this is the Farmington feed bringing you information from the city of Farmington hi and welcome back to the Farmington feed I'm Karin HJ Nicki the city's Communications specialist and I'm hungry for another episode of feed it's that time of year for firefighter Recruitment and we're going to talk a little bit about fire prevention 101 I have with me here Matt Brown and Heath Walker our Deputy Fire Chief and our fire marer welcome thank you for having us thank you so we're going to focus on firefighter recruitment but we're also going to talk about fire prevention so first Matt can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background um as our Deputy fire chief oh boy I started my fire career in 1996 from there I went to another I got hired full-time in 2000 at a department in southern Minnesota down in man oh boy and then from 2003 till this year I was with uh the St Paul fire department for the past 21 years and then in May I was hired as the Fire Marshall here in Farmington and and then in October I was promoted to Deputy fire chief yeah so 20 29 years this year of uh fire service awesome so what got you interested in it oh man every firefighter will probably say they either wanted to go to school to be a cop or a firefighter and it just matters which test you scored higher on so you know I I went to school to be a police officer and then I decided at that point I was going to go back into school for my other level which was broadcasting okay so I worked at a couple radio stations on at the time and a couple television stations and uh met the fire chief in Negan and kind of set the ball rolling and against my parents wishes me being a firefighter cuz it's too dangerous here I am 29 years later a firefighter so but uh yeah so kind of took different Avenues to get to where I'm at today all right so Heath how about you um this position is new for you but F ringt fire is not so give us a little bit about background correct um I got hired as a fire marshal in December before that I was with the I've been with the fire Farmington fire department for almost 18 years oh wow obviously you live in Farmington I do live in Farmington I've been in Farmington for a little over 20 years and you like serving your community I I do so tell us a little bit about responsibilities so I need from to hear from both of you so Heath why don't you go first what does a fire marshall do fire Marshalls responsibilities they're it's it's a long list um I'm only going to hit a few of them that's okay one of the big things that we do yearly is we do inspections our code enforcement inspections and we go into commercial buildings and make sure they're following the written fire code mhm looking for violations that pose in increased fire risk are puts the safety of the public and Harm's Way big things are extension cords um lack of fire extinguish maintenance exit lighting not working things of that nature uh the other thing is uh which is going to be big is fire investigations okay so I'll be doing investigations on origin and cause of fires to see if it was accidental arson possibly undetermined depending on the severity of the fires and the big thing is uh public education yeah trying to educate the public on fire prevention do a lot of school functions talking to the kids try to get I mean they they our future mhm so try to get them involved and get them hyped up to be to become a firefighter yeah best job in the world we do a lot of stuff with you know Cub Scouts Boy Scouts stuff like that uh we do top the Tater days now yeah that's the new that's the new name huh yeah not due days anymore not due days top poater days our open house is a big one oh yeah that's in September correct September now yep that's got moved so that's a big one um help with evacuation plans drills fire drills stuff like that but I mean that list goes on and on oh for sure um and so can you go over your position responsibilities as Deputy as a deputy chief down here in Farmington my primary responsibilities are training operations and Personnel so hiring and coaching firefighters the day-to-day operations of the fire department the district Chiefs the the captains and the lieutenants and all the firefighters kind of fall on to me uh making sure everyone's training records are up to date and I mean that's intense there's a lot of train it's a it's not the old hey show up on Mondays for training you know a couple times a month that's it's labor intensive it's making sure that we have everybody's got all their require training that they need for the year then trying to figure out okay what are we lacking what do we need more training on what what do we have now in our area that we haven't trained on right that we should start training on so it's kind of one of those things where you come in on a Monday morning and you just go take a deep breath and let's go to work and then by Friday you're ready to have the weekend and even then when you have the weekend sometimes it's not a day off or a weekend off right because there's that's never stopping right correct so let's talk a little bit about fire prevention 101 looking at fire calls from last year um we did a nice little um totals graphic what do you think is the biggest area of concern in Farmington and the surrounding communities cuz technically don't just serve Farmington it's a little bit outside of Farmington as well correct we cover the the city the township or the cities of Empire uh Eureka Castle Rock and then the city of Farmington proper I didn't realize how big the area was coming from the city of St Paul where it's 36 square miles of total urban area we're 80 plus square miles that we cover and man I think my furthest response was practically down near to