all that so if you would just tell you everything we know about the fire department right mike absolutely ok first of all mike tell me something about yourself i mean you know pretty much born and raised here we moved here just after i was right before my first birthday i went to school here peter's township i graduate in the class of two thousand and four at which time i joined the fire department and you know the rest is history very much enjoying it i come here monday through friday i'm here on a daily basis and saturdays and sundays and i've been doing it for a long time so it's enjoyable for me i really enjoy the job and what it entail whether it be dealing with personnel that thing things like that a lot of the stuff that i handle or like i said the day to day operations fire call we answer about thirteen hundred fire calls her call for service every year so i'm involved in doing a lot of  the standard operating procedures and all the know how the ins and outs all those calls and making sure we have checks and balances i review all the color sheet that i was in on a call i take time to make sure all the crews are doing everything that they were supposed to be doing in making sure that we're delivering the best service we possibly can to the township my think i think you lived up to that and i hope so but you know we work very hard we have we strive very very hard to deliver the service to what we call our customers you know we consider i'm a customer here of peter's township you know you pay for a service you have tacked that you pay in and we feel that we need to live in the best possible customer service for customers so that's the approach that i take with with all of our guys and girls here that we have at the part apartment and they've really been on to that they really enjoy and girls go yeah yeah absolutely the real went oh yeah yeah and we'll talk about that here a little bit yes that is it is not just an all male thing we have male and female and you know it depends on who you ask who the firefighter is that there are certain females that can do this job better than some of the males so you know there is no discrimination when it comes to the fire service or when somebody asks for help they don't really really care who's going to know them to help they just want to make sure that they're trained at the proper level in ours most definitely are so yes we can think about that here a little bit  tech on yeah yeah straight out that red yeah yeah yeah on five ninety so the county washington has its own fire academy and there are certain training classes we will take out there we try to do a lot of stuff in  house and train our guys and girls on monday nights and do training every monday oh yes every monday belong to the fire department we're always getting together and training and and doing something on monday night so we do that normally here and then we'll take about two or three classes out of the fire academy each year there are certain classes that we cannot do here at our facility because our facility is inadequate enough to do so so we have to then go out to the fire academy and take this class they're going out that way i wondered was going on yeah you'll see a burn tower out there there's you know a concrete building that they do structural burns inside of there's a host tower that we maneuver around out of and do things like that there's a roof simulator there's vehicle rescue simulators there's now a gas well simulator that there's well so you know there's a whole bunch of stuff that they're there doing out that part and it's a good asset for us that the big help to have that available because like i said we're not able to do al you never know what's going to show up exactly and then you know somebody told me one time that we do all this training for hopefully a an incident that we never have to respond to oh that's for sure you know there's training hours and stuff that i've been involved in for worst case scenario type of thing that hopefully i'll never have to use but if if we have to use them you know we're properly trained and know how to do so i also noticed how clean and fire trucks were and everything we were coming in well that that pretty much our role in billboard going down know we have a township council right now the very much cares about the existence of our fire department and and how we're delivering our service and i work in other communities before and it's nice to have here you know a community that actually kind of rallies around the fire department and make sure that they understand that the service that we delivers an important one they actually get that better that some of our members one you know they're very interactive they want to know other municipalities may not have that want to know what the council and  well the grass looks pretty good you know so i took a shortcut through the grass well guess what there was more ice on the grass and there was a net and just by some coincidence i don't know one of your little where they come i i said we answer three hundred thirteen hundred calls for service years so those are all fires you know last year we had about twenty one structural fires that we answered about five of them we actually had to pull an arms off or we take an active role in fire prevention and that's you know a big part of what we do our department now and it works that we're grilli works in the marker venture works you know ten years ago we had more fires that we have today twenty years ago we had more fires than we did ten years ago so the more time we put in the fire prevention the less fires we get now some so well we've got to get on here ok i have a question here to tell me about your crew how many are there so this is where we can talk about the diversity that we have in the fire station to so right now we're just short of fifty total members