The Cheshire Fire Department in 1924

The Cheshire Fire Department in 2003

2003/2004

ANNUAL REPORT

Prepared and submitted by:

Jack Casner

Chief of Department©

I am happy to present to our members the Fire Department’s Annual Report for 2004. This Annual Report again illustrates the hard work, time and effort given to the citizens of Cheshire by you, the members. It describes the various tasks and roles in the Department, as well as providing statistics for the year. It is not the Department’s Annual Report to Council – while it contains much of the same information, the target audience for this report is you, our own membership.

Operations and Suppression

As a Department, we continue to be fortunate in having good facilities, great apparatus, good equipment and quality training. But our real strength is our members: your skill, energy and dedication are what make the Town of Cheshire Fire Department an efficient, effective department, providing an essential protective service to the community. Operationally, 2003/04 was a busy year for the Department, with emergency responses increasing to 873 Calls for service, which represents an 8% increase in total call volume. Some of the increases include a 46% increase in structure fires, 46% increase in electrical fires, 36% increase in “other” situation that include outside fires or events with minimal to no dollar loss. The demand on our interstates has increased and the severity and complexity of our extrications has also grown with the construction ongoing on I-84. The creation of a special hazards team to train and respond as a highly trained group of professionals will enhance our ability to provide effective and efficient rescue services to our customers, the residents of Cheshire. The graph below is an illustration of where the demands for service were last year:

This year was the busiest year in the history of the Cheshire Fire Department and with the trends over the past several years our members continue to maintain the large demands that is placed on them. Our response time has remained constant at 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 minutes. The number of firefighters that respond to our incidents has also remained constant as the chart below indicates

I am proud of the hard work all of the men and women of the Department, and of your ability to fulfill our mission to “Serve the Town of Cheshire by Protecting Life, Property and the Environment.” Well done once again!

The chart below shows what time of day we have gotten our calls over the last year

The number of incidents that we respond to continues to trend upward.The illustration below and the graph indicate where we rank this year as opposed to the last several years:

Responses by day of the week

fleet/facilities maintenance and purchasing

This year we have maintained our fleet of equipment and facilities under the direction of Assistant Chief Steve Casner. Our maintenance division has kept our fleet of equipment in excellent operating condition. The quality of our ladder, pump, and hose testing continues to result in and produce OSHA compliance results. Under the direction of A/C Casner our small equipment inventory and maintenance program is also at an all time quality high point. Steve and Director of Maintenance Ken Clark, and FF Jim Brinker, deserve the credit in the maintenance division. Our fleet continues to be ready for service and its maintenance in second to none. The purchasing that the department has done over the past fiscal year under the eye of A/C Casner has kept our compliment of equipment as new as possible and within the parameters of our operating budget. Some completed maintenance projects include:

• Replaced the overhead doors on fire headquarters (one twice!)
• Tank filling stations at station #3
• Over saw the repair of Engine #5 after its in house incident
• Repaired breathing apparatus compressor at Company #2
• Replaced leaf springs on Car #5 and Brush #1
• Rebuild the pump on Engine #6
• Replaced the Radiator on Truck #1
• Repair front pump packing on Engine #4
• Upgrading lighting on Truck #1
• Repaired/replaced several body panels and parts on several vehicles
• Repaired numerous nozzles, saws, gates, hand lights and other small tools in house

FLEET SUMMARY

UNIT		YEAR	MAKE	MODEL	HOUSED
Engine	1	2001	Pierce	Dash	HQ
Engine	2	1975	Maxim/Pierce	FFC7610C	HQ
Engine	3	1990	Pierce	Lance	Station #2
Engine	4	1992	Pierce	Lance	Station #2
Engine	5	2003	Pierce	Dash	HQ
Engine	6	1982	Pierce	Arrow	Station #3
Engine	7	2000	Pierce	Dash	Station #3
Rescue	1	2003	Pierce	Quantum	HQ
Rescue	2	1994	Pierce	Dash	Station #2
Truck	1	1970	Maxim/Pierce	F262SFFA	Station #3
Truck	2	1998	Pierce	Lance	HQ
Brush	1	1995	Ford	F350	HQ

Fire Marshal’s Office

The following report has been submitted by Fire Marshal Jeff Boland, Marshal Boland and his staff play an invaluable role in the operation of our department. The huge amount of time that the Deputy Fire Marshals spend tending to fire department business represents a large portion of their week. It is clear that without these members offering their service we would not be where we are today. Fire Marshal Jeff Boland is to be commended as a team player and as always working toward the mission of the Cheshire Fire Department.