Northfield okay I mean straight down Denmark Avenue and next thing you know I'm in 500 ft I'm in Northfield so it's a huge area that we cover and we're we do it all to two stations and it's it's uh it's kind of impressive and it's it was an eyeopener for me as far as our calls go you know fires are on the downward slope of our prevention is showing that it's doing a good job yeah medical is probably just Nationwide what 80% of the fire departments go on every day is Medical in nature the other 20% roughly is and it might even be 70% but I'll do 70 to 80% is what we do medical in nature Medicals are are number one probably followed by a good intent calls people call 911 wanting to know my smoke detector is beeping what do I do yeah so we send somebody out usually it's an officer or Heath will go out and check it out and we might have to replace a detector or the homeowner will have to replace detector try try to educate them on their smoke detectors you know why it's beeping uh what to look for try to get them into a rotation where they're changing batteries you know like we like to say uh when we set the clocks move forward or fall back y you time to change batteries look at the manufacturer date on the uh uh smoke detectors U they're good for 10 years and at that point they'll start beeping and you got to replace them so try to educate them on that level especially too with the detectors if if we're what we're seeing a lot now is some of our homes that were built 15 20 years ago the detectors are already turning yellow the house is brand new in the scheme of a house it's 20 years old yeah but the detector's been it's normal it's like the colors of our walls here it started off as a white whiteboard and now it's a cream colored mhm if it starts changing color it's time to change yeah change out your detectors in 10 years though I mean we've watched pulling up the data for everything in 10 years the city of Farmington fire calls have almost doubled okay in 10 years and we have pretty much the same Staffing as we did 10 years ago so 2014 we had a total of 630 620 some calls we're last year I believe we were almost 1,00 yeah uh the year before that in 2023 we were almost at 1,200 so in 10 years our call volume is doubled and that's just farmington's growing y oh let's flip over to recruitment let's talk a little bit about that um right now is the time for recruiting for Farmington um what's the first step that someone's going to take so the first step that somebody's going to take when they recruit will be to go to the city's website and go to the job application you can apply right online you don't need any experience whatsoever we put you through the EMT or the EMR training emergency medical responder we put you through firefighter 1 and firefighter 2 Hazmat Hazmat hazardous materials response we put you through all the training that you need to become a firefighter so the first thing you need to do is to just go in and apply if you're interested find out what the requirements are you have to live within 10 minutes of a Farmington Fire Station uh have a clean background MH we got we have some informational meetings that we do oh okay and those are those are really important because we're going to kind of lay out the time commitment involved going to these classes and the schooling yep and then the potential impact on your family yeah and your home life and you know to be honest it's not for everybody for sure but it's important to know the commitment but the reward that you get out of it if you do become a firefighter here in Farmington I mean it I it's it's hard to put in toward wordss the reward that you get yeah the relationships that you build between your the men and women that you work with you go through a lot as a department with with the members that you work with and there's obviously there's a there's a bond that forms there oh yeah especially espe I mean man talking about the bond I just had dinner with the guys and gals that I went through my recruit Academy with 29 years ago in Negan we met up and had a nice dinner together and reminiscing and here we are almost 30 years later still maintaining our friendships talking about this person that person remember this call remember that call and it's just like yesterday I started as a firefighter and here I am on the downward spiral of my career as everyone says in the fire service but it's fun to watch now that I'm in the spot I'm in is teaching cuz I I teach a lot outside of the fire department at a couple Tech colleges it's fun to see that next Generation yeah and remember what you went through and we just had a live fire training for one of our recruits uh that we had to go through and just to see the look on his face was made it worth it yeah just like the wow this is this is so cool and here we are going oh yeah whatever it's just a normal fire but then you put you go back to when you were in the academy going this thing's a this is awesome this is great you're on the call that you saw on the news yeah you know so that's what I always would do is when I was in my career like talking to my mom or my grandparents about stuff they're like oh you had a firing man KO didn't you yeah how' you know what was on the news here well I was on it you know what they say there and it's just kind of fun to see some of that stuff you're on the front edge of history really but yeah so the first step is to go go on go on the city website apply yep apply and then look for our recruitment open houses which we have one coming up here in February and then a few in March and then the applications close on March 24th okay and then once you're done with that you'll get a letter saying you know welcome aboard you're a candidate we'll have a