Official blog of the Orland Fire Protection District President & Board reflecting news, information, clarifications to news media stories and links.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Santa Arrives at the Orland Fire Protection District & Support the Keep the Wreath Red Campaign
Santa Arrives at the Orland Fire Protection District
Saturday, December 10, 2011, 10 a.m. – Noon, Orland Administration Building, 9790 W. 151st St.
Donations of toys or pet supplies from our wish list will be accepted.
Don’t Forget to bring your camera if you want to get your picture taken with Santa!**
ALSO, support the Keep the Wreath Red Campaign
Keep the Wreath Red has become an annual event with the Orland Fire District. The program is designed to focus an awareness of safety while decorating our homes for the holidays.
How the program works is each fire station places a wreath on the front of their building and lights it with a string of red lights. The wreaths remain lit twenty-four hours a day throughout the holiday season. Whenever a fire occurs that is a result of holiday decorations, a white bulb replaces a red bulb on the wreath. This serves as a constant reminder to practice safety while installing and displaying holiday decorations.
Visit our website for more information on the Holiday Drive and the Wish List at www.OrlandFire.org.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Profile: OFPD Engineer Matt Burke
Matt Burke, 43, never realized that he was a part of a family of firefighters when he was younger. But when he turned 18, something inside of him pushed him to want to make firefighting as he career choice.
Burke studied at Moraine Valley Community College when he became a paid-on-call firefighter.
“When I was hired, my mother was so proud and she started to tell me about all of the relatives and cousins in our family who were firefighters, too,” Burke recalled.
“I kind of knew that but it really didn’t hit me until I actually put on the uniform how important the decision was that I had made in my life.”
Burke said he doesn’t regret the choice at all.
“Being a firefighter looked like an exciting career. I wanted to help people. It was always inside me and I really enjoy the challenge,” Burke said.
Burke left the North Palos Fire District after two years and joined the Palos Fire District where he spent 10 years in uniform. While working part-time at Palos, he started testing for full-time firefighter/paramedic positions. After many tests, he was hired by Chicago Ridge Fire Department. Less than two years later, he received a call from the Orland Fire Protection District that he was part of the next hiring list. He then became a full-time employee with them. During the first year, he also joined the Evergreen Fire Department as a part-time firefighter/paramedic.
“I did most of my major training and received some of my certifications and education at the Palos Fire District. I completed the rest of my certifications at Orland Fire District,” Burke said, noting it is not easy to become a firefighter.
“It really is about training and education. I tested at all of the fire departments that I worked at and received a lot of hands-on training. It’s very competitive. We’re constantly training. I just came back from a training session today on dealing with cardiac issues.”
Firefighters are tested for mental aptitude, physical agility and psychological stamina. And after completing this testing he was hired in May of 1994 by the Orland Fire Protection District.
Most firefighters are cross trained as paramedics. It’s common in the suburbs and it’s especially true here in the Orland Fire Protection District. I trained to be a paramedic while at Palos Fire District and graduated in June of 1990.
As a firefighter, Burke says he faces many challenges in the day-to-day routine of fighting fires, responding to trauma calls and all kinds of emergencies.
Even when he is off-duty, Burke says, he is prepared for anything.
“Last May, my wife and I were coming home from a vacation on Southwest Airlines. We were about an hour in to the return trip when the flight attendants announced on the intercom on the plane asking for anyone with medical training,” Burke recalled.
“They asked if anyone was a doctor or had medical training to put their call light on. I put mine on and then got up from my seat and walked toward the part of the plane where the flight attendants were gathered around the passenger.”
Apparently, a woman who worked at the Aurora Fire Department had fainted. Her pulse was barely noticeable, Burke remembered.
“She was sweating profusely and she was white as a sheet. We didn’t know what happened,” Burke said. “She looked in trouble.”
Burke said his paramedic training immediately kicked in. The flight attendants got a doctor on the airplane headset and Burke described who he was and his training. He advised that the passenger needed an IV and the doctor agreed.
“We picked her up and laid her across three seats with her feet elevated to get her blood circulating through her body,” Burke said. “I then started the IV. You could barely feel her pulse. We were concerned. But she was revived and we sat with her and spoke with her for the remaining part of the trip.”
Burke said the plane landed at Midway Airport about two hours later and she was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where she was treated.
“I always wondered how she was,” Burke said. “She was very grateful that we could help her.”
Burke says that the additional training he received helped prepare him to respond to any emergency he encounters, either at work, at home or while traveling.
Nearly all of the Orland Fire Protection District firefighters are trained as paramedics, he said.
“I’m always ready to help to someone in need. You have to be as a firefighter,” Burke said.
Burke currently holds the rank of engineer. He is the driver for Truck Four, the Ladder. His wife is Heather and they have three children, Reilly Lynn, 13, Quinn, 10, and Morgan, 9.
