Volume 2, number 11, November 2000 Firebreak The fire department saw a lot of activity the past month. On Sunday, October 8, the FNSB Animal Control held a Rabies Clinic at the Fire Station.Parking areas at the station and the Community Park were packed with vehicles, and the air filled witha crescendo of howls and barks, as mushers and dog owners from all over the area brought their dogs in for vaccination. One well known Ester resident walked through it all with his dog...in heat. During the clinic, the fire department responded to a motor vehicle accident on the Parks Highway at Sheep Creek Road. We would like to thank Animal Control, the mushers and thedog owners for their cooperation. No one parked in front of the front and back bay doors or on the right side of the building, leaving us room to move emergency vehicles out and respond efficiently. We responded on October 10, 11, and 12 to minor incidents including a school bus that was in trouble and blocking the Old Nenana Highway. The fire department took care of traffic control until the bus was able to proceed. On October 13, 16, 18, and 21 we responded to medical emergencies which included a man with a history of heart surgery who was experiencing serious chest pains, and a young woman with a possible miscarriage, both of whom were transported to the hospital by Chena Goldstream Fire & Rescue ambulance. On October 27, we responded to a request from Chena Goldstream for the aid of our tanker on a fire in a building adjoining the Pump House restaurant. On October 28 both Ester and Chena Goldstream responded, on very slick, icy roads, to a fatal accident on the Parks highway where a car slid out of control, sideways and at high speed, into the oncoming traffic lane, where it collided with a pickup truck. In the resulting T-bone accident, the passenger side door of the car was crumpled and pushed all the way through to the driver’s side.The driver of the car was pronounced dead on the scene. Both the driver and the passenger of the pickup truck wore seatbelts. They escaped with broken bones and minor injuries, and were transported to the hospital. The fire department would like to urge everyone to please wear your seat belts, drive slowly and be careful, as the roads are very slick and icy. Between October 28 and November 11 we responded to three other calls, including two medical emergencies at the North Star Center. We were also happy to host the November 7 elections in Ester, and to provide coffee, donuts, and popcorn to voters, as well as fire chief hats, pencils, and coloring books to junior voters.We would like to thank the local volunteer election staff for running such an efficient, clean election, for channeling the large turnout of voters so smoothly through the station, and for knowing how to count better than those folks down in Florida. The Christmas season is coming soon and the fire department would like to warn everyone to be careful with Christmas trees, which can be extremely flammable. Check the wires of your Christmas tree lights for bare wires and cracks in the insulation, don’t overload you circuits with too many lights, and always turn your Christmas tree lights off when you leave the house. When hanging outdoor lights, be sure to use a good ladder and have someone else there to help you. The station has a chimney brush available to use to keep the chimneys of your wood stoves clean. Creosote build-up can cause stack fires.We also make free, clear, reflective house number signs down at the station, that you can put up in front of your house, so that emergency vehicles can find it more easily. Now that Proposition 4 has been defeated and the financial uncertainty associated with it is gone, the Fire Board will be able to plan future directions for the department. The four new members elected at the annual meeting in September, Ritchie Musick, Paul Beals, George Reiley, and Cameron Wohlford (whose backgrounds were described in last month’s issue) will join the three other members already on the board, Jacque Debbaut, Margaret Rogers and Dale Bower. Jacque Debbaut, who is president of the board, was first elected about eight years ago. She says that she wanted to help out the community in the Ester area and emphasizes how important volunteering and community teamwork are.She first moved to Ester in 1986 with her husband John, who has been with the EVFD for about thirteen years and is now Deputy Chief.Jacque works at Mt. McKinley Bank. Margaret Rogers is secretary of the board, to which she was first elected in 1999. She is a registered nurse who first moved to Ester from Talkeetna in 1986.Margaret lives on Old Nenana Highway with her husband Jeff and her children Oliver and Stanley. She became interested in the Ester Volunteer Fire Department when they responded to her home to put out a stack fire. They poured water down the chimney and saved the house. She also remembers Fire Captain Cameron Wohlford letting her son Oliver sit in the fire truck and telling him which buttons to push. Oliver was thrilled. Margaret emphasizes how important it is to be involved in the community and how important the fire department is. She says that Ester is growing rapidly and that in the next few years it will be very important to meet the challenges of that growth. Dale Bower has been on the board for one year now, but he was first involved with the Ester Volunteer Fire Department in the 1970s, when it was first started as little more than a phone chain of people with fire extinguishers. Dale, whose background is strongly mechanical, spent a lot of time working on the first Ester Volunteer Fire Department fire trucks. He is a plant superintendent for Flowline Alaska, a pipeline insulation company. Dale believes that the future of the fire department is in recruitment and in getting a good core of capable volunteers. His son Will is a Lieutenant with the EVFD and also a paid firefighter with the University of Alaska Fire Department. Another of his sons, Trae, is an explorer with the department and will be a firefighter in a few months, when he is old enough. Fire Chief Richard Hagen and Assistant Fire Chief Jodi Brady, who have both been with the department for years, are providing a strong sense of continuity in leadership, and Fire Captains Cameron Wohlford and Kyle Carrington have been putting the department through an excellent training program this fall.We are doing full-scale, hands-on drills with Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, hose techniques, traffic control, equipment training, and drilling for many other rescue and fire scenarios. For example, a full-scale drill was staged a few weeks ago to simulate the rescue of an injured skier on a trail behind Roxie Road. Two teams hiked into the trail area at night, carrying medical equipment, a backboard and a stretcher. They found the injured skier (a fire department volunteer), splinted him up and carried him out.So if you think you might be interested in volunteering for the fire department, come on down to training any Tuesday night and see what we do. We’ll look forward to seeing you there. | ||
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