October 28, 2025 • 53 mins
Reginald (Reggie) Beliveau Jr
Asst. State Fire Marshal – Fire and Life Safety Education Coordinator
Vermont Department of Public Safety - Division of Fire SafetyPublic Education & Community Risk Reduction Section
https://firesafety.vermont.gov/
Asst. State Fire Marshal – Fire and Life Safety Education Coordinator
Vermont Department of Public Safety - Division of Fire SafetyPublic Education & Community Risk Reduction Section
https://firesafety.vermont.gov/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Two peoples.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Peculs. Well, we got five days until daylight savings time ends,
(01:48):
three days to Halloween. Time is flying. It is first
Responder's Day. We have our assists in state Fire Marshall,
who's gonna be with us here in just a moment.
Welcome to aired Out, Welcome whoever you are aware of
(02:10):
you are. We have a couple of new listeners over
in New York, two of which are in Plattsburgh. Good morning, Mary, Jane.
Fly on the Wall productions live on Facebook and YouTube
and streamed everywhere you get your podcasts. Of course, we're
(02:30):
on the web at airedoutvt dot com. Brad Paisley on
birthday list today at fifty three, Ben Harper fifty six,
Julie Roberts is fifty eight today, Conan O'Brien Henchman, Andy
Richter fifty nine years old. And this guy. His homecovers
(02:53):
just about sixty six thousand square feet. All the floors
are heated, including the driveway. This women pool's got massive
speakers in it so that you can hear your favorite
music underwater. Bill Gates seventy years old today. I know
nobody cares about Bill Gates. Right here in Vermont, which
is what everyone really cares about. Joe Carroll on the
(03:14):
birthday list today, Gary Sheridan, Randy Moore, Tanja Davis, Troy Kellogg,
Alan Cussen, Carlo Rivetto, Don Tefanni, Tyler hort Or, Hoyt Rather,
William Partlowe, and I missed Dulcy Taylor yesterday. It is Tuesday,
five dollars Tuesdays back at the Capitol Theater, skip the line,
(03:37):
get to a movie over at the cap in Montpillier.
Of course, follow him on social media Instagram, all of
that stuff for updates, added showtimes, special events and more. Well,
we have the thirteenth named storm of the Atlantic Hurricane season,
Hurricane Melissa, making landfall right now impact Jamaica as a
(04:01):
Category five storm with sustained winds upwards of around two
hundred miles per hour. I'm not sure how anybody can
can survive that, but man, this is the strongest system
to hit Jamaica since their record keeping started back in
(04:26):
eighteen fifty one. So our thoughts and our prayers are
with the people of Jamaica and all of the islands
down there, the Dominican Republic Haiti man oh man, and
we still have what another month or so of the
(04:46):
hurricane season upon US thirties right now, A nice one
here ahead in from a partly cloudy and around fifty
five tonight partly cloudy and thirty A lot of this morning.
Waking up tomorrow looks like sun, clouds, fifty five and
some clouds and some rain on Thursday, a little bit
(05:07):
of a cool front pushing in fifty for the daytime
high on Thursday. And that's Halloween. Yeah, Friday, Friday Halloween
rain showers. So pack an umbrella for the kids. Dodgers
got the edge in the World Series after taking the
Blue Jays last night in a record eighteen inning Game three.
(05:30):
This is the longest World Series game in Major League
Baseball history by innings. Game four tonight at eight o'clock.
Man hanging on, I hope the Blue Jays can get
it done. As I said, this morning is a very
(05:52):
special day. It was in twenty nineteen, just a couple
of years ago, that the United States passed a resolution
designing October twenty eighth as National First Responders Day to
honor the men and the women who put their lives
on the line and are there for us no matter
(06:14):
when we need them. Twenty four to seven with us
this morning is our Assistant State Fire Marshal Rege. And
I want to make sure I say this right. Reg
Is it Bellevue?
Speaker 1 (06:27):
That's good?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Is that good? That works? Do others screw up your
last name?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah? Yeah, kind of It's it's French.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
It's belle Vaux, the vision. Oh, I got it right
on the second time.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But everybody calls you, Reggie. Yes, how are you man?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I'm doing great. Thanks for the invite.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's an absolute pleasure to not only meet you this morning,
but also have you share a microphone with me. Listen
I said to you just a few minutes ago. When
Joe Waltsworth tells me I need to have somebody on
the air, I don't. I don't ask questions. He's a
great guy and a fantastic community leader here in Central Vermont.
