2009 Forest Grove Fire & Rescue Awards

It may seem funny that here we are a quarter of the way through 2010 and we at FGF&R are still thinking about 2009, but that's exactly what we did last Saturday at our Awards and Recognition Banquet. This event is held each spring to look back on the previous year to not only reward our staff and volunteers for a job well done, but recognize the sacrifices that our families make when we do our jobs.

C Shift Firefighter Brad Shinpaugh was selected by the staff and volunteers as the 2009 Rookie of the Year. Brad is highly regarded because of his easy going attitude and friendly personality. Brad coordinates our Community Emergency Response Team, which is a program that trains community neighbors on how to handle a major emergency or natural disaster. In 2009 Brad also worked to set up the "Fill the Boot" fundraiser that the International Association of Firefighters does every year with the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Volunteer Firefighter Ben Langbehn was recognized as the Volunteer Firefighter of the Year because as Fire Chief Michael Kinkade put it "When you consider what this young man did in 2009, attending paramedic school, completing his required clinical rotations and ambulance hours, working multiple part time jobs, and still making over 100 calls with us; he basically worked the equivalent of three full time jobs." Ben was one of our first high school Cadet Firefighters in 2001, worked his way through the Fire Science Program at PCC, and wrapped up the Paramedic Program at Chemekta Community College last fall, all the while he has remained dedicated to his hometown fire department. In 2009 he was one of our top volunteer responders, attended almost all public education events, and extra activities, and helped with our Christmas Toy Drive. Last month all of the years of hard work paid off for Ben as he was hired by the West Valley Fire District near Willamina, Oregon. Ben remains committed to Forest Grove and will still reside here and volunteer with FGF&R however, where he will be one of three volunteer paramedics.

Matt Rawls, Ben Langbehn, and Brad Shinpaugh with their awards after the banquet

Matt Rawls was not only the Master of Ceremonies for our banquet but he also received the Career Firefighter of the Year award. Our Career awards are voted on by the volunteers in our agency, and Matt was selected because of the support that he offers our volunteers. Matt works closely with our intern firefighters, providing them with support and guidance as they work through their fire and paramedic programs at the community colleges. He is regarded as one of the most enjoyable people to be around, and very rarely has a bad day. Matt and Ben have quite a few things in common, both were in our first Cadet class in 2001, each of them received their Paramedic training at Chemeketa Community College, and they both have worked for the West Valley Fire District. We hired Matt in 2008 and he is currently assigned to our C Shift as one of our Firefighter Paramedics.

It's a bit odd to write this next paragraph, as I was lucky enough to be honored as the Career Fire Officer of the Year, so bear with me as I speak in the third person. Fire Inspector David Nemeyer was presented with the Career Officer of the Year award because of his service to the extra projects that make FGF&R successful. David leads the High School Cadet Program, manages the day to day operations of our Fire Prevention Division, started our social media campaign, and in 2009 coordinated the Christmas Toy Drive Program that we do with the firefighters from Cornelius Fire & Rescue which provided over 1,000 local children with a new toy last holiday season.

Dexter Danielson may not put on the turnouts and fight the fires that we do, but he provides an often times overlooked but always appreciated service to our community. Dexter is our Chaplain, and with a rash of very serious calls in our area in 2009 Dexter was an invaluable part of our organization. While we work to solve the emergency at hand, Dexter works with the families and those affected. He offers our neighbors guidance and support, and when the emergency is over he supports the firefighters who deal with things that are often unimaginable. What's more he does it all out of his own kindness and desire to help others. The former Washington County Sheriff Deputy is highly regarded by our staff and was selected as our 2009 Volunteer Fire Officer of the Year.

Fire Chief Michael Kinkade (Left) presents Chaplain Dexter Danielson with the Volunteer Fire Officer of the Year Award

Finally the prestigious Fire Chief's award was presented to A Shift Firefighter Geoff McFarland. Geoff is one of the most outgoing and ambitious members of our entire department. In 2009 Geoff made a significant impact in the safety of our community when he coordinated our first ever car seat safety clinics. Geoff works closely with the Oregon Safe Kids to provide this invaluable service once a month in our city. As important and daunting this task may be, Geoff doesn't stop there. In 2009 Geoff and his wife Nicole organized our summer co-ed softball league, and with the help of their family also set up our annual awards banquet.

Congratulations to all of the award winners and our heartfelt appreciation to the families and loved ones that we all too often leave at home when we respond on emergencies.