End
Friday, October 7, 2011
What will you do to protect your family from fire during Fire Prevention week this year?
What
will you do to protect your family from fire during Fire Prevention week this
year?
By
Raymond Kay
Acting
Chief, Orland Fire Protection District
Bringing
special public attention to protecting lives and property from the dangers of
fire has been a national campaign since 1920 in the United States called Fire
Prevention Week which this year begins October 9 through Oct. 15.
Fire
prevention week originated in 1922 and is always scheduled for the week that
includes October 9th. In 1871 on October 8th the
Great Chicago Fire was started. The fire burned for some period of time
but the most significant damage took place on October 9th.
This conflagration killed more than 250 people, left approximately 100,000
people homeless, destroyed over 17,000 structures and burned more than 2,000
acres. This tragic fire became the driving force behind the Fire
Prevention Week initiative.
The
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) fire prevention theme this year,
Protect Your Family From Fire, speaks to three recent close calls. On
three different days over the course of the last three months families narrowly
escaped from the dangers of fire.
In
July, seven residents, adults and children alike were startled from their sleep
well after midnight by several good Samaritans who saw that the attached garage
was well involved in fire. The strangers along with several Orland Park
Police officers woke the residents and helped them to safety. The fire in
this case was only minutes away from spreading into the children’s bedroom when
they escaped.
On
a beautiful August Saturday, just after 12 pm, a fire erupts in the garage of a
four unit townhouse. The resident is awake and moving about in a
seemingly normal day. The fire moves so quickly that he escapes with only
the clothes on his back. Two of the four attached units are damaged by
the fire. Most importantly, nobody was injured from the smoke and flames.
It
is Patriot Day, September 11, the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks
upon our country. In between a number of memorial services, 8:30 in the
morning fire strikes in the basement of another townhouse, the family is still
asleep. An adult smells smoke, realizes that the house is on fire, calls
911 for help and wakes other adults and the children guiding them out of the
burning structure. Luckily, there are no injuries. In this case,
there are no working smoke detectors.
Three
groups of people were fortunate this summer; they all experienced a close call
narrowly avoiding injury or death from smoke and fire. The incidents
shared here all took place at different times of day. Some residents were
fast asleep and others wide awake. The fires started in different parts
of the home.
Luckily
the only common thread among these fires is that nobody was injured. All
of these fires could have had very different, tragic outcomes.
Fire
can strike at any time. You have the opportunity to prevent fires,
quickly detect smoke or fire and the ability plan your escape. Use
resources like the Orland Fire Protection District website (www.orlandfire.org) or the NFPA website (www.nfpa.org) to learn more about:
-
A
Family Fire Safety Checklist – where adults and kids can play a role in your
home’s fire safety
-
Smoke
Detectors – Change your batteries twice per year
-
Practice
your escape plane – Exercise your plan with the whole family twice each year
Happily,
the fires from this summer did not result in any injuries. Visit the
websites provided, download your free information and please take the advice of
the NFPA - Protect Your Family From Fire.
END
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Orland Fire Protection District Budget opened to public for first time
Orland Fire Protection District Budget process opened to public for first time
OFPD – For the first time in its 42 year official history,
the Orland Fire Protection District opened its budget deliberations to the public and began a
line-by-line review of district spending.
OFPD President Jim Hickey and Acting Fire Chief Raymond Kay
led the first of three public hearings with board members who attended the
meeting Blair Rhode, Chris Evoy and Glenn Michalek.
Hickey said the new process is designed so that interested
taxpayers can understand what has been a very complicated budget process in the
past.
“We have divided the budget into three parts. Essential
spending, spending that is important and spending that is considered beneficial
but not always essential to the operation of the Fire District,” Hickey said.
“We have placed district services and spending in each
category so that we can ensure that we preserve and protect the high quality of
service that the taxpayers are paying for, and to find ways to trim the budget
to make it more in line with the challenges of today’s economy and with the
spending reflected by other public fire agencies. Our spending is way up there
and there is a false notion that spending and quality service are linked.”
Hickey said the OFPD has some of the best trained
firefighters in the country, but he said that the past budgets have reflected
an attitude that went “way beyond” reason and resulted in excessive spending
that in reality didn’t always make a difference in terms of fire quality.
“On Tuesday (Oct. 4) we went through the first part of the
budget reviewing eight areas of service, examining the spending needs
line-by-line. It was a fascinating process to review what we are doing and how
we can do it better and also more efficiently and cost-effectively,” Hickey
said.
Hickey said department heads are being asked to bring their
budget needs to the board for review, categorizing them in three areas of need
from the most important to those that can be more carefully managed.
“The taxpayers are demanding that we look at spending at the
fire district,” said Rhode. “The taxes for the fire district are the highest
after spending for the local school districts. As a government agency, we have
a responsibility to the public not just to give them the best fire protection
services but to do so in the most cost-effective manner with an eye towards
protecting the hard-earned dollars that they put in to our government.”
