Star-Journbal Editor
With the help of a grant about half as big as its entire annual budget, the Hillsboro Fire Department soon will have $20,000 worth of equipment to help it protect its most important asset — the firefighters themselves.
The safety of the city's 18-member volunteer firefighting force was foremost on the mind of the Hillsboro City Council this past Tuesday, when it gave Mayor Delores Dalke a hearty go-head to sign the grant agreement, from Fireman's Fund Insurance Company.
"Twenty thousand dollars is a lot of money," Dalke said. "It's really cool! It really is."
News that funds were available from Fireman's Fund came from the city's insurance broker, Insurance Management Associates of Wichita, Dalke said.
"They asked if we could use some money for our fire department, and of course we had to say yes," Dalke said, adding that awards also had been made to Wichita, Concordia and Shawnee County fire departments.
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The funds, which should be available sometime in November, will be used to purchase equipment the city wished it could buy for its fire department, Dalke said. But with an annual budget of $48,000 to run the entire fire department, these are items the city could not otherwise afford.
The $20,000 will be used to purchase two "buddy-breathing air packs" ($2,182 apiece), 18 air tanks made of a light weight composite material ($500 apiece), 11 helmet-mounted voice amplifier and speaker systems ($290 apiece), and 17 form-fitting face masks ($170 apiece).
The department's present equipment, such as its heavy 30-pound air packs will continue to be maintained for back-up purposes, according to Fire Chief Ben Steketee.
"Every fire department is up against budgets and things like that," he said. "This is equipment that up until now we didn't have because we just couldn't afford it.
"I don't think I could have justified purchasing the buddy-breathing system or the composite bottles without the grant. We'll be keeping the air packs that we have, because they're good enough, but this new equipment is next generation."
To understand the significance of the new safety equipment, consider the following scenario:
A 911 call comes in; there's a house fire in Hillsboro. Firefighters rush to the fire station, don their gear, and jump in the fire engine.
To avoid confusion at the scene of the fire, the firefighters' roles in fighting the fire are pre-determined by the seat they're sitting in.
"Whatever seat you got in, that's the job you've got at the fire scene, so you have an idea of what you're going to be doing when you get into the truck," Steketee said.
An exception is the roles played by the department's "interior attack people," who've been trained to go into burning structures, he added.
Working always in two-man teams, the attackers are each equipped with tanks with enough air to last 20 to 30minutes, depending on exertion and stress.
If an "attacker's" tank ran out of air or malfunctioned, the firefighter could find himself without air in a smoky atmosphere made even more toxic by fumes from burning plastic and other materials. In one or two breaths, even the strongest firefighter could be overcome, the chief said.
"Smoke is deadly," Steketee said. "Smoke is what kills people. When people are killed in a fire, they're usually overcome by the smoke, and then they burn up."
With heavy hoods over their ears and facemasks over their mouths, it's hard for firemen to hear or make them heard above the noise of a raging fire, the chief added.
The new voice amplifiers will help firefighters communicate important tactical instructions and calls to help a downed firefighter, if needed.
"Since I've been fire chief, we've never had a firefighter call in a Mayday!" he said, "but we're always ready for that."
To be "always ready," to rescue a downed firefighter, Hillsboro follows a "two in, two out rule," he added.
"If there are two internal attack people inside fighting a fire, there are two more trained attack people waiting just outside, with a fully-charged [water] line at the ready," Steketee said.
With the department's present equipment, the backup team would go into the burning house, locate the downed firefighter and drag him outside to fresh, uncontaminated air.
But if the firefighter were to be trapped beneath a collapsed wall, for example, and couldn't be moved quickly, the new buddy-breathing system would allow his rescuers to give him the air he needs without risking their lives.
"My main concern is firefighter safety," Steketee said. "Sure, we want to save lives and we want to save property, but my main concern is the safety of firefighters.
"This new equipment will take us another big step in that direction."
In other business,
— The council heard more about ongoing plans to replace the decrepit backup electrical generator at City Hall. City administrator Steve Garrett said he had a price of $20,000 for an appropriately-sized new one.
The council asked Garrett to begin looking for a new generator after he reported that the present generator is old and unreliable; and the company that built it considers it obsolete and no longer makes parts to repair it.
In a power blackout during a severe storm, the present generator couldn't be counted on to run the city's emergency sirens and provide electricity for City Hall at the same time, Garrett said.
When council member Matt Hiebert asked what the present generator might bring if put up for sale, Garrett replied, "Whatever scrap metal is going for, probably."
Hiebert asked Garrett to get a second bid from another generator company. Dalke agreed, but on the condition that action be taken at the next meeting, because it could take up to 16 weeks for it to be installed.
"Sixteen weeks from now and we're right into tornado season by the time we even get the thing," Dalke said. "We've put this off way too long."
— Calling it an eyesore, the council voted, 3-1, to accept a bid of $36,680 from Koehn Painting, Newton, to begin painting without delay the former Associated Milk Producers, Inc., building now owned by the city.
The structure is the first building on the east side of the road when coming into Hillsboro on North Ash Street from U.S.-56.
"It's the front door to the city," Dalke said. "It doesn't look nice when people drive into town. We need to get the junk cleaned up and brick repainted."
Space at the former creamery has been leased to several area businesses and the Kansas Highway Patrol. It also is the home of the Hillsboro Police Department. But rusty storage tanks still stand at the north side of the building, facing the highway.
Concerned that the junk might still be there next summer, council member Byron McCarty voted against the motion, because he said the junk should be hauled away before any painting project began.
After the council voted to proceed immediately, Dalke told McCarty property cleanup still was a priority that would stay on the council's agenda until the job was done.
— The council approved the following board appointments as requested by the mayor: Tracy Williams to the Marion County Economic Development Board, and Lynn Hagaman to the tree board. Also, Kyle Cederberg and Lawrence Resler were appointed to serve additional three-year terms on the hospital board.
— In the council member's report, Len Coryea sounded off about the a leaky city garbage truck, and the amount of debris he saw being left on the ground near the dumpsters at the hospital and the high school.
"If you go to the school's dumpster area, to me its a health hazard," Coryea said. "If you go to the hospital, there's been broken glass laying in the parking lot where this dumpster is being dumped, it's crushing and dropping out.
"It's the truck leaking. It's got to be the truck," he said.
Garrett agreed, saying, "When [the trash truck] is compacted, that's when it really goes to town, and its usually right there on site."
"And for the next block," another council member said.
"It smells," Coryea added.
The mayor asked Garrett to have the trash truck looked at, to see if it might be broken.
"Trucks don't leak in other towns like that," Coryea said. "They don't drop crushed glass in piles."
— After some discussion, the council voted, 4-0, to pay an auto body repair bill for $656.24 to repair damage to a 2004 pickup owned by city worker Martin Rhodes.
Dalke explained to the council that Rhodes had used his own truck to jump-start the city's road grader earlier this summer, the grader lurched and struck the truck.
"Yes, he made a mistake by having the grader in gear or whatever, but he was working by himself, probably early in the morning, when nobody was around [to help him]." Dalke said. "Under the circumstances, I think it should be paid."
— The council approved the payment of vouchers in the amount of $300,307.87.
— The council met in executive session to discuss personnel issues, but took no action on the matter.