Ventilation on a real fire

Our blog post this week (see the next post below) covers why we cut holes in the roof of a burning building. In the post we showed you pictures of one of our crews training on how to do this properly and safely. The building they were using was not on fire, it was donated us before it is demolished to make room for a new city park. Buildings on fire bring with them a completely different set of variables that we can't easily simulate with our typical donated structures.

In May of 2008 we responded to this fire in the Quail Run neighborhood of Forest Grove. When our crews arrived they found the fire burning under the home, but it quickly spread inside a wall into the void space between the ceiling and the roof. Ironically, Firefighter Ted Penge is not only one of the firefighters in the training photos, but he is also one of the firefighters in this photo from 2008 that was taken immediately after his crew finished cutting a ventilation hole in the roof of the burning manufactured home. As you can tell, the conditions during the real thing are quite a bit different then those during last week's practice. We thought that we would share this to show what a ventilation operation on a real fire looks like. To read this week's blog post detailing why we do this, please continue to read the next post below.

Ventilation Training

Firefighters recognize that the most dangerous part of a fire is not the flames, instead it is the smoke and super heated toxic gasses that the fire produces. More often then not, those who die in a house fire tragically do so because of the suffocating smoke. Beyond the risk for those still trapped inside a burning building, the heated gasses that a fire produces will also cause damage to the building and the items inside as they spread across the structure. That's why we work to remove these dangerous byproducts of combustion as soon as we can. We do this through a practice that we call ventilation.

Our goal in ventilating a building is to remove the toxic superheated gasses and smoke and replace them with cooler fresh air, we can do this in a variety of ways depending on where the fire is burning. If a fire is limited to inside a bedroom we can open a window and place a powerful fan to blow fresh air in through a door way on the opposite side of the house; this allows us to not only remove the toxic atmosphere but it also enables us to control the spread of the fire by pushing it out through the window to the exterior of the home. Once the fire gets into an attic space however our work gets a little more difficult. That scenario is what C Shift at Station 4 practiced last week when they worked on roof cuts at a donated building on 26th Avenue.

To perform this task we start by setting up ground ladders so that we can get on the roof of a building. We then use a special ladder called a "roof ladder" that has hooks on the tip of it so that they secure the ladder to the roof peak and allow us a safe platform to work from. Once there we work with power tools, axes, and long poles to cut a 4' x 4' hole (10' x 10' in commercial structures like apartments, manufacturing facilities, etc.) in the roof above the room where the fire is burning. We carefully cut through the roofing material and plywood sheeting and we work hard to make sure that we do not cut through the rafters or trusses of the roof structure. Cutting through a load bearing part of the roof can weaken the entire roof structure which could be deadly for us. It also makes it more difficult and costly for the homeowner to repair the damage after the fire is out if one of these structural members is damaged.

If you are standing on the street watching us ventilate a roof on a real house fire you may think that we are creating more damage then we are saving. The smoke that was coming from the eaves will begin to burn as it comes out of the ventilation hole. Believe it or not this is all part of the process to extinguish the fire, and actually causes less damage then if we didn't cut the roof. By working this way we create a chimney effect that will make the fire go where we want it to go, and prevent it from spreading across the rest of the home. This chimney effect also allows fresh air to rush in and replace the dirty toxic gasses so that we can quickly get inside the home and find the fire or any trapped victims.

Window Safety Week

As we noticed in the last month we went from sunny spring like weather to rainy downpours, to a little snow in the higher elevations. The weather in NW Oregon is unpredictable at best. Yet soon enough the sunshine will return and when it does we'll be opening our windows more, seems safe enough? Not always, this week is National Window Safety Week . It may seem like there is a week for just about every safety topic, but the risk is very real for the little ones in our homes when it comes to falling from upstairs windows.

There are literally hundreds of news articles online from across the nation that talk about a child falling from a window. These accidents can happen so quickly and often times, result in serious injuries or sadly, death. So as I look out my office window this morning and see dark clouds rolling across the coast range and wet pavement on Ash Street I cant help but think that, believe it or not, now before spring returns is the right time to check the windows in the family home. If you have little kids that live in your home, or even if you occasionally have them over (grandparents, relatives, or those who babysit) we offer these tips to help you:

• Avoid placing furniture near windows, this will prevent kids from climbing to within reach of the window.
• Never think that an insect screen will prevent a window fall. Screens are easily pushed out by little hands or the weight of the child leaning against the screen.
• Talk to your kids, make sure they know there are strict rules about playing near windows.
• Install building code compliant devices designed to limit how far a window will open or window guards with release devices to help prevent a fall.
• Teach your children the proper way to use a window and how to escape the home in an emergency.