Hickey said that the district will hold two more budget
meetings on Tuesday Oct. 11 and Tuesday Oct. 18, both beginning at 5 pm. The
district’s regularly scheduled board meeting is Tuesday Oct. 25, also at 5 pm.
Since the new board was sworn in, the district has saved
more than $1 million, mainly through personnel changes and cutbacks in costs
from reducing media consulting costs by $12,000 to reducing some non-essential
services.
Evoy said that he is hopeful that the District’s new
Springfield Lobbyist will help identify funding sources that will be used to
help cover costs that now come from taxpayer pockets. The District’s lobbyist
in Springfield is Cheryl Axley who was hired in June. Axley joins consultant
Cindy Katsenes who is working for the district pro bono and is looking at ways
to better manage the district's personnel budget and assignments.
Hickey said that he is hopeful the district could qualify
for grants as much as $500,000 to off-set spending for next year’s budget.
“Our goal is to return money to the taxpayers who continue
to do their part by supporting this district,” Hickey said. “We need to do our
part.”
Kay said that the previous budget process included the submittal
of a request by those who administer the budget, followed by administrative
reduction.
“In the past, the budget preparers did not realize what
their budget contained until they saw it again in January when it was
distributed,” Kay said.
“This year, after reviewing the sum of all proposals, budget
preparers were asked to revisit their budgets with the task of reducing their
requests. As a result of this activity, 1 million dollars were
collectively reduced across all budget submittals.”
Each of the budget preparers now have an idea of which
components are more critical or not and make adjustments accordingly. Kay
added the preparers are involved in decision-making.
“Each of these people have more of a sense of engagement in
their particular areas,” Kay said. “They also understand that this may not
be the final action on their budget because they are looking at only a segment
of the whole and do not have the opportunity to see the big picture. I
expect that the Board of Trustees will further address these requests to
determine a final budget.”
The Orland district area was served by a volunteer fire
force that began sometime in 1894, but the District was officially founded in 1973.
end
Monday, September 26, 2011
It’s Fire Prevention Week. Protect your Family from Fire! Orland Fire Protection District Encourages Residents to Keep their Homes Safe During Fire Prevention Week, October 9-15, 2011
For
more information, contact:
Nancy Mulvihill/Public Educator
708-873-2742
n.mulvihill@orlandfire.org
Nancy Mulvihill/Public Educator
708-873-2742
n.mulvihill@orlandfire.org
It’s Fire
Prevention Week. Protect your Family from Fire!
Orland
Fire Protection District Encourages Residents to Keep their Homes Safe
During
Fire Prevention Week, October 9-15, 2011
October 8, 2011 -- What’s the best way to protect your family from fire? Be ahead of the game, of course. With more than 360,000 home fires reported in the
“In 2009, 2,565 people died in home fires. Nearly all of these deaths could have been prevented by taking a few simple precautions like having working smoke alarms and a home fire escape plan, keeping things that can burn away from the stove and always turning off space heaters before going to bed,” says Acting Chief
The Orland Fire Protection District offers the following tips for protecting your home and family from fire:
- Stay in the
kitchen while you are frying, grilling, or broiling food. If you leave the
kitchen for even a short period of time, turn off the stove.
- Keep anything
that can burn at least three feet away from heating equipment, like the
furnace, fireplace, wood stove, or portable space heater.
- Have a
three-foot “kid-free zone” around open fires and space heaters.
- Replace or
repair damaged or loose electrical cords.
- If you smoke,
smoke outside.
- Use deep, wide
ashtrays on a sturdy table.
- Blow out all
candles when you leave the room or go to bed. Avoid the use of candles in
the bedroom and other areas where people may fall asleep.
“While preventing home fires in the Orland Fire District is always
our number one priority, it is not always possible,” Acting Chief Kay continued.
Orland Park and Orland Hills residents need to
provide the best protection to keep their homes and families safe in the event
of a fire. This can be achieved by developing an escape plan which you practice
regularly and equipping homes with life-saving technologies like smoke alarms
and home fire sprinklers.”
The following tips will help keep your family safe if there is a fire in your home:
The following tips will help keep your family safe if there is a fire in your home:
- Install smoke
alarms inside each bedroom, outside each sleeping area, and on every level
of the home (including the basement).
- Interconnect all
smoke alarms in the home so when one sounds, they all sound.
- Test smoke
alarms at least monthly and replace all smoke alarms when they are 10
years old or sooner if they do not respond when tested.
- Make sure
everyone in your home knows how to respond if the smoke alarm sounds.
- Pull together
everyone in your household and make a plan. Walk through your home and
inspect all possible ways out. Households with children should
consider drawing a floor plan of your home, marking two ways out of each
room, including windows and doors.