fifty fifty the highest we've been in years the peter sonship fire department is a combination fire department meaning or not all career and we're not all volunteer there is a combination of career and volunteer personnel so we have a total of sixteen career personnel and that includes myself in the party fourteen of which are part time and full time firefighters we have seven full time firefighters and seven part time firefighters and then we have just over thirty volunteers so with that number being as high as it is it's a it's not a problem it's  a good thing to have and not all fire departments are that fortunate here in pennsylvania to have that the two asian we've actually only got into this situation where we have almost fifty members because last year we put on our two years ago we put on a huge recruitment drive where we actually sought out and asked the community hey we need help we need more firefighters we need to train more people and it was overwhelmingly except that we just put all of our annual report for two thousand and sixteen and we over six firefighters and the most important stat about that is we didn't lose any firefighters in two thousand and sixteen so nobody had to raise on wonderful right so you know for the first time we gain that we didn't lose which has really been a blessing for us the next step is getting them trained so the new recruits we have to train them so we've switched gears from recruitment to retention now we're always still recruiting them that exactly so they come from all different walks of life we have volunteers that are full time insurance salesman we have volunteers that are bricklayers we have volunteers that are  we're serving the community yes exactly so they come from everywhere but most of them are from within the community the biggest thing that we did for our drive was to put out on the marquee sign you know volunteers needed and that where we got our biggest response and it was it hit our target area because it right here in the township right using them our peace and really paid off for us no that's a good way to advertise i guess no you know it right exactly right and so we also do a lot of stuff in community magazines you'll see an article in there hopefully every quarter from our department basically just saying this is what's going on this is what we've been doing and we're always so that listen there you need help or assistance don't hesitate to call because that's what we're here for we're here to help people say what a tree had to be we didn't really talk about age no and we can talk about that with the different aspects of our recruiting partners as well we have a couple different age classes to be an interior firefighter and to do the firefighter type duties you have to be over the age of eighteen i mean that i am period so if you're actively going to fight a fire from the inside of a building you're considered an interior firefighter and for that you have to be over the age of eighteen there are fire ground support role which would be like moving hose throwing ladders maybe fighting a fire from the x  a building for that you have to be over the age of sixteen and then finally just like in station support you have to be over the age of fourteen to take them up to we take it as young as fourteen years  old it's actually more of a mentoring program that we have from age fourteen to sixteen but we have a couple of junior choir parties we call them junior firefighters here at the fire station and getting them involved young it's been a good thing because you know eager to learn and want to do new things and taking on new responsibilities so by the time they are sixteen to eighteen they're doing more and then by the time are eighteen they're really ready to wander around it's really neat to see we've sent kids off to college you know we have a scholarship program here for some of our younger members that they wonder if they are the certain goal that they can have scholarship on stuff allocated towards them towards radicalization and it's a good way to bring them back after right educate because we're putting time and investing money into them up to so we don't want to see them leave and go forever we want to see them leave get educated and eventually come back and so far it's been working one of our bigger success around have been the two newest career members part time members that we just hired jordan kramer and britain often started here as junior firefighters exam right yes they did they started this junior members  they graduated high school bernie went off to college he got a degree in fire science is already earned her degree and came back and now she's working here part time she ended up getting hired to think well enough on the list and getting hired jordan kind of the same thing he's been around the entire time he's taking classes online and going that route but he's been active in the fire department ever since he was a junior and really kind of stepped up that ladder and you know right now the investment paying off so it's really good the we train the these members and like i mentioned before we have males and females and brittany's the first career fire part of the required here that that the female the wonderful it's not a story it's a true two people that grew up in this community that are now continuing reserve and then myself at this group bring people up to realize how much more there is to the fire department of short than just a fire truck by exacting in more than just putting out fires to know all the things become a bigger metropolis of pittsburgh even though we're in washington county and iowa in county but you know being part of that metro area in the suburbs of pittsburgh we really thrive in doing that and it's really the direction with his recent retirement you know mr lauer has really grabbed ahold of that and is