There has been universal admiration for the Corning, New York, fire chief who shoved his city manager out onto the public stage Monday night by exposing his evil plans to lay off 1/3 of the small city’s firefighters (Firegeezer yesterday HERE).  Granted, he had enough time in to retire rather than just quit, but he might not have necessarily been ready to retire right now.  But by doing so, he accomplished a couple of things.  First, he woke up the citizens to what was going on with the plan to decimate the FD.  Apparently they don’t like it.  So chances are the idea might get scuttled.  And, his abrupt departure unexpectedly throws a new burden on the CM by causing him to set out a procedure to select a replacement fire chief.  Usually you can’t just pick somebody and put them into the position.  In most places the civil service rules require things like publicly advertising the opening and other bothersome details before an executive post can be filled.  Heh.

*  *  *  *  *

Now here is a public education demonstration that you have GOT to take a look at.  Following our post the other day about the fire marshal in Maine holding a demonstration on home sprinklers for the press and public (Firegeezer HERE), our friends at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, sent along this innovative video and PI posting from the FD’s website.  The Fire Prevention office acquired two vacant houses scheduled for demolition that were fortunately sitting side by side, and with the same floor layouts.  Next, they furnished the living rooms of each house identically and positioned a stationary video camera in an adjoining bedroom trained on the area where they set a trash can on fire.

The only difference between the two homes was that one of them had a home sprinkler installed in the living room and the other didn’t.  With all the local media and about 50 other guests assembled outside, the firefighters set both fires at the same time with the cameras rolling.  When the fire in the house without the sprinkler head became visible from the outside, a “passerby” called in the alarm and four minutes later (their average response time) an engine company arrived and started attacking the fire.  Needless to say, the size of the property loss between the two homes was drastically different.

But wait, there’s more!  Here’s the best part….they have posted the video’s on the FD website with them running concurrently, dramatically showing the different results of  the two fires.  As today’s teenagers would describe it, “this is really cooool!”

Get prepared first, because the video starts up automatically when you bring up the webpage.  So get the popcorn ready first and then CLICK HERE to watch this “really cooool” demonstration.

We’d better get this equipment checked out now.  I’m going to start the coffee.  See you back in the day room.