You can get window safety devices at hardware and home improvement stores, and from a number of online retailers. Typically they are relatively inexpensive, as well as easy to install. None of us want to see a child hurt, simple actions today can help you avoid the unthinkable tragedy that comes with a window fall accident.

What is that fire engine doing in my town?

Two weeks ago we were dispatched along with other Washington County fire agencies to a third alarm barn fire in rural Newberg. As we always do we posted a message on our Twitter page that we were responding to the fire, which drew a reply from one of our Twitter followers commenting that Newberg was "pretty far" for us to respond to. In addition this comment, one of the more common questions we hear is "why was a Cornelius engine in town last night?" The quick answer is because we have what are called "Mutual Aid Agreements". For us that makes sense, but what does that term really mean to our community?

The view from inside one of Newberg's emergency vehicles as they responded to the fire on March 20

Forest Grove Fire & Rescue (as well as every other fire department in the metro area) has what we call mutual aid agreements with our neighboring fire agencies. The same can be said at the County level where the Washington County Fire Defense Board (a group that represents regionally and state wide all of the fire departments in our county) maintains mutual aid agreements with other counties. What these mutual aid agreements do for us is let firefighters cross those invisible lines that we call district borders all in an effort to support each other when needed to safely solve the emergencies that arise.

When a large fire, such as the one on March 20th in Newberg, occurs it can be very difficult for a single fire department to handle on their own. As you can see in the photos, this fire was not something that a single fire engine with 750 gallons of water was going to be able to control on their own. On fires we respond with what is called a "Box", each box is one square mile on a map of the region, and a typical fire will start out with what we call a 1st Alarm Box Assignment. Basically an alarm is a preassigned number of fire engines, a chief officer, a rescue, and depending on if the call is in the city or a rural area it will either have a ladder truck or a water tender. Each greater alarm just brings in a similar amount of equipment. With the Newberg incident the fire went to a 3rd alarm with numerous fire engines, water tenders (because it was in a rural area that did not have nearby fire hydrants to support the engines), and the like responding to the call.

A closer scene view of the 3rd alarm barn fire in Newberg on March 20 shows what the first firefighters to arrive were up against. Barns can be thousands of square feet and filled with heavy loads of combustibles that require dozens of firefighters and tens of thousands of gallons of water to extinguish.

In Forest Grove our mutual aid agencies will be dependant on the type of call and the location where it is occurring. In the city if a 1st alarm structure fire happened right now we would get the bulk of the equipment from our Station 4, but an engine from Cornelius (station 8) would also respond. If a car crashes on NW Highway 47 near the community of Roy we would send an engine and a rescue, and Banks would send down an engine to assist as well. It goes both ways, on Thursday of last week when two boys capsized their sailboat at Hagg Lake; Gaston responded as the lead agency, but we responded with our boat, as did Newberg with their boat and dive team, in addition to surface water rescue teams from both Hillsboro and TVFR. This is all coordinated through an automated system at our dispatch center in Tanasbourne that recognizes the type of call, and depending on the request from the incident commander what type of unit is appropriate and based on availability, where to dispatch the next units from.

On much larger incidents we can even be sent across the state. Last summer we were part of a contingent of Washington County Fire Departments that sent equipment and firefighters to the "Microwave Fire" near The Dalles. In recent history our most distant response was sending a 3,000 gallon water tender to help protect structures threatened by a wildfire that was burning around Halfway in north east Oregon. More locally, in the summer of 1999 a large wildfire was burning in a logged area near Gaston that required a 4th alarm assignment. When we returned that evening we were greeted at our station by a crew from Lake Oswego who had been dispatched to cover our city while we worked at the fire scene.

All of this has been worked through over the years, tested, and improved upon as needed. Part of this cooperative effort has expanded; so that we are all able to work together more seamlessly we start from the ground up. Twice a year, new volunteer firefighters from every single fire agency in Washington County attend a joint training academy. New recruits travel from fire station to fire station each weekend where every department has split the curriculum so that the recruits learn different topics from each fire agency. This training and overall familiarity with not only the people in the fire departments but the overall standardized practices make it that much easier to work together on an emergency scene. We're extremely fortunate to have this cooperation, there are parts of the country where pride and politics don't allow for such easy assistance from neighboring fire districts. This is just one of many ways that we work to find creative solutions to solve the emergencies that we are dispatched to.