carrying occurring in the frame direction so with that with how diverse the community is right now we've seen that it's been deemed best operate out of two fire station basically having a truck closer to where the calls are so we have two fire stations the one we're sitting at today is obviously it on the smith murray wrote pretty close to the high school the other fire station is right at the corner be borrowed sugar camp road and we help to fire engines there along with a little squad vehicle and that's really for their personnel there too or do they come from here so the personnel the personnel that we have again with volunteers and career staff together we do not have career staff assigned to that they should however most recently in two thousand and sixteen we've really ramped up our volunteer doing program and what that is is a volunteer that only a volunteer here will schedule themselves to work for our to the ship and when we're able to do that it ups our staffing here at the station so will the first supplier selves and actually cover that second station for a few hours each day fires are controlled from here where they have to go or do they yes then a basically our headquarters station where i'm station and again that part of my day to day responsibility is allocating our assets as best as we can and if we're staffed heavily up here today we'll send crews down to station two but we visit that they sing every day to make sure the apparatus are checked to make sure the trucks are ready to go because there's a war in a residential area so a lot of our volunteers respond station two and they take a truck from that divide the district with district one and district two and basically the line is thomas road so take thomas road from the township line come down to where he spent my road is go down valley brick road all the way to nineteen everything on the north of that is district t everything on south and district one so we're station one fifth district one we're station to see district two and if there is a crew in district two and it only requires one fire apparatus to handle that call when it's actually our response times have dramatically decreased since we've been doing that also try to staff at the time we never know when the fire's gonna commit more as truth but we can we can look at the search trends in the community as to when a majority of the community is coming home from work so we're heavily were more heavily traveled around before five o'clock hour we know that people are home about cooking dinner from five to seven so that the peak hour for us to you know any time anybody's cooking if you can we see an increase call volume from this  so you know we're we're we're smart and how we do things we look at numbers and and try to track trends and how we do things to try to best allocate or at that we talk about this is this thing sion and then  equip something down in the nation to to make it quicker to get calls through or something and i think it's part of our inner our radio equipment sit down the communicator at the community center so we have to be able to talk to the dispatch efficient manner when we talk about response time that doesn't mean that we drive faster to the call you know these large trucks won't go so fast and we want to stay safe when we do it so the way that we reduce our response time is by having staffing in the station you know by the volunteer duty program and having the volunteers here taking an active role and in the career staff as well but also getting to the truck faster we can't drive faster but we can get ready faster we can get to the truck and that allows us to keep our response lower or below the national average and we're below the n f p a mandated response that we need to have for our communities so those are something that we're very proud of to ok then i know that i thought on television how to get dressed in a hurry everything is just all in looks like everything it's in order and we had a big yes so again coming back to the response on that one of those ways that we succeed in that setting yourself up you know part of our training on a monday night is crazy that sounds when we did a month and i training a few weeks ago we actually trained on how to get dressed faster and that doesn't mean running to your gear that just means setting your gear up and how to put things on in an efficient manner to get on the truck faster the faster we get on the truck that out of the truck it's out the door the faster the truck and out the door the faster we get to the the car the emergency where we need to go so right now our crews are actually all doing fire drills at some of the preschools in the daycare's that's another service that we do in when they're out about there are answering calls a lot faster as well so when they're on the street they can respond to calls a lot faster  because it thinks there's an emergency so automatically call automatically call so every time we do a fire drill with the b c community center we're testing to make sure that that alarm system that building when it recognizes that there is a problem is going to call for not one a call for of those oh they're going to know it is because what does it do for us it reduces our response again so it saves you from having to go outside and call nine one one and say there's an emergency at the base a community center if it detects a fire emergency it automatically calls us we're do sing the time and get us on the road faster what that equates to are smaller fires fires that and up resulting in less damage because the smaller they are the easier they are to control and the safer it makes the residents or the the occupants of that building so the township has an ordinance where every commercial building that i forget the year but you know if new business is going in today they're required to have a