What your Fire Department Does All Day

By Chief J. William Martin, Hebron Fire Protection District

I just finished reading an article in the International City Managers Association, PM Public Management magazine. The article is about two fire departments in the State of New York and boasts of their involvement in their communities. They are truly exceptional fire departments.

This article got me thinking about what our citizens in Hebron and Northern Kentucky think we do each and everyday. Going back to my early career in the early 1970’s fire departments were thought of as a group of strong, community minded men that sat around the station each and every day waiting on the next fire call playing checkers and sitting in their wicker chair leaning up against the front of their fire station.  

Today this picture could not be farther from the truth! Being a professional in the field I often get upset when I see the fire service and emergency medical services maligned in the press. They say too many apparatus, no accountability, spending more and more money for what? The average taxpayer pays less than a couple hundred dollars a year for fire and EMS protection in our area. But this is going up because the number of volunteers that we have continue to go down.

This article is about what we do in the Hebron Fire Protection District but I have to tell you that most of the medium to larger fire departments in Northern Kentucky are very, very similar.

What our personnel do in an average day!

In Hebron we make a little over 6 emergency incidents a day. Certainly these incidents do not define what we do but they do define why we are here.  Most people that have been around Northern Kentucky for a few years would recognize Hebron of 15 years ago as a quiet section of Boone County that reached notoriety by being the location of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.  Today this small community has been transformed into a diverse community of some 25,000 people during the day and less in the evening. Growth has been good to the department and allowed the resources to replace the dwindling volunteers in our community with career staff who man both of our two fire stations.

Every morning we have shift change at 8 am. At that time there is a relay of information from the shift going off duty to the new people coming on at both stations. Relay of the issues in the community, incidents from the previous day, maintenance issues that need to be addressed, fire hydrants and fire protection systems that are being worked on. At this time of the day the personnel are responsible for making sure their assigned personal protective clothing or fire gear including their self contained breathing apparatus is ready for the day. Their apparatus receives a daily check and a more comprehensive preventive maintenance check is performed on the assigned vehicles for the day. The officers check to see if their personnel’s clothing and equipment needs any specific cleaning or maintenance. Paramedics and EMTs are checking the ambulances to assure that the supplies needed are available, still within expiration dates and are present in the proper numbers. Is everything disinfected as it should? Are the portable radios working properly? The list goes on and on.

Everyday Monday through Saturday, we train for approximately 2 hours each day. Three days a week the Assistant Chief in charge of training assigns the topics for the entire department. The other days, the shift officers determine the needs of their assigned personnel. The topics range from the use of fire extinguishers to the make up of chemical compounds that exist in our businesses and come through on our highways. Most week days during the year routine inspections and preplanning is performed in our businesses, schools, and churches. A couple of times a week someone has requested a public education class in one of the many areas where we instruct the public. A half of dozen times a week a citizen from Hebron or Boone County comes in to have their child safety seat inspected for proper installation. Once or twice a month we instruct citizens and business employees on the proper use of cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and first aid.

During the day groups of our personnel work on the explorers program for youth interested in fire and EMS services between the age of 14 and 18. We meet with the explorers once a week. Other personnel are meeting to plan the training for the next month. Some are visiting properties in our community to find sources of water where no public water has been installed as of yet. Others may be meeting with Safety in mind trying to lower the incidence of firefighter/EMT and Paramedic injuries and exposures. Some may be testing one of the 1,000 plus fire hydrants that we have to assure they are operational or conducting hose tests that we perform each year. Don’t forget the pumper tests to check the engines pumping capabilities or our annual ladder tests. If they fail we might have a visit from OSHA or worse look bad in the newspaper.

Some of our officers might be involved in teaching area wide classes for recruits, other officers, EMS protocols or fire prevention codes. A couple of people are assigned to make sure we are up to date on new construction occurring in the district by attending Boone County Planning new projects meetings or jointly performing new construction inspections with the building department.  One of our people might be updating our Hebron Fire Protection District Web Site www.Hebronfire.org . On this site you can see some of the things going on weekly or monthly. 

Somewhere in the late afternoon or early evening an hour of conditioning and physical fitness are emphasized because whether we like it or not 50 % of all firefighter deaths are caused by heart attacks. One moment is pretty quiet and routine and the next minute all heck has broken loose.  

On the routine day we may encounter a false alarm at a single family home from a dirty smoke alarm or a water flow alarm at a 1 million square foot building. Motor vehicle accidents are plentiful in our community as people travel to and from on our residential streets to our interstate systems.  We might make a call with someone having shortness of breath or a feeling of tightness in their chest. Both are dispatches to be very concerned about. Throw in a few overdoses from prescription medicine or a child that has fallen down the steps.

On the unusual day we might have a pipe bomb that someone has found along side the road or the substance found in a business that is suspicious and needs to be identified. A fire that has occurred in someone’s home occurs about a dozen times a year and they want us there 10 minutes before the fire, but by the way, don’t drive fast to get there. A car fire, grass fire, lightning strike, dumpster fire or a carbon monoxide alarm going off at 3 am may make up the evening or night. Don’t forget the Cub Scout pack that is coming tomorrow night.

Remind the firefighters to be in a good mood or the chief will bust your chops! Courtesy is required to everyone from the wealthiest to the poorest, from the person that doesn’t want you there to the one that is complaining because it took you too long to get there. From the person that doesn’t speak English to the one that is too intoxicated to understand. Watch out he is going to throw…… too late take a shower when you get back to the station. Turn off your the lights and sirens, we don’t want our neighbors to know we had a problem. Don’t let the heat of a mid summers day or the bitter cold of the subfreezing night affect how we do what we do! Because, Our community expects us to be at our very best and guess what?............This is what we do all day!  I’m not bragging nor complaining just proud to be part of the best profession there is!

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