couple more informational meetings where you bring your family your spouse cuz it is a huge time commitment and it's kind of important to have your spouse and your or your girlfriend or even your parents come in and see what's it going to take are they always going to be home are they not going to be home are they it's a huge time commitment and it it's important to have that support behind you I mean you're going to be you're going to be at birthday parties you're going to be at family functions you know Christmas Thanksgiving and that PID your mic go off and you're going yep so it's important to have your family your friends to support you on that yeah you can't you can't go about this by yourself right you you need that support yeah what does the next few months year look like for a new candidate oh boy what the what the year looks like is we'll start the academy usually in September and then that'll go all the way through March so that'll be your medical training your firefighter one your firefighter 2 and your Hazmat training will go from September till roughly March once you're done with the academy then we have another probably four months roughly of kind of on the job training you'll get a pager at that point you'll get cleared to go on all the calls you get to ride the truck and then after about four months you'll so in July you'll actually graduate with your badge you get pinned in front of everybody your family members um yeah there's a nice little ceremony yeah nice little ceremony that um the whole department shows up for so if you don't like standing in front of a group of people tough it's a kind of a big deal to be in the fire service to get pinned and uh you'll get your badge and then you're you're a member yeah you're a full-fledged firefighter you're going on the calls you're riding the trucks you're yeah you're a firefighter so and the training doesn't end there right I mean you guys are continuously training yeah we train you know once a week you you get the you you select a uh a crew that you want to be on Monday through Wednesday right now MH run six shifts and then you're you're on a training crew and you're going to train with those same uh men and women every week and then on top of that once you get cleared there's uh weekend Duty Crews to sign up for uh State schools that you can you can always go to to expand your knowledge which is highly recommended that enables you to move up that chain you know you start out as a fire a Cadet become a firefighter then you can move into a crew leader that's certain requirements to move into that position then from there you can go into lieutenant and on up but those that comes with certain requirements in in state schools that you have to go to and then pass and qualifies you for that next next uh step up that ladder so what would you say to someone right now if they were asking you about becoming a firefighter oh man if you're asking me I say do it I this has been the coolest ride the coolest career um I started out as a volunteer paid on call uh like I said Egan and I realized that I loved being a firefighter way more than I wanted to be a cop nothing against my friends in blue MH love them to death but I realized that this is something that I wanted to do for a career and I started taking tests everywhere started seeing like Keith was saying there's certain requirements to move up the chain yeah I noticed that I wanted to do more than just be a firefighter in my whole career and so I started taking classes and classes and classes and it got me to where I'm at today yeah and I would tell you whether you're just on the payon call side or if you decide you're you start out on a payon call and then move your way into a career field in this do it it's awesome it's probably the best career I've ever had my enti well I mean I've done a lot of jobs in my life but as far as careers go no no two days are the same M boy I don't know what else to say about it it's just amazing it's it's never the same day I know you hear that a lot people say that they want to help their neighbors and it's true I mean we like helping people yeah but at the same time it's just it's amazing it's a fun career you you get to do stuff that you've only seen on TV for the most part right and then you go home and you're just like let me tell you about what I did today yeah and yeah so that's where that's fun to you know my kids have grown up around it their whole life so they're like whatever dad you're on TV again whoop ddoo oh Dad you're doing a podcast whoop-de-doo but at the same time you also see when they come in they're like Dad that was really cool yeah you know so I I don't know I think it's a great deal when out check it out it's it's a great time right now because the fire service is evolving m when I got on and when deputy chief was on I mean we were 95% of all fire departments were either volunteer or paid on call yeah we're making that switch now where because of the NFPA standards today and what they outline the majority of the fire stations are they're going fulltime now yeah and it's there's something to be said about getting up and with this profession you don't go to work like you don't I don't get up in the morning and be like oh I have to go to work today I mean I work at a fire department m i mean I don't I don't go to work yeah this is this is this is awesome yeah so yeah absolutely if you want to become a fire fighter yeah it's the best job you'll ever have now you said that they're transitioning so a lot have been volunteer and paid on call that kind of what and you said the NFPA kind of is putting that forth what's the NFPA and why important oh sorry uh NFPA is the national uh Fire Protection Agency so they kind of