Busy week for our rescue boat

Spring Break 2010 has been a busy week for our rescue boat. On Monday our crews responded to Dorman's Pond, a small but popular fishing spot a few miles west of Gales Creek, to a report of a man that had fallen into the water from a small raft. Sadly, after searching the water for 30 minutes our crews recovered the man's body from the murky water. Today we were dispatched with Gaston Fire to Henry Hagg Lake south of Forest Grove after a sailboat was spotted capsized in the lake. By the time that our crews arrived the two teenage boys who were in the boat had managed to safely reach the shore, but needless to say were wet, very cold, and extremely lucky to be alive.

Crews from FGF&R Boat 4 search for the missing fisherman at Dorman's Pond on Monday

In each incident the people involved were not wearing life jackets. Today's incident could have brought a tragic end to what has already started out to be a dangerous and deadly spring break for those on the water in Western Washington County.

There is no excuse not to wear a life jacket, in Oregon (according to the State Marine Board) 90% of all drowning victims would have survived had they been wearing a life jacket. We talked about this a few weeks ago when we had a blog post about, ironically, Hagg Lake boating safety. So once more here are some detailed tips on finding the proper life jacket and how to take care of it once you do have one.

1. First off, it's the law in Oregon that all children under 12 wear a life jacket while in the boat. In fact you cant even operate your boat if those under 12 don't have a coast guard approved life jacket on. But lets take this a step farther, parents and older kids should have them on too. Swimming around the back yard pool is one thing, but could you survive the 300+ yard swim across the lake if you fell in?

2. Does the life jacket fit you properly? We found this information on the State of Oregon Marine Board's website about proper life jacket fitting:

"Use the "touchdown test" to check if a life jacket fits. With the jacket on, raise your arms as though signaling a touchdown. If when looking to the left, right and over the shoulder, the chest part of the jacket doesn't hit the chin, the device probably fits. A good test for children is to have a child stand normally, arms at sides. Grab the life jacket at the shoulders and firmly lift up. If you can move the life jacket more than three inches up and down the child's body, it doesn't fit. A life jacket that doesn't fit could endanger the wearer as much as not wearing one. Check the PFD label for restrictions and limitations on its use and performance type."

3. Check your life jacket annually. Is it free of damage, including rips, tears, sunlight and UV damage? Will it even float? Throw it in the water and make sure that it will float, or better yet in a shallow pool test it out yourself. If it doesn't float, can't float you, or is damaged, replace it; don't even try and use it as a spare. The lives of those in your boat depend on this life jacket, now is not the time to be cheap. Remember the statistic, 90% of those who drowned in Oregon would have survived if they were wearing a properly fitting life jacket.

Those seem like simple steps, but no one ever plans to capsize their boat, or worse yet drown in the lake that 15 minutes before they were enjoying fishing at. These water emergencies happen so fast and often times so far away from where help can get to you quickly, it is up to you to be responsible before hitting the water. Two times in one week is enough for us, please be careful out there.

Spring Break Bike Riding

What are your plans for spring break? Maybe a family camping trip to nearby Stub Stewart State Park, or a day trip over the Wilson River Highway to the Tillamook Cheese Factory is in store for you this year; but what if you can't get away? Forest Grove Schools will be out starting Thursday of this week and spring break will continue until school resumes on Monday, March 29th. During that time we expect to see more and more kids on their bicycles riding to destinations all over the community. Parents, before your kids hit the bike lanes help them out and talk to them about bike safety.

Perhaps the most important life saving tool your kids can wear is a properly fitting bike helmet. This video from Safe Kids USA will help you understand how to ensure that their head is protected from injury. We have responded to dozens of bicycle crashes in the last few years and these helmets really do save lives as well as prevent serious injuries.

A bike helmet only helps in a crash, so what else can you do to make sure that the crash doesn't happen in the first place? Start by checking out the bike, are the tires inflated properly? What about reflectors, are they visible on all sides of the bicycle? If not reflective stickers can be found at local bicycle shops to help make the bike more visible at night or in low light. Finally take a second and make sure that all of the moving parts are in good condition. The chain is lubricated, the brakes actually will stop the bicycle, and all of the nuts and bolts are still tight.

Lastly talk to your kids, know where they are riding, who they are riding with and when they will be expected to return. Have a conversation with them about the rules of the road and be sure they understand where they can and can't ride their bicycles. If you have areas where you don't want them to ride (like busy streets, rural roads, etc.) explain to them why. Kids will be kids, most of us (especially the boys) tried all kinds of crazy stunts with our bikes in our youth and we would be foolish parents to expect that our kids wouldn't try and do the same things. At the same time taking a few minutes to check out those bikes that have been sitting in the garage all winter, and having a simple chat can make a difference preventing an accident or decreasing the chance of injury if an accident does occur.

So whether your travelling or staying home next week from all of us at FGF&R, have a safe spring break.