Grand Lake Fire Protection District P.O. Box 1408 Grand ... · Grand Lake Fire’s Wildland Fire Program We continue to make an engine available nationally for wildland fire response.

Grand Lake Fire Protection DistrictP.O. Box 1408Grand Lake, CO 80447 F.I.R.E.

Facts Information Resources Education

April 2016

FROM THE FIRE CHIEF’S DESK

With pride and professionalism, Grand

Lake Fire will provide the highest level of emergency and public service in response to the

needs of our community.

Inside this Issue:

The Annual Newsletter for the Grand Lake Fire Protection District

For the first time since we brought on paid firefighters

in 2003, I’m pleased to announce that all six career staff

reside within the District boundaries. That means we’re

even more connected to the community and our off-duty

response times are better. We’ve improved our programs

to ensure night officer coverage along with incentivizing

volunteer participation to sign up for night shifts. Our

resident firefighter program is stout and stable with three

young firefighters who supplement our day and night staffing. Our wildland program

remains strong with a dedicated Engine Foreman and an eager group of staff and

volunteers who want to participate in firefighting out of state to gain invaluable

experience. Grand Lake Fire recently hosted a nationally accredited Initial Attack

Incident Commander class for Grand County responders and have scheduled another

class on Wildfire Water Supply and Portable Pumps to start in April of this year. Grand

County fire districts have been working hard together with the County Sheriff to

create new and improved, all hazard, mutual aid agreements to let us work more

closely together on larger events. I’m extremely pleased with all GLFPD has been

able to accomplish for the community since this time last year.

Grand Lake Fire’s elected Board voted in a Code of Conduct to which they will hold

themselves and new Board members accountable. The code outlines behaviors and

practices that, when carried out, result in a Board that functions honorably and acts

on behalf of the good of the community. Personal agendas are put aside; respect and

integrity are the norm; discussion is open and rich. All Board members support and

uphold this code. This pledge has been signed and is displayed in the Board Room.

Our goal is to serve this community, through fire protection, prevention, rescue,

medical support and education. As always, feel free to contact me with any questions

and let me know how we’re doing, good or bad. My cell is 970-531-0434.

Thank you for letting us serve………..

Mike LongFire Chief

Career Staff Bios.......................... 2

Water Rescue Fund...................... 3

Firehouse Utilization..................... 3

Budget Recap.............................. 3

Can we find you?......................... 4

Can we find you?In an Emergency, finding the caller’s location is critical in saving lives and property; minutes matter. One of the challenges we face in our Fire District is finding a residence; sometimes the house numbers are not clearly visible, especially at night. And we have found that most of the homes in our Fire District do not have reflective house numbers. HELP US FIND YOU! We recommend reflective 4”-6” letters clearly visible from the street. Reflective signage is

available to you for purchase from BeWildfireReady.org.

Contact us:Fire Chief Mike Long: [email protected]

Fire Station: 970-627-8428 or by email: [email protected] How to stay informed with Grand Lake Fire:

Facebook: Grand Lake Fire Protection DistrictGrand Lake Fire website: www.grandlakefire.org

Twitter: @grandlakefireDuring an emergency, current updates will be placed on:

Our website, Facebook page, and twitter accountsGrand County website: www.gcemergency.com

Local radio: 106.3 FM or 930 AM

F.I.R.E.Page 2

Grand Lake Fire Protection District in the community The Chris Mullinex Water Rescue FundGLFPD has partnered with the Grand County Sheriff’s Office and the Mullinex family to provide water safety equipment and public education to the community. Committing in excess of $8,000 to the effort, GLFPD hopes to purchase several hundred PFD’s (life vests) to make available at boat ramps and swimming docks, along with public safety message boards and brochures on the importance of good water safety practices.

Firewise Communities and Street AddressingGLFPD supports county efforts to make our homes and communities safer from the threat of wildfire. We continue to offer free defensible space site surveys and highly encourage the improvement of street addressing for your homes. This has the added benefit of helping us find you in the event of a medical emergency as well.

Firehouse Utilization by the communityGLFPD continues to make our training room available as a meeting room for pretty much any group that is acting in the public’s interest. Current users include HOA groups, Yoga classes, Women’s Club, Mahjong group, political caucuses, and trainings and meetings for the USFS or RMNP. If your group needs the space and it’s in the community’s best inter-est, we offer the facility free of charge.

Community EventsGLFPD is actively involved in our community. From giving Santa Fire Truck Rides to hosting the ever-popular annual Grand Lake Easter Egg Hunt, providing a crew for Town Clean-up day, helping the Chamber with their many events to support town business and moving wildlife displays for the Historical Society. GLFPD proudly supports our wonderful community. We like to feel GLFPD is a big part of this community and truly appreciate the opportunity to serve.

