charcoal filter
system. We are also getting quotes to replace the siding on the house and to insulate it
properly. To our knowledge there is currently no insulation in the walls of the house.
The plan would be to remove the old siding, insulate and then reside with vinyl. These
projects should solve the issues we are having with the house. No work has been done on
the house since the windows were replaced and the house painted five years ago.
We will hold fire department elections on April 5th and our Annual Installation Banquet
on April 11th. We hope all trustees will be able to attend the event.
Sincerely,
George Tamborelle
Fire Chief/Fire Superintendent