Some interesting
things are going on this week, so let’s
get started.
·
SAFER—We’re very
proud to announce Jacksonville has been
awarded $5,945,513 dollars to
hire new firefighters!!!
Congratulations to everyone in Emergency
Preparedness who worked diligently on
preparing for the application and to
everyone who worked behind the scenes to
make it a reality. Attached is a fact
sheet about the grant.
·
New Station 62
--goes live Monday at 0800. The station
will still have contractors working, but
all major components are a go. To say
the citizens of that part of town are
now better served would be an
understatement. New Engine and Rescue
62 are a much needed addition to our
department. Thank you to all that made
this happen and to Captains Kotsis,
Long, and Danley for working out the
apparatus and response issues. A huge
thanks to Gary Daly, who has been
literally living in 62 to make sure it
opens on time, to Ed Auld for completing
all the CAD tasks, and to James Gunnoe
for handling the ITD issues. It truly
takes a small army of individuals to
bring a new station online and hopefully
in this new budget year, we will get to
do it all over again with Station 61 at
Old Middleburg and Collins Rd!
·
Phase 1 of ISO
Consultant---is complete. This
company has successfully helped dozens
of departments nationwide improve their
PPC (Public Protection Class) rating.
Part two of a contract will be to
complete a 50 year drought study on our
identified alternative water supplies.
This is where the hose tenders come into
play. As we move forward, there will be
some policy changes or terminology
changes that might confuse some because
it hasn’t been the way we have done
things in the past. The ISO rating test
is a 1500 page document. If you do not
answer to their terminology, you
do not get credit. For example, during
our last re-rating they did not
recognize station 48 as a fire station
because it only had 3 firefighters
assigned, and another eight stations
because they didn’t have bay heaters!
Remember that? I was running around
town buying space heaters so we could
get credit for those stations. We had
to move a tanker to 48 or the Port would
have gone to a 10! This is the kind of
things I’m talking about. Now with this
cross-lay bulletin that just came out,
I’ve already received call’s challenging
that to be true. We’re looking into it
a I truly appreciate the calls. Here’s
some other info about the consultants
findings…
o
ISO changed the way they
rate departments in July of 2013.
o
Three areas receive a
score
§
Communications—10%
§
Water Supply—40%
§
Fire Response—50%
o
The Consultants’ document
is 24 pages and we will get it out to
you this week. The point to remember
is basically we are already a Class 1
Department. I know you didn’t need me
to remind you that you are truly
world class. But in order to get
credit for that and reduce Duval
County’s insurance rates, we will need
to pass ISO’s test using their
terminology, not ours.
·
Suppression Captains
List---Should be out this Friday.
We will have a large transfer bulletin
again as the Squads go live the same
time. I am about 90% complete on
finding homes for everyone being
displaced. I will be making all the
remaining calls and visits this week
prior to the bulletin; no surprises….I
promise.
·
Squads---a bulletin
will be out early this week detailing
the new Squads and their mission. I
don’t want to keep repeating myself, but
it’s important to me that JFRD once
again raises the bar as it relates to
firefighter survival and rapid
intervention techniques. These new
Squads will set the benchmark in those
areas. The rank insignia for officers
assigned to the Squads will be axes.
Well that’s it
for this weeks’ weekend edition part 3.
I keep running out of time to finish
these on Friday. Please be careful as
the W3’s are beginning to pick back up
as daily occurrences. It’s important to
me to remind everyone of the sacrifices
our folks and others make daily.
Sometimes it seems as if these WIR’s
can be a little heavy on the heart.
So for this week I’ll leave you with
this short video and hopefully a smile
on your face; we all could use a little
more cowbell now and then…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGBD1KUz2RA
As always, we
thank you for what you do, why you do
it, and for always being a Class 1
Fire Rescue Department!
Very
respectfully,
Kurtis R. Wilson
Chief of
Operations
Jacksonville Fire
and Rescue Department