monitor fire alarm system because of the benefit that it brings to the community and to the the occupant of that we'll hear that with safety is not something that everybody thinks about so we have to think about it for that so with the community center or any building that the township residents or patrons might go into they have to assume this general level of that that they come to expect and that's what we have to provide to them even though there's not a fireman right now they're out doing fire drills at daycares to make sure that they're prepared for incidents that might happen there but they also take that information home so the reason that we do so much fire prevention with kids is because they'll take that information home to their parents and really drive home that point you know it's funny i i talk about that some of the stuff with my wife and i ask her i'm like well the parliament goes off what do just like well like i really don't know what am i supposed to do i said well at the doors close you go to the door you feel that the door back you're can't eat if there's no heat you open the door a little bit and make sure there's no fire outside if there's no fire outside of the door you go out front and in call for a normal one if you're h so we practice fire drills in our house and for the hours that i'm not there my wife is just doing it with myself and her her name is sailor so her and sailor will practice a fire drill one basically it my wife recognizing there's a fire alarm getting to the bedroom getting the baby and getting out they flee if she is one hundred ten percent inhibited from getting to the baby and will practice it too you know she needs to let somebody know the baby is obviously unable to get out herself right and somebody needs to help them very very quickly and that that's what we're out to do so the more information we get from callers the better off we are giving detail information on one thing or where your location is  interviewing the occupants when we get there it gives us just a wealth of knowledge you know we're we're drawing this picture before we even get to the emergency that we're going to what it is that we're stepping into and then with somebody is there and greets us and says here's the problem there and that's why i wanted to have this interview with youth to let people know if you are out there and they're all worried about worried about all kinds they do and we offer so many programs that that  residents need to take advantage of we install car seats for children i heard about that you've heard about that going to good spread the word because we're not just about fire safety here we're about public safety and the safety of our general public so with installing child safety nine out of ten cars the that come into the doors are thought improperly and we just have to make certain just and make sure that they're done properly but last year we installed three hundred eighty nine carsey wow did you have a period of time whenever you brought that up to have them come yes in here yes absolutely yeah we'll have events throughout the year and these events you can see easily on our marquee sun we'll put them up on the marquee if anybody has facebook we put them in the community magazine when we're having event our website as well is very handy for information so when we have these events we try to broadcast them the best we can but car seats are one of the think that we do we do a lot of three hundred eighty nine last year with a movie that we've ever done i think even grandparents should know how to do that they should absolutely there all of the mother and a father i mean because a lot of my are babysitters for their grandchildren exactly and what are you going to do just sit at home all day know most of them have cars in their vehicle and get them checked get them properly installed that's what we're here for also taking on getting seniors in their vehicles as well you know we're all about seniors being able to be independent and keep their independence the heart of doing that is giving them the ability and to be able to continue drive i know what you're talking about when you're very independent and we want to keep that you know and and when seniors drive we want to make sure that they're driving a safe as possible so we're now creating an initiative to fit seniors better in their seats for partnering with  a to be able to do that and what what we'll have is a couple vents coming up in the future where seniors can come in their vehicles and we'll position their seats properly for them adjust their mirrors properly so they can the everything and give them the best advantage that they see behind the wheel so that's another example public safety that we're doing that doesn't really involve anything with fire just right general public safety well we'll take a break for a few minutes we'll continue some of the best minds in america are doing more than imagining american brain foundation seeking to find cures for life without brain disease isn't just something we can imagine something we can my grandfather served in world war two spending time with him were the best memories of my life i became a physician in v a because of my grandfather so i can help others like him i can't imagine working with better doctors or more dedicated fulfilling my life's mission with the help of my team and thanks to these veterans i'm proud to be a doctor in v a i'm proud to honor my grandfather every day search v a careers to find out more here something we bet you didn't know nearly half of all cancers can be prevented that's right half nearly fifty percent mostly by making small everyday changes in your diet and controlling your weight walking more eating less and eating foods that ok we're back and see if we come up with some other ideas and stuff that we can talk about we left off with the