I appeared before the Brainerd City Council on Feb. 2 to voice my concerns about what I am reading in the Brainerd Dispatch as far as the fire department goes. My first question to the council was did any of them have any actual firefighting training? Zero response, so that tells me a lot. I had to revamp my presentation.
First and foremost to know is how many classes of fire there are. The second thing to know is what is response time and how important it is. The mean average is that a fire will double in size every minute. Our full-time FEOs can be out of the station in about a minute. A paid on-call department would take about five minutes just to get to the station and out the door, so that fire will be five times bigger before they are out the door. Plus, you need a certified driver to drive the rig. Then factor in time of day and weather conditions. Council President Gary Scheeler was rather rude and kept bringing up the time factor in my presentation. Well, excuse me, it takes some time to lay the foundation to get to the point. My point is I do not want to wind up a crispy critter because of trying to run a department on the cheap. I live in what I call a tinder box.
The Brainerd Dispatch ran an online survey. Twenty-four percent wanted a full time department, 60 percent said leave it as is. That is 84 percent, folks. That should tell you something about how the citizens feel. Lastly, Rosemary Franzen comes up with the gem to spend $30,000 for a study. What's to study? Ask the people what they want. The State Fire Marshal will try and sell a regional department. That means a new government entity and we lose all control over our department.
Howard J. Brewer
Brainerd
