Pizza!!

Just a reminder that this Wednesday is another attempt with Pizza Ranch in spreading the word about fire safety. We are helping deliver pizza and checking smoke detectors and promoting the department all in one night! Please come and help support the department.

Fall

The season is starting to change. Gone are the 90+ degree days with excessive humidity but that does not mean that we can't become dehydrated quickly. You need to remember to drink water as much as you can and be proactive in doing so. If and when we would have a fire, it does not take long for the body to become dehydrated. This would also be a time to think of putting together a little bag or something to carry some extra clothing that would be dry. The cool air blowing over your wet clothes will take away your body heat a little quicker than the summer time air.

Fun game

If you are interested in checking you knowledge on Water Safety, Rehab, and Heat Emergencies try out this fun little game from FireRescue1. To play, just click on the title above, Fun game and it will redirect you to the game. Enjoy!

Changes

I have done some remodeling of the blog. Not much has changed other that the colors and updated the counter on the bottom. Feel free to look at the previous posts and I did add two new videos. One for training looks at the triple load vs. regular hose load and the safety clip talks about staying hydrated in the heat.

Speaking of which, just a reminder to be drinking plenty of fluids ie. water! It doesn't take long in this heat to become dehydrated, so keep drinking the water and try to avoid alcohol and caffeine.

Have a Safe and Fun Holiday

I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Holiday weekend. If you are around fireworks, please use caution and take safety measures to ensure that nothing happens.

Reminder, we will have our medical meeting on Monday night as usual. We don't have to move this drill to Tuesday night.

Health and Safety Challenge #7

Our final challenge for the Health and Safety week is renewing your commitment to safety. It is all too easy to just say "It won't happen to me" and do something without thinking. In looking over some reports from injuries we get complacent and lose focus on the potential problems. Other times we having training things that we cut corners or don't even think of what we are doing and use poor judgement. All of which opens up the chance the something could happen that shouldn't of because we didn't stop and take a moment to think about our actions.

Try to keep these things in mind:
1) Wear your PPE. It is there to protect you and need to have it on and being worn correctly.
2) Buckle Up!! Just holding that truck a split second longer so you can buckle up could mean life or death.
3) Remember, if our feet are on the street, the vest is on our chest.
4) Use common sense. I know that comments about some people just don't have any, but we all have it. We just need to use it.

Health and Safety Challenge #6

Counting today's challenge we only have two challenges left. Has anyone tried to follow along all week? If you have been following along, how are you doing? Feeling any different?

The challenge for today one for people to work on tonight and into the weekend and it deals with alcohol. Actually it should be for both alcohol and drug use but really hope that it will just pertain to the alcohol. In this heat yes it is nice to sit back and grab a cold one and enjoy but it is about one of the worst things we could do for ourselves. The alcohol needs to be in moderation and for every drink you have try to take in at least a glass of water so you don't dehydrate. Best case would be not to drink for a while but I'm a realist and know that probably isn't going to happen. So at least try to cut back and drink water to go along with it. Plus eating food will help, don't drink on an empty stomach.

Health and Safety Challenge #5

This one could be one of the easiest challenges for the week. This challenge is one to try and relax yourself. To many times the hustle and bustle of everyday life gets to be to much and we need a break. So find yourself a nice cool, quiet place to sit and relax. Put on some of your favorite music and just work on taking on some nice deep breathes and close your eyes and like Happy Gilmore, find your happy place. Just taking a few minutes and relaxing will make the day seem to go a little bit smoother.

Health and Safety Challenge #4

This one goes out to those who are smokers and tobacco users. Try and go a day without having to light one up or put in that chew. Smoking causes lung damage and we need our lungs to breathe, even more so in our field of work. Over time between the smoke exposure from the cigarettes and fire calls increases the risk of lung cancer. This can drastically reduce your time spent in the fire service and life in general.
If one day is to hard, then try and cut it back by at least half and try to continue until you can say you have gone a whole day, then shoot for two days, and so on.

Health and Safety Challenge #3

So if you have been doing the challenges upto this point, you should know where the bathrooms are by know. Drinking more water equals more trips to the restroom.

Challenge for today is to change out some food. Try to exchange your candy bar or bag of chips for some fresh fruit or vegetables. This is a great time of year to find a lot of the fruits and veggies in season. So find one you like or one that you have wanted to try and enjoy!! Then wash it down with some more water and headed out for another walk.

Health and Safety Challenge #2

For your next challenge, try to make the time to be active. Try and go for a walk, go for a jog, or even hop on your bike and go for a bike ride. Shoot for 30 minutes worth of activity. Then when you get home make sure that you drink plenty of water to rehydrate yourself. While you are drinking your water and relaxing, make sure you log your activity in the Healthy Firefighter if you are still keeping track of your hours. Try and do this a couple times this week and work in Challenge #1.

Health and Safety Challenge #1

Today is the official start to the Health and Safety week. I will try to come up with a challenge for people to try and see if you can do it and then stay with it.

The first challenge is try to cut back or cut out soft drinks. If you are able to cut back or cut out the number of soft drinks you have in a day, you are taking in less sugar! Try to drink more water instead. Try this for at least the week and see if you can tell a difference at the end of the week.