The Fire Marshal’s Office successfully completed its Annual Goals for Life Safety through its Inspection/Enforcement/Prevention Program as revealed by the following Performance Indicators showing inspections completed by degree of life hazard. Additionally, the Fire Marshal’s off-hours inspections of public assembly buildings with liquor licenses were instituted with improved compliance achieved. The I-84 project required 180 blast site inspections at the same time that the goal to focus more attention on business and mercantile occupancies necessitated 192 such inspections, in addition to the priority inspections shown below:

Approximate # # Completed, Initial & Re-inspection

Multi-family Dwellings (3 & above)	78	78
Health Care Occupancies	4	16
Educational Occupancies	10	54
Day Care Occupancies	17	26
Board & Care	8	16
Hotels & Dormitories	7	14
Service Stations	14	18
Restaurant & Assembly	33	117

The Fiscal Year saw a continuing large number of new construction and renovation projects occur in town. All such projects, with the exception of one and two-family homes, require an intensive review of the construction plans to determine compliance with the State Fire Safety Code. Some 218 such reviews were conducted with each of them requiring at least one on-site inspection by staff. Additionally, all submissions to the Town’s Planning and Zoning Office require review as well, and some 232 of this type were also performed.

The Fire Marshal’s Office is mandated by statute to investigate and report to the State all incidents to which the Cheshire Fire Department responds. For FY 2003-2004, this totaled a record of 873 occurrences. There were no fatalities or serious fire injuries during this period though 17 significant structure fires resulted in over a million dollars in damages. All arson and criminal mischief incidents involving set or intentional fires resulted in arrests or referral to juvenile authorities, and usually to our own “Firehawk Program” for juvenile fire setters as well. It is also a stated mission of this Office to provide primary response for the Fire Department for all emergencies during business hours, the most vulnerable time. By doing so, public safety is enhanced by the immediate response to any and all calls for aid. During the past year, the two Deputy Marshals have staggered their individual working hours to provide increased daytime coverage to the town and the department.

The following statistical data reveals a full accounting of all activities (next page).

Year Ending Activity Report
	2003/2004
Fire Safety Code Inspections
Apartment Occupancies	78
Assembly Occupancies	117
Business Occupancies	106
Day Care Occupancies	26
Educational Occupancies	54
Health Care Occupancies	16
Hotels & Dormitory Occupancies	14
Industrial Occupancies	5
Mercantile Occupancies	86
Residential Board & Care Occupancies	16
Rooming & Lodging Occupancies	0
Special Structure Occupancies	11
Storage Occupancies	19
Code Inspection Research	818
Fire Incidents
Fire Alarm Reports	291
Fire Incident Reports	873
Fire Investigations	450
Insurance/Report Requests	65
Property Loss	$1,008,500
Permits Issued
Blasting & Fireworks Permits	30
Open Burning Permits	57
Other Inspections
Blasting & Fireworks Site Inspections	180
Flammable & Combustible Liquids Inspections	86
Hazardous Materials Vehicle Inspections	20
LPG & LNG Inspections	11
Open Burning Site Inspections	57
Service Station Inspections	18
Tent & Special Assembly Inspections	18
Specialized Inspections	274
Plan Review
Construction Plan Review	218
Planning & Zoning Review	232
Other Duties
Abatements	6
Administrative Activities	989
Career Development Training	42
Complaints / Q&A / Courtesy	1,182
Meetings / Conferences	320
Modifications	13

Fire Prevention Bureau

Under the direction of Adam Stern and Lieutenant Tom Baldwin as well as in conjunction with our fire marshals our fire prevention bureau has volunteered almost 1,000 hours to making Cheshire a safer place to live, work and grow up. The fire prevention bureau does a large amount of public education as well as pubic relations throughout the course of a year which include:

• 30 plus tours of fire stations and educational forums
• Attendance at the fall festival, and many other public events
• Attendance at private parties and gatherings to offer fire prevention information to children
• Attendance at many summer camps and day cares to send the message of fire safety
• Coordination and completion of the MADD extrication demonstration held annually at the Cheshire High School.
• Attendance at “touch a truck” and other similar venues
• Provide educational discussions to senior citizens
• Provide safe treats for residents on Halloween
• Provide a fire department open house semi-annually to residents

Training/firfighter health and safety

The training division under the direction of Assistant Chief Kozlowski and is administered by Drillmaster Adkins and FF Priscilla Pechman who continued their efforts in trying to keep our department trained and current to modern standards. We will continue to keep our training basic and diversified to keep interest levels up. In the coming year we will be focusing on OSHA compliance training and annual refreshers. There were several referrals to our EAP program, demonstrating that YOU the members are our primary resource and the chiefs will do whatever we can to maintain your health.

Our membership additions and changes were as follows:

· 3 Juniors were added

· 8 Recruits were added

· 6 Regular members added

· 3 Members were granted life membership

The following certifications were attained at the state level this year:

· 3 Firefighter level I’s (with 5 currently in this class)

· 1 Firefighter level II

· 2 Fire Officer I’s

· 28 Members took the Hurst Rescue class given by Hurst

· 2 New pump operators

· 3 New brush truck operators were trained

· 5 Members attend a 5-day specialized heavy rescue class

Our annual physicals and compliance with NFPA standards have also been improved. This year we conducted 65 physicals. Both bloodbourne pathogen and Haz/Mat Operations refreshers were well attended. Monthly drills were offered and