(07:14):
I don't even say Barry. It's beyond well, well well
beyond Barry. And he knows what's going on, and he
knows the best people to have on the air to
talk about the most important things.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I appreciate that. Appreciate Joe also being a good partner.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Tell me, first of all, thank you to all of
our first responders here in our state, no matter who
they are, men and women, it doesn't matter fire, police, ambulance, everything,
everyone on this first responder's day, we are all, every
single one of us, completely screwed. Without each of you.
(07:53):
I appreciate that we love you, We rely on you
twenty four to seven, no matter what the weather's doing,
no matter what's happening. So kudos and a tip of
the hat to all of our first responders this morning,
hearing fromont and beyond wonderful to have you in here. Man.
First of all, I would love to say, let's make
(08:16):
this a little bit of a habit if we can.
Let's get you back in here because it's fun. Talking
about fire safety is massive. This is probably, and I've
said this to Joe before, this is probably one of
the biggest subjects that I think so many of us
are guilty myself. Included of just taking for granted, is
(08:41):
that we get caught up in our routine. Things are good,
we're busy, we don't we're not always thinking about stuff
like this, our fire alarms, our fire prevention stuff, whether
our home is safe, bad habit that we may or
may not have, and especially this time of year, when
(09:05):
things start getting chili, We're turning on space heaters, We're
cranking up the heat a little bit more. We're not
really thinking about whether or not we had our furnace
cleaned or our chimneys cleaned. We get busy, we get
caught up. Yeah, absolutely, we're thinking about hunting. We're thinking
(09:26):
about what we're doing for the holidays. We're thinking about
maybe doing some some installation work in our house. But
we're not really thinking about fire prevention so much. What
are we doing here in fromont to kind of combat
that a little bit?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So within the let me go and try to frame
what I actually what my job is. So I fall
under a Department of Public Safety, Division of Fire Safety
under the Fire Marshal's office, and I'm an assistant fire Marshal.
But I don't do not do inspections. I am public education.
(10:06):
So I go out and I, you know, do these programs,
present these programs throughout the state.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Okay, So, and you have just slept a long way
to get here this morning, and we appreciate your time
and your your dedication to this. What is the eighth
two firesafe program? This is something that I think I've
(10:34):
seen that logo in the past before, but I'm not
sure what.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It means, okay, so let me frame it as fire
Safe ATO two is a state program that we that
we established through a Firefighters grant that would help distribute
home fire alarms to single family homes that that require them.
(11:02):
Fire alarms have a ten year basically a ten year life.
After ten years, it's recommended that you get rid of
them and replace them after ten years. So the fire
Safe ATO two program is very, very similar to the
Sound the Alarm program the American Red Cross offers as well.
So we have partnered in the past in Berlin at
(11:25):
the Berlin Fire Department with the American Red Cross and
fire Safe ATO too in their department to distribute smoke
alarms to I believe it was fourteen fourteen homes that
weekend that we did that program last year.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
To find these homes, how do you get connected with them? Okay?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So typically what happens is so one of the things
I try to do with the fire departments when I
go out and I do these presentations on community risk reduction.
So community risk reduction is a program the NFPA has
developed to basically help fire departments do a drill down
(12:09):
within their communities as to what are their main hitters,
their main causes of calls. Okay, so community risk reduction
is basically take your department, look at what your high
flyers are. Every call a fire department has to enter
into it's going to be nearest, but it was enfers.
(12:30):
It's a national database where you know, you say, okay,
we had a call at X y Z address. This
was the call, These are the trucks that responded, this
is how many personnel we're on truck, and this is
what we found back in service at X. So at
the end of the year you can take what basically
(12:50):
run a spreadsheet on what these calls were. Then you
can see what your high flyers are. So community risk
reduction is said, look at these and see how you
can help reduce them. So it's basically being a preemptive
rather than a reactive program within a fire department is outreach.