- If you are
building or remodeling your home, consider installing home fire
sprinklers.
The Orland Fire Protection District will be hosting an Open House
on October 8th during Fire Prevention Week to promote “It’s Fire Prevention
Week. Protect your Family from Fire!” Through these educational,
family-oriented activities, residents can learn more about the power of
prevention and available technologies to protect their own families from fire. Also, during our open house we will be
celebrating Sparky’s 60th Birthday, all kids that bring in a blanket
or dog food to be donated to an animal shelter will get their picture taken
with Sparky. (Pictures will be emailed to the family). Stop by for “Touch a Truck” and see all the
Fire District’s Equipment including the Dive Squad. We will also be doing auto extrication and a
live fire/sprinkler demonstration.
Also this year we will be hosting our Annual Coloring Contest
Awards Ceremony at 12:30 p.m. All finalists will be on display for everyone to
see.
To find out more about Fire Prevention Week programs and activities in the Orland Fire Protection District, please contact Nancy Mulvihill at 708-873-2742 or visit our website at: www.orlandfire..org for more information about the Open House or any other event going on in the community. To learn more about “It’s Fire Prevention Week. Protect your Family from Fire!” visit NFPA’s Web site at www.firepreventionweek.org.
To find out more about Fire Prevention Week programs and activities in the Orland Fire Protection District, please contact Nancy Mulvihill at 708-873-2742 or visit our website at: www.orlandfire..org for more information about the Open House or any other event going on in the community. To learn more about “It’s Fire Prevention Week. Protect your Family from Fire!” visit NFPA’s Web site at www.firepreventionweek.org.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
OFPD responds to house fire
The Orland Fire Protection District responded to a reported structure fire in the 11300 block of Poplar Creek Lane at about 5:15 Friday (August 12) afternoon. Initial companies found heavy smoke conditions from the rear of the roof. The fire was found on the external part of the wooden shingle roof. The fire was extinguished quickly as a result of our rapid response to the incident. The potential existed to burn the entire wooden shingle roof.
Crews checked for fire extension inside of the home and in the attic space. The fire never penetrated the plywood decking of the roof structure, keeping the fire out of the living areas of the home.
There were no injuries during the incident. Crews responded quickly and had the fire under control in a matter of a few minutes. Embers from an open fire in the back yard is likely the cause of the fire.
Crews checked for potential hidden fire in the attic by creating a small inspection hole in the ceiling of the second floor bathroom. Care was taken to protect the personal belongings of the homeowner as fire extension was being evaluated.
(Photos courtesy of the OFPD and may be reproduced with attribution by news media.)
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Orland Fire Protection District recognizes fast action by citizens and police officials
Orland Fire Protection District recognizes fast action by citizens and police officials
Actions helped save lives
The Orland Fire Protection District recognized five civilians and three members of the Orland Police Department for their quick actions that in each case helped to save lives and minimize the risk of danger.
OFPD Acting Chief Raymond Kay presented Certificates of Merit and Recognition to the eight recipients at District's regularly scheduled board meeting Tuesday July 26.
Seven of the recipients played key roles in helping respond to a fire that started in the attached garage of a home at Clearview and Terry Drive in Orland Park in the early morning hours following Fourth of July celebrations.
Kay presented certificates to Mohammad Rahman and to his two nephews, Nijem and Hatim Abderrhahman.
"Mohammed, Nijem and Hatim were driving by around 1 am returning from work when they saw the fire in the garage and immediately called 911 and pounded on the door to awaken the family," Kay said.
The family of seven, including four children, were fast asleep in the home. Kay said investigators could not determine an official cause for the fire.
Katherine Garrity was also recognized with a certificate for also calling 911 to report the fire.
And three members of the Orland Park Police who responded to the emergency with the Orland Fire Protection District firefighters were also honored. They are Officers Joseph O'Brien, Christopher Losurdo and Thelbert Heatherly.
In another incident, motorist Christine Binelli came upon an accident involving a motorcyclist on the ramp at I-80 and LaGrange Road, the day before on July 4th. The victim was in traumatic arrest and she immediately pulled over to provide CPR. Her efforts helped sustain the victim until he was transported by Orland and Mokena Fire District employees to the hospital.
"The message here is that the actions of individuals to stop and help can make a difference in emergencies like these and we want to thank them and encourage citizens to stop and help," Chief Raymond Kay said.
"It is so important for citizens to become involved and more importantly to be educated about basic lifesaving techniques and that was demonstrated in each of these cases."
Kay noted that the fast response and action from firefighters were critical in the outcomes.
"The firemen are there to do this job to save lives, respond to fires and emergencies. We're proud of the work we do and that the public expects from us. But we certainly appreciate the support that we get from a public educated about lifesaving techniques," Kay said.
# # #
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)