2b Chief Greg Geske, Chan Fire Dept.
MEMORANDUM
TO: Todd Gerhardt, City Manager
FROM: Gregg Geske- Fire Chief
st
Sherri Walsh – 1 Assistant Chief
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Randy Wahl - 2 Assistant Chief
Mark Littfin- Fire Marshal
Ed Coppersmith – Training Officer
DATE: November 18, 2005
SUBJ: Monthly City Council update
Fire Department Overview:
Staffing is at 39 active firefighters and 6 on probation as of October 17, 2005, allocation is 45 PTE’s.
As of November 6, we were at 504 calls for the year, up 20 from 484 at the same time in 2004. The
Fire Board and the officers have been attending some training involving a concept called “On Deck”.
The concept adopted by the Phoenix Fire Department and the New York City Fire Department
addresses several safety issues and provides a better reaction to a mayday at an incident. Many of the
main metro departments have adopted “On Deck”. By the Chanhassen Fire Department adopting
“On Deck”, we will have better interoperability with our mutual aid partners. With the onset of cold
weather our ice rescue equipment has been made ready.
Fire Training:
The annual physical agility test was conducted for members in November. Several hours of rescue
training were also held in November. Several members of the fire department worked with Shakopee
Fire Department during a mock warehouse fire under mutual aid response protocols. The rookie
class is continuing with Firefighter I class and is due to complete it in mid December.
Fire Marshal:
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No large fires to report. The two working fires that we responded to were a car fire on October 3 on
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W. 78 Street and a large roll-off dumpster fire behind Cub Foods on Wednesday, November 9.
There was also a small deck fire started by smoking on Chanhassen Hills Drive South on November
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9. Other calls responded to were false fire alarms, car accidents and a few medical emergencies.
Todd Gerhardt
November 18, 2005
Page 2
Fire Inspections:
We will be finishing up this month with re-inspections of previous inspections. New construction
inspections are close to finish at Stone Creek Town Offices, Lake Winds Grocery Store, Cub Foods
remodel, Walgreen’s Drug Store and Spalon Montage. New construction is slowing down a little for
the season, so Ed and I will be doing more existing inspections in December, January and February.
Fire Prevention:
Fire Prevention activities were completed at the end of October. I believe the Fire Chief reported the
number of children visited during firefighter visits to daycares, station tours and open houses. We
had a fire truck out on Halloween driving through neighborhoods and handing out candy to kids.
This was the second year we’ve done this and both the kids and parents love it. They are a little
taken aback at why there is a fire truck stopping in their neighborhood, but once they find out why we
are there, they think it’s great. We will continue with this program in the future.