And the big thing I think that gets lost in
(13:14):
these programs is it is that community outreach. It's that
one on one sitting down with the community and just
talking with them, brainstorming, spitballing, and say what have you
got going on in your home? Do you mind if
we come in and do a visit. So your question
was how do they do that? The fire departments would
sit there and they would put out like a notification,
(13:35):
say hey, we want to do a home safety visit
in your single family home. And I'll go back to that.
Remind me of that, say send us an email or
call us. We'll put you on a list and we'll
do a weekend. We'll do a Saturday, and we'll come
out and do an install. So, like I said, I
did an example of Berlin. Fourteen families, fourteen homes called
(13:58):
and they scheduled that Saturday. So we had I think
it was like twenty five thirty volunteers the fire department
as well, along with the Red Cross, along with other
community partners. So it could have been like the Boy Scouts,
it could have been the Girl Scouts. It could have
been like the Eagles Club or the Lion's Club, or
the Masonic or whatever that you have within your community.
(14:20):
Everybody congregated at the fire station. We gave them a
quick training on how you do a home safety visit,
and then they all went out with their equipment, the alarms,
and they did an install. So that's how people would
do that. So within the state of Vermont, there's conflicting numbers,
but about two hundred and thirty one fire departments within
(14:41):
the state of Vermont. And I would say in the
past two years that my mission was to get out
and get these these programs out there, educate the fire
departments to say this is out there. We probably hit
better than a third or so of the fire departments
within the state of Vermont.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
And there's many and.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Thirty one roughly fire departments within the state. And I
couldn't tell you exactly how many full time departments. I mean,
I have visited Montpellier, I've visited obviously Barry, Barry City, Burlington,
South Burlington, Colchester. I've been to Saint John's Berry fire departments.
(15:23):
So there are a few full time, there are a
few mixed full time on call, and then there's strictly
volunteer fire departments throughout the state of Vermont.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Wow. Man, and how many how many others assistant fire
so Marshall.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Are doing this the pub ed division. It's myself. So
I have a direct report a supervisor, Michael Greenia that
has been doing this since God War Nickers. He's been
forever in the pub ed division. So back when I
got hired two years ago as a part time employee
within the State of Vermont, my mission was to work
(16:04):
under Michael to go out and get these programs out
there and help fire departments one help them understand that, hey,
these programs are out there and they're not state pushed programs.
They are the two programs I mentioned, the Community Risk
Reduction and the Steps of Safety program. They are NFPA,
the National Fire Protection Association. They are NFPA driven, just
(16:29):
like Fire Prevention Week in the schools. Yeah right, I
mean the fire departments do an exceptional job at Fire
Prevention Week in the schools going out and doing that outreach.
I got one of the first documented fire saves within
the state of Vermont back in twenty I can't remember
what the date is now, but due to the programs
that the Swanton Village Fire Department presented in the schools,
(16:52):
I've done that for twenty six years and I got
the privilege of having it work. So anyway, we talked
about Fire Prevention Week, NFPA does a really good job
of that. These other two programs that we're finding out
that the Steps to Safety program that within the past
(17:14):
This year alone, we've had nine fire desks within the
state of Vermont and all of them have been over
the age of sixty. Within the past ten years, fifty
four percent of the fire desks within the state of
Vermont have been over the age of sixty. So what's
that telling us is that we do an exceptional job
at fire Prevention Week in the school. We're missing a demographic.
(17:34):
We're missing that older adults.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Wow, and you were just telling me before we went
live here this morning. Slips and trips. This is stuff
that is well documented. Yeah, slips, trips and falls. When
I went to a National Fire Protection Association, I went
to a conference boy in this case me where it
(17:57):
was it wasn't conquered and talking to other fire departments
throughout New England, majority of them if their EMS combination
of EMS and fire or strictly EMS, it's lifticists. You know,
older adults falling. And one of the things that for me,
it's scary to think about because my partner, her mom
(18:20):
is her mom is like eighty four years old, and
I worry about her falling because when an older adult
falls and they break their hip, that is that is
catastrophic for them. Sure, right, So that decreases their mobility
and that's where it.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
For whatever reason, it seems like their health declines after that.