services that you do yes so why don't we continue with that because i think that's going to be a big interest  not only for infants but for seniors as well so you know everybody look out for that information but we also offer a smoke detector program here in peters township where we will provide residents with free smoke detectors on the something that we started doing a couple years ago this includes you yet your date on your smoking techer and if you can't reach your smoke detector what we have on all of our fire truck ladders so we have little step bills who will come into your home and check your smoke detector dates for you and if in the newer homes yet but a lot of our newer homes are even older than ten years so those are things that need to be replaced as well but the simple battery detectors with a ten year battery were replacing so once it's in all the only thing you have to do are just  and on every level of the house so let's take a two story three bedroom home there should be a smoke detector never better so that three smoke detector last carbon monoxide detector in the hallway right outside so that for that's on the second floor then the smoke detector on the first floor and then a smoke detector in the basement so that home will have to smoke detectors and it properly ok yet so you know it seems like a lot but that partnering with the red cross in their smoke detector program to help us better advertise for that so there are assisting us in helping us provide free smoke detectors as well obviously smoke detectors cost them some money so we go out and we buy them as part of our regular initiative that we do each year but now the red cross is helping out to and providing smoke detectors to those that need them working smoke detectors having smoke detectors a step one step two is making sure they work part of that replacing them after ten years is making sure they're working in testing them on a monthly basis just hitting that lopez button making sure you're safe that entire month and again if you can't do that if you're unable to do that we will come help you do that and that's something that we really love to do to come help people in their residences and do a home safety inspection not only will we insult mostly tech or for you but we'll make sure that your house is it safe for you to be i that part of our home fire safety program that we do whether be making sure that all your exits are clearer or checking your smoke detectors checking your carbon offset detectors and doing a less that those are just part of our regular have in our homes if you have a gas stove if you have a gas furnace death fireplace all those things that burn create a certain level carbon monoxide normally those things run at ninety nine percent efficiency but for older dated appliances or  proponent this are bend it properly like your permanence or your water heater there might be a problem in carbon monoxide getting into your house also if you haven't take over odds in your home if you start your vehicle up in the garage leave and then shut the garage right away serious the next most serious thing is she will pass out so it requires a carbon monoxide detector in everybody's home to make sure that we don't have these gases in our house because i can't see them i can't take them and i can't smell them you know somebody says it's not like carbon monoxide there may be a certain smell that attributed to burning but the carbon monoxide gas itself it does not have a property of smell to it at all all the more important to have the detectors in your house and guess what if you don't have one you can call it whatever you want the so again another service of we provide to do good in our community good to no man another big service that we have t was training in c p r so it's very important for us that people are trained in c p r because it increases everybody's chance of survival early c p r is the key when i know it's required down in our center that we it's if it takes us five minutes to get your call somebody there can be providing c p r for that person five minutes and that's what's most important so we take a very active community very active role in training or community keep your word for offering it you know anybody is interested in taking c c or you know have him call the fire station or hear all that on the answer the phones and and provide the services to everybody so you know we find the ways to do that kind of stuff and you know put the money back into the community now that the biggest part of our job and more is awareness in the community and bringing everybody to where it is maybe just thinking a little bit about the ac state how many lives the one statistic that we can't keep track of is how many lives we saved by prevention you know the things that never happened and i hope it but we can track lives that we saved because of emergency but we can't track those and from what i hear in the general consensus in the community is everybody doing these initiatives and have their little bit of tape in the back of their mind and it's making peter sound paper plate you know we get a couple common questions in you know how do you got to pay for all this because you know you're talking about priest your training and you're talking about freaks most detectors so we're our funding comes from our couple different places and how we're new unique we're combination part apartment like i said career and volunteer so some of our funding comes from the municipality we have a municipal budget replaced items like that minor equipment that we need around the station and then on the whole to rent a lot of fire departments to fund raising in this does what we do fundraising as well we have a mailing solicitation that we mail out only once a year and when we mail that out we just basically at the community for donation what those