help develop their their standards that have to be met and so most of the Departments around the country adopt NFP a standards kind of an unwritten law I mean it's not a law but it's they standards so every Department should follow NFPA a lot of departments are doing it because one they're just so busy yeah um I know our friends to the West Lakeville are transitioning from an all part-time paidon call Department to now a combination Department with full-time Staffing and volunteers or paid on call and someday we might be getting there our call volume is starting to increase we we might get to that point where we we're going to bring on some full-time staff but that's a little bit ways a little further down the road I think but you're starting to see that transition more there's more things that the fire service is doing more than back in the old days where people were like well we don't want to pay you to sleep well there's not a whole lot of sleep going on right it's not like the movies where you just see us sitting around playing cards all day oh like uh Tacoma FD kind of like T exactly kind of like Tacoma FD where they're just sitting around I can tell you my worst day in the fire service was 30 runs and 24 hours wow Heath and I were just talking uh last week he asked you know how many fires did we have in St Paul one I think it was last year yeah we had 157 I think it was fighters in one one year house fires mhm and he was just like whoa you know and but that's the big City yeah we've had 47 I believe last year no we had 26 last year 23 we had 47 yeah that's a lot mhm that's a lot where and I know since I've been here as the fire marshal I've investigated at least probably six house fires yeah so it's it's more than you think it is definitely more than you think because you you hear about some but those are only the big ones right like you don't hear about all of them correct and anytime there's a fire it has to be investigated right so it could be a simple trash can fire but I or Heath have to go out and we have to investigate it y why did it happen why did it why did it happen we scour for ring cameras is there something that was caught on a ring camera was there yeah I mean you're kind of like in the Fire Marshals well I thought it was kind of fun because you're kind of like a cop way because you're investigating stuff you're investigating stuff so you know my kids what always say Dad you're a fire cop you're investigating fires and I'm like I never thought of it that way but but it is true because you are kind of playing Perry Mason in a way and for those young people that don't know who Perry Mason is I'm not sure everybody might know who that is that's an old old TV show but for an old fart like me but but you're you kind of got to put two and two together trying to find the the cause of a fire is investigating it and you kind of kind of play detective and it's it's kind of fun when you think you know what happened and then all of a sudden you find a ring camera and you're going holy cow what I thought happened actually happened or boy was I way wrong yeah so that's the fun part about it well and I imagine I mean how obviously you're trained for it but I just how hard that is to figure something out after something's been burned right like well even being trained I mean there's there's times where you you might have an idea but you can't it's not you have to have the proof yeah and if you can't can't come up with the proof you can't really label it something right you know those times it might become it's it's undetermined yep there's a lot of science there there's yep a lot of science yeah a lot of lot of ruling things out and if you don't if like Keith was saying if you can't put your finger on it even though you know that it's this or you think it's this but you can't prove it it's tough yeah it's tough but that's where they've got other people that can come in and we can call for assistance if we need it we've got the State Fire Marshal's Office we've got the ATF that we can call in and they're they're ready to help us out in a moment's notice yeah give us an hour we'll be there yeah so we're pretty lucky down here or in the state of Minnesota we have such a huge list of people we can call to assist us if we need to if something seems a little bit out of place I have no problem picking up the phone if I had to yep and people come running yeah so anything else you guys want to talk about regarding recruitment or fire prevention well for recruitment if you're interested give me a shout at the city of Farmington m brown at Farmington mn.gov I'll answer any questions you might have come see us at any one of our uh recruitment open houses see what it's like try on some of the gear talk to some firefighters we'll have uh the trucks where everyone can sit in it try on the gear see what it's like and ask questions I mean that's the big important thing ask questions because we will will answer open and honestly and truthfully and want to see more and more people come out well before I wrap up today's episode I do want to thank you guys for coming on and I'll be happy to have you on again if you want to talk some more oh man but I do want to remind all our listeners the recruitment informational meetings are being held in February and March I think the first one's the 17th of February if I'm not correct okay at 7: P.M at Fire Station 1 but you can check out all the dates times and locations at Farmington mn.gov becomea firefighter well that concludes this month's episode of the Farmington feed thank you for listening we look forward to connecting with residents with this podcast if you have any feedback guest requests or ideas email me at communications Farmington mn.gov