2b. Fire Department Update�6
MEMORANDUM
CHANHASSEN FIRE DEPARTMENT
Station 1
PO Box 97
7610 Laredo Drive
Chanhassen, MN 553
Station 2
6400 Minnewashta Pkwy.
Excelsior, MN 5533
TO: Todd Gerhardt, City Manager
FROM: Roger Smallbeck - Fire Chief
Ed Coppersmith - 1 Assistant Chief
Rick Rice - 2nd Assistant Chief
Mark Littfin - Fire Marshal 0 e
DATE: October 14, 2010
SUBJ: Monthly City Council Update
Fire Department Overview:
Staffing is at 44 active firefighters and four probationary firefighters as of October 12, 2010.
There are no firefighters on leave. Current allocation is 45 PTE's.
Year to date there have been 513 calls for service. There were 61 calls in September and as of
October 12 we have responded to 21 calls.
There were no significant commercial or residential fires during the month of September.
Fire Prevention week was October 3 through 9 There were 34 Chanhassen firefighters that
worked with the Fire Marshal to provide fire prevention programs to approximately 1,200 school
children in grades kindergarten, first, second, and third. The firefighters volunteered
approximately 135 hours to assist with Fire Prevention week activities. Fire Prevention week
concluded with the Chanhassen Fire Department open house on Sunday, October 10
Chanhassen firefighters volunteered another 280 hours to host the open house. As always, the
event was very well attended.
Training: There was no training in the month of October. During the month we had the open
house scheduled in addition to agility testing.
Fire Marshal!
Fire Prevention: We have just finished up another year of fire prevention week activities. This
year was a huge success. We were able to instruct over 1,300 kids from our elementary schools
as well as a number of our day care centers. Again this year we were very fortunate to have over
30 Chanhassen firefighters who took time off from their full time jobs or days off to spend time
at the station working with our school kids. The Fire Department received many favorable
comments from students and teachers alike. This year we were blessed with extremely nice
weather as many of our activities take place outdoors. As of this update we will be continuing to
have station tours and visits to day care centers through the end of November. With our open
house scheduled for the end of fire prevention week, it's a natural lead in to invite the kids to
come visit us and bring their parents. We believe this is what helps to have such wonderful
attendance. It also attributes to the fact, looking at the fire investigation report below, that we've
had no fires to report on. On Halloween evening the fire department will have one, hopefully
two, fire trucks driving around the City handing out candy and hot cider to kids and parents
while out trick and treating. This tradition started approximately eight years ago and has gotten
to a point where neighborhood Halloween block parties look forward to us showing up.
Fire Investigations: We've had no fires this past month to report on.
Fire Inspections: New building projects at various stages of construction. These are the
downtown parking ramp, Autobahn Motorplex, and Exlar which is relocating to the CCC
building which was formerly Versatile on West 77th Street. The Kotera remodel is another
ongoing project located at 18946 Lake Drive East. There are some smaller office remodel
projects going on as well. As for the existing buildings, all Chanhassen schools should be
completed by the end of the month. Very few fire code violations were found.