donations do are pay for programs like smoke detectors and keep your training and minor equipment to that we have here in the fire station so our turn around here it pays for that our breathing apparatus and all these things need to be replaced there's national standards that that tell us how long that a turn out to your fire turn out years good for minutes only ten years and when i say it's only ten years ten years seems like a long time but when you're in even one in five hundred dollars for that that it turns out here just the coat that doesn't include the boot the helmet the air mask anything you know ten years isn't isn't a lot of time so enough to make those dollars available for fame also has grants that we apply for that are a little tougher to get there a little more competitive and things like that but you know we're out there were applying for at least four grants every year trying to get money and invest that back into the community so it's a business here at the fire department you know we have money coming in we have money going out so we have to be responsible we have checks and balances we have accountants you know the volunteer fire department employees an accounting firm that really make sure that all the dollars are being spent to and adequately in the right way we get audited every other year from the state to make sure everything and line of the equipment that we're buying is the proper equipment and where we need to take equipment out of service we're taking it out of service and buying new equipment so you know there's a lot to do want to day to day basis here and that's really what the career side of the park was provided as well to help the volunteers through and really we're working such a good mesh right now between the career in the volunteer st there is no line if you're career volunteer if you're all firefighters now all of our volunteers will meet that same standard that career staff do as well so it's important for us and for you that when somebody comes to your house whether you know whether they're career volunteer you'll probably never know because the look the same we act the same we dress the thang and we're trained to think and that's something we really drive home to our members and it create that ownership here in the fire department you know that that the report something that what they're part of really matters you know the organization that you're a part of that the nice community center your members have ownership there you know then with the school with that building then you know l up in that building they you know that they grew up in that community that ownership that they have of that don't we try to do that here with our power equipment or our trucks or building that's why it looks so clean all the time to our car trucks are clean because our members want to keep them clean from you know they have the pride known or ship of the equipment that means i'm a hard hat because that fire truck that we're going to get here in a couple years when it comes new in our doors it's going to last that twenty years that ladder truck or our fire engine have to last us at least fifteen years you know so we can thinking we have yes we have to maintain we have to take care of these things because not only are they our first but they belong to the community too so the fact that our members really care about that is exciting for me and makes me want to do my job here for years to come you know the group of people that we have here not only as members of the fire department working in the fire department but in the community as well make me want to be here for a very long time and you know i think i found a good place not only did i start here but in thirty years i might and you're well it's encouraging to have it be a part of a community like this just you know it is whatever you know you're doing something scout exactly and that's what brings most people through the doors here they want to help people they want to do things that aren't selfless that when they go to bed and they want to feel accomplished for the day it's because they help somebody  something and what we're trying to stress is for the people that need the help don't hesitate to call in for that's why we're here and it gets the satisfaction to help our customers out on a daily basis whether the heroes in the community or travel or the community or or a patron at one of the businesses many many businesses you know we're all treated pain and we're here for for them  into this is going to wonderful interviews and i'm sure that a lot of people are going to learn more about what the fire department does before and just being a be all being here just to be in a building and taking a space yet yeah i can't thank you enough for coming down you know the years that you and i've been interacting with the venetian community center coming down to have lunch with everybody you know something i think we need to continue doing well but i hope you know i'm willing to do so as a resident of this community myself i love being a part of it any way that i can talking to people and and just providing community outreach and then your big important part of that are my you've done a lot for this community too and you know when you go to bed you should feel an accomplished portion every night because you know you're the reason help for a lot of people any way that they want to contact us that there's an emergency obviously down on one one but we have an on emergency phone number two that you can pass along people mom seven to four nine four one four one seven six that on emergency line to the fire station if you need help and don't smoke detectors doing anything around or how anything that's not an emergency use that number if there's an emergency by all means non one number to you but we provide that i will present that number at one of our