Grand Lake Fire’s Wildland Fire ProgramWe continue to make an engine available nationally for wildland fire response. With community coverage always our pri-ority, we can’t pass up the opportunity to get small numbers of our member’s quality experience that they can bring back to our community. That experience might include creating structure protection plans, directing helicopter water drops, as-sisting in community evacuations or defending homes from oncoming flame fronts. All are experiences which dramatically improves our capabilities back here in our community. We typically gross six figures from this program annually which helps financially support equipment purchases, additional training and additional staffing here at home. The experiences and the revenue are great additions to all that we do.

Fire Prevention Week Open House and Community BBQBoth good news and bad news, our open house last fall was so successful we ran out of food, for the first time, ever. We invite our partner agencies for you to meet and offer a multitude of mini-classes on topics from electrical safety to kitchen safety to smoke alarms to discharging real fire extinguishers on real fires. Initially oriented to our community’s kids, our typical attendee is now a parent or even a grandparent.

GLFPD Budget RecapDid you know that our annual general fund budget is $670,000? Did you also know that we are fiscally solvent, care-ful with every dollar we receive, and that our projections show no need for seeking new taxes? My thanks to every staff member who carefully manages his / her budgets as well as to all our wonderful volunteers whose “work” keep down our expenses at www.grandlakefire.org.

Fire Board upcoming election – May 3Due to the unexpected resignations of two Board members during their terms, 2 new board members were appointed. This finds us, then, with 4 of 5 Board positions needing to be filled. Please vote and make your voice heard in May. (And, did you know that our Board meetings are now videotaped in their entirety and posted on our website? www.grandlakefire.org) Stay informed about who we are and all that we do.

Career Staff BiosIn the last newsletter we provided short bio’s for our leadership, the elected Board of Directors for Grand Lake Fire. This year, we’d like to introduce you to our daytime staff, here for you 7 days a week.

Firefighter - Mike ArntsonHaving joined GLFPD as a volunteer in 2009, and then being hired into a full time firefighter position in 2014, Mike has been very active with our organization since day one. Bringing his vast knowledge of construction and mechan-ics to GLFPD, Mike has been instrumental in keeping our apparatus and facilities running well. Along with the other paid staff, Mike is completing a one year Fire Officer Development Program hosted here in the County. Mike’s wife Sarah and daughter Evie are a huge part of Mike’s life here in Grand Lake.

Firefighter - Mark PillerMark is our newest addition having been with Grand Lake Fire for just 3 years as a volunteer, hiring on into his cur-rent career firefighter position in January of this year. Prior to coming to Grand Lake, Mark spent 20 years in the Grand Canyon as a river guide and then as river ranger for the National Park Service, where he was involved in numerous medical evacuations and technical rescues. In Mark’s short time with GLFPD, he has earned Wildland Firefighting, Incident Command, First Aid and Ice Rescue certifications.

Acting Lieutenant - Blake MertzBelieve it or not, Blake got an even earlier start in his fire service career than Colin did, as a 13 year old Explorer in Monument Colorado. Blake has classes towards his Fire Science degree from Pikes Peak College. At 19 Blake was hired on as a career firefighter in Monument. Simultaneously, Blake worked as an Emergency Room Technician to build a very broad experience base as an EMT. Blake was hired onto GLFPD as a career firefighter in 2014 and is currently in charge of our EMS program and the Resident Firefighter program.

District Administrator and Public Information Officer - Cheryl DaleCheryl has been a volunteer with Grand Lake Fire since 2010, initially running our firefighter accountability system and functioning as an aide to the Incident Commander, later as our Public Information Officer, Webmaster and EMT. Cheryl was instrumental in seeing our 2015 Community Wildfire Protection Plan revision completed. Cheryl was hired in August 2015 as our District Administrator and came to us with 14 years of experience as a Compliance Man-ager for Hewlett-Packard. She loves cooking for Board meetings and department trainings and continues to serve as a volunteer responder.

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Acting Lieutenant - Colin StewardColin began his fire service career at age 16 as an Explorer here in Grand Lake having served as a volunteer with GLFPD since 2002. He advanced to become a resident firefighter, then a volunteer officer, and is now a full time career firefighter and Training Officer. Colin has worked for the Grand County Sheriff’s Office, as a contractor under-neath the Department of Homeland Security and more recently for Halliburton. Throughout, his dedication to Grand Lake Fire and the community we serve has been unwavering.

“Hard to believe I’ve been with Grand Lake Fire for 14 years. Time flies when you mix the feeling of family in our organization with passion and dedication to serving our community.” - Colin Steward – Career Staff, Training Officer, Acting Lieutenant

Fire Chief - Mike LongMike came to us in 2003 initially to help GLFPD through a rigorous ISO audit and quickly became our first paid fire chief. He has a Bachelors degree in finance from CU and Masters degree in Executive Leadership, also having graduated from the prestigious Executive Fire Officer Program offered by the National Fire Academy in Maryland. With over 20 years in the fire service and 35 total in emergency services, Mike is also an active flight instructor, mountain biker and sailor, not to mention the very proud father of Rachael, now a marketing consultant in the Seattle area.