So preventing that fall is important. Thus the Steps of
Safety program that the NFPA put out there for us
to help educate fire departments. Yeah wow, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And combine you know mobility or general mobility with egress
and throw in you know a cooking mishap. Yes, this
is a this is a very bad combination.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
They say that an average, so majority of fires within
the homes start in the kitchen. Okay, it is heating. Also,
smoking is a large cause, but one of the number
one causes are cooking fires in the in the home.
An average kitchen fire through the insurance companies, I've heard
(19:37):
seventy four thousand dollars for an average kitchen fire. Okay.
So one of the things to try to prevent cooking
fires are, you know, you have lids to the pans
or the pots that you're cooking with, you have anoven
met but also you have a fire extinguisher that's nearby. Okay,
all of these things I've had, I've had older adults
(19:57):
ask me about what about the fire blanket. You know,
you see this fire blanket advertised and all this other stuff.
I would argue that in my years of doing fire
education fire prevention, if you're that comfortable being that close
to a fire, why not use an extinguisher instead? Right,
because if you look at the concept, you take a blanket,
(20:19):
you open it up, and now you put it over
your face like this, you know, and you're walking up
to the fire. I can't see me, I'm on radio,
but anyway, you're walking up to the fire like okay.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Where is it?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Now you drop it and now you're exposed again. So
you're right up close to that fire. So a fire
blanket is not UL listed and the NFPA doesn't recognize
it as a piece of firefighting equipment. Okay, it's a suppression.
It's not a piece of firefighting equipment. A fire extinguisher
is is UL listed and is recognized as a piece
(20:48):
of fire fighting equipment.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
What's what's the uh? What? What kind of fire extinguisher
do we need to have in the kitchen?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
A b CD yeah, ABC, ABC, Yeah, So ABC is
what we call dry kem. It's a dry chemical. Is
it tastes like crap? If you get it in your mouth.
It's sodium bicarbonate and some other chemicals in there. But basically,
if you understand the fire triangle right, you need heat, oxygen,
(21:19):
and fuel. What it does is it smothers. It takes
away the oxygen. Okay, it makes a mess. It's a powder.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
The way I when I teach fire extinguish your training,
Type A fire is like what makes ashes, so wood paper,
that kind of stuff. Type B is like boiling liquids,
so oils, gasolines, cooking oil. That kind of stuff is
anything that'll boil. That's a type B fire. Type C
fires like circuits, so your toaster, your microwave, your computers,
(21:51):
your cell phones, that kind of stuff. Anything that's electrical is.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
A type C.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
ABC encompasses them all, all of those fires. They are
good to have in your home in your kitchen area
near your furnace. But understanding the size of the extinguisher
limits your firefighting capabilities. So if you have an eight
pounder or so, you know those are the regular small
(22:16):
ones that you see you can buy at you know,
your local hardware store, you have within five to ten
seconds of firefighting capabilities.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
So once you decide you're going to fight that fire,
you pull the pin, you aim, you squeeze, and you
sweep you one one thousand and two, one thousand and three,
one thousand and four, one thousand and five. Now you're
starting to dissipate. Six, one thousand and seven, one thousand
and eight, one thousand. You're spent. Okay, Okay, that's not
a lot of time. Okay, understanding that understanding one your
(22:49):
ability to fight a fire, but understanding what type of
fire you have, but hopefully knowing where your egress is
in the event of a fire.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah quickly, and not just you, but your family, your
kids too. So guys like me might just say, screw it.
I'm just going to get the biggest ABC that they make,
and I'm gonna buy half a thousand of them and
have one in the garage, one in the kitchen, one
(23:21):
in the whatever. But just best to just go with
all three. ABC.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
ABC is the one to have at a home yesday.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
A lot of a lot of businesses, computer companies and stuff.
They'll have the BC, which is the carbon dioxide, not
carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is that poisonous gas that you
have in your home that is derived from the incomplete
combustion of a carbon Okay, so from woodstoves, propane fuel oils,
(23:53):
that kind of stuff that's monoxide dioxide. Is the that
fog so to speak, that really cold stuff it comes out.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
But what's the difference if we're just missing the A
is it just a little cheaper.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Now it'll do the same thing, But for paper it
comes out with such a force. The BC extinguisher, I
mean you could, you could. It's better to blanket