Greetings from District 11! I hope you all have had a wonderful summer and have had time to spend with family and friends and that each of you has gotten some good training to either keep your skills sharp or learn a new skill.
It has been a busy time in the district. On August 3rd I attended a groundbreaking ceremony in Gladstone, Missouri. The city approved to remodel the current Fire Station #2 located at 6569 N Prospect Avenue. Since 1968 the agency had been a Public Safety Department but earlier this year after 53 years as a Public Safety Department the city voted to disband this title and make a fire department. The remodel of this facility is the first thing to be done since the rebranding as a fire department. The city employs approximately 40 personnel and covers 9 square miles with two stations both of which have ALS ambulances that are dual-functioning as suppression crews. Their call volume is approximately 4,000 runs a year. Chief Daugherty said the renovation will bring the station up to date with individual sleeping quarters so all genders have privacy vs the current open bunk room concept. The addition of a state-of-the-art training room will double as a community use room as well as new administration offices.
I also attended the unveiling of the 9/11/01 memorial that was erected at Pleasant Valley Fire Department at 8108 Pleasant Valley Road. The sculpture was revealed for the 20th anniversary of the twin towers attack. The lit reflection pool with the towers represents the before and after and the concrete pad is poured to resemble the pentagon. Pleasant Valley had received steel from the towers several years ago and the Department was wanting to showcase it and have a permanent memorial for anyone to come and pay respect to the ones that gave so much on that day. This project was taken on by the Pleasant Valley Firefighters Association and Boy Scouts of America troops 1460, 1374, and 7612. All three troops had members take part in special projects to put towards earning their eagle scout badge.
As we get into fall weather and harvest season remember in our farming communities that when responding to incidents that there is increased movement of farm equipment on the roadways and it may hinder our responses. The incident may even be an inattentive driver that hit one of these big machines traveling from field to field. Use special caution as we don’t want to lose a valuable member of a department as there seems to be a shortage of people in volunteer and career agencies. Also, I don’t want to be down an apparatus and our boards and city council most definitely don’t want to buy farming equipment.
Hope everyone stays safe and has a great September and October if anyone has questions or want to invite any of our staff to a function please feel free to reach out to me or other district directors or their assistants our information can be found on our website we’d be glad to help in any way possible.
FFAM