Safety Week

Next week is the Health and Safety week. We tried to do some of the activities a couple weeks ago at drill and really all we got done was having a lecture on healthy eating by the nutritionist from Hy-Vee. That was a good class and did seem to spark some interest from those who attended but my guess is that no one took that class and went home and said, "I'm going to make some changes!" Am I right?
We all have to look at ourselves in the mirror and decide if we are who we truly want to be. We are here because we want to serve our community and because to us this is fun. We enjoy being firefighters and medics. But on the other side of the coin, the jobs we do are very dangerous and can cause serious injury or death if we don't pay attention to what we are doing. Now most everyone would automatically probably think of something going wrong on the fireground as the number 1 thing that could do something to us. Actually, about 50% of the deaths each year are from heart attacks or strokes. That is not saying how many people have chest pain or something similar that is not reported each year. The Health and Safety week is trying to stop and make us think about us this year. How can we change ourselves to make us more fit and prepared to continue doing what we enjoy doing?
Couple things I would like to see people do to:
1) Watch what you eat. I am guilty of this as much as the next person. I have done better the last couple months on making better choices and eating smaller portions. The better you eat the better your body feels and has the right nutrients it needs to give us the energy we need.
2) Watch what you drink. Now that we are into the warmer months, you should be drinking plenty of water. If you are on the fire scene and have not had any water to drink prior, you are probably already dehydrated and playing catch up. That means longer time for your body to recover and longer time that you are sitting on the sideline watching others doing the work. So make sure that you are drinking water and try to cut back on the pops and alcohol.
3) Get more exercise. This might mean that you go for a walk or a run. It doesn't mean that you have to run a marathon or anything but it does mean get up and do an activity of some sort. We have weights and a treadmill here at the station that could always use more activity but if you can do something outside, great. JUST DO SOMETHING!!
4) Rest. Make sure that you are getting adequate sleep at night. This might sound funny and don't see how that ties into what we are doing but if you are tired, your body doesn't respond the way it should and is drawing energy that you could use to do the work.

I just want people to be aware that as much as we try and make sure the fireground is safe for everyone to be on, it is up to you to make sure that you are safe to be on the fireground. Doing something for yourself and try to come up with a plan to make sure that you are "Fit For Duty!"

Fire/EMS Week Activities

The official time that has been designated for the Fire/EMS Health and Safety week is June 20-26. Looking at our training schedule we have some good drills lined up for June and the best drill to take the time to look at health and safety was the June 1st drill. This is our Tuesday night drill due to the holiday so please remember to come Tuesday night.

Busy busy busy

It is that time of year again where things are getting green, the rain has taken away an early grass fire season, and sports are taking a lot of time from everyone. Not only has our personal lives got busy but we as a department have kept busy as well. We are running about 30 calls ahead of our busiest year, so if we maintain this pace it will be a record once again. I was impressed with how we had people make the calls yesterday and the only call we had to give up was the one we didn't have a squad for. It got real busy real fast last night and we had adequate staffing in a timely fashion to provide for our citizens. Great job by everyone who made it work!!!

Update

I just want to say congratulations to Jory for his years of service. I hope that you enjoy being able to be with your family and knowing that your schedule is going to be on mother nature and not people thinking that they need help in the middle of the night.

With Jory's stepping aside, I would also like to say welcome to Matt Baird who has been hired to take Jory's position. Matt has worked a couple shifts and will be officially Brent's partner on Monday. So welcome aboard and hope your transition is smooth.

We have gone to a computer based scheduling system. So everyone needs to go into www.firemanager.net/indianolafire and sign in and first go to "My Info" and enter in your phone number, carrier, and email address. That way you can receive text messages and emails about open shifts plus other departmental information. Then please sign up for the nights that you are open for to cover squad 2. Part-timers put in your availability just like we have been. Any questions please let me know.

With the warm weather, be on the look out for more people out walking, running, biking, etc while responding to the station. And as warmer weather approaches remember to keep yourself hydrated!!

Sorry

Ok, I said in the last post that I would try and keep this up to date better and I have failed. So here I go again and I will try to do better. First of all, let me back up several weeks and congratulate Captain Ted Neller and Lieutenant Jody Miller to the officer ranks. You both are welcome additions to the command staff and I look forward to working with you both. I would also like to take a moment and thank Dean Hutt for his 34 years of service, about half of that as IFD Chief. I have learned a lot from Dean from when I first got started as a volunteer and as I have worked up through the ranks. He has been a great mentor and a great friend whom I could turn to ask ask questions, get feedback, and just some direction when I felt lost. Thank you Dean.

The city hall updates are almost complete, the only thing really remaining is working on completing the lockers in the shower room. A new phone system has been installed throughout city hall and we are getting use to working with something different and up to date.

We have formed a truck committee and Chuck, Tom, Devon, and Travis have been appointed to this committee. Their purpose is to go through the apparatus and look at ways of improving our equipment location and trying to make things better and more useful. They will be moving things around on the trucks to see how it looks and fits, but they will return it back to the original spot. Once they come upon a decision for placement, a presentation will be done for the officers for them to review and modify, delete, or approve the idea. Some of the trucks have gotten new tool boxes and we have gone back to color coding tools and equipment for the apparatus they came off of.

Remember, it is still winter out there. So please drive safely, dress for the weather, and if you see a hydrant that needs to be dugout, either dig it out or notify an officer so it can be passed along. Thanks!