HomeMy WebLinkAboutrepaug11.pdf
September 9, 2015
Honorable Kate Supron
Board of Trustees
Village of Cayuga Heights
Monthly Report – August, 2011
We have now come to the realization at the fire department that we will run more the 40
calls each month. In August we had 44 incidents. We had 25 calls in the Village of
Cayuga Heights, 13 in the Town of Ithaca and 6 mutual aid requests. There were 24
EMS calls and 20 fire calls. On the 8th of August we had 8 calls between 0830 and 1400
hours. It was a crazy morning. One of the calls was a request to meet NYSEG at the
Carriage House Apartments for an odor of gas. Crews met the NYSEG gas crew already
on scene to discover that there was a natural gas leak in one of the buildings causing an
extremely hazardous situation. We had an engine crew stand by until NYSEG secured
the utilities and ventilated the gas to a safe level. At the end of August Hurricane Irene
swept through the area. Locally we were not affected by the storm except for some
steady rain. In our district we did not have any storm related calls. On Sunday August
28th we received a request from the state through the County Department of Emergency
Response for SEFUs (Storm Emergency Fire Unit) to be deployed to Schoharie County
in the capital district. Asst. Chief Dave Openshaw and FF Kevin Maley volunteered to
take U242 with a portable pump, a generator, chainsaws and other loose equipment to the
flooded area. They departed the station at 1500 on August 28th and returned on August
31st at 2000 hours. While there they assisted with storm recovery and served as
firefighters for Schoharie County Departments who had been working non stop since the
storm. We are very proud of the service they provided during the emergency.
August was a great month for training. Many of our firefighters came back from summer
break early to get back into the swing of fire department operations. We did Firefighter
Survival and FAST trainings to ensure we are well versed in our downed firefighter
procedures. We also covered 2nd Due Company and Water Supply Operations in the
middle of the month. At the end of the month we covered our Basic Life Support
protocol updates for our basic EMTs. Our probationary firefighters who have been gone
for the summer are really starting to pick up on their checklist work. They have to be
done with the checklists by the first weekend in October. Many of our senior members
are really chipping in to get the probies through the process.
E203 had some maintenance issues in August. We sent it to Elmira for its annual pump
testing. It passed the testing but had a few issues. All the pump gauges had lost their
sealed integrity and the fluid in the gauges had leaked out for some unknown reason. All
the gauges were replaced. We also had an issue with the throttle after the truck came
back. We traced this problem to a simple corroded ground wire. The truck is working
well at this time. In July we had a roof mounted AC unit fail at the station. This unit
supplied AC to half of the bunker area. We received three quotes for replacement of the
unit and hope to move forward with the replacement with a local company in early
September. We had all of our air packs inspected in August. We have determined that
most of the department’s air packs will be out of warranty and the bottles at the end of
their service life in the next two years. We have been very frugal with air packs in the
past 10 years, buying many of our current packs and bottles from the Lansing Fire
Department when they upgraded their system. These packs and bottles were a great stop
gap solution because we purchased them for around $200 a pack. We have not purchased
any new air packs in at least 10 years. We will start having vendors come in to talk about
air packs and look toward the 2012/13 budget for this project.
The fall recruit process is in going well. We will start making our way onto campus and
into the community looking for the next group of volunteers to fill our ranks. Asst. Chief
Openshaw heads our membership committee and has done an outstanding job with
recruitment over the past couple years.
We have an open bunker room at this time. Firefighter Cullen Harwood graduated last
year and was expecting to be in the area for the coming year but was offered a job in
Chicago. We are sorry to see him go but wish him well. We will fill the room at the
September Fire Council Meeting.
We are pleased to announce the arrival of Benjamin Abbinanti to our fire department
family. Benjamin was born to Assistant Chief Matt Abbinanti and his wife Emily on
August 9th. The whole family is doing well.
Sincerely,
George Tamborelle
Fire Chief/Fire Superintendent
EMERGENCY CALLS: 45 TOTAL CALLS YEAR TO DATE: 418
Total Calls – 4 Fire Calls – 20 EMS Calls - 24
Total Mutual Aid – 6
Calls in the Village – 25 Calls in the Town – 13
TRAINING / MEETINGS / EVENTS:
8/2 – Fire Training – Intermediate FAST
8/7 – Fire Council
8/10 – Fire Training – Truck Ops, 2nd Due Company
8/17 – Fire Training – Supply Company Ops
8/25 – Fire Training – Firefighter Survival
8/30 – EMS Training
UPCOMING EVENTS:
9/6 – Fire Training – Airport CFR
9/11 – Fire Council
9/14 – Fire Training – Mask Confidence
9/15 – New Recruit Dinner
9/22 – Large Area Search
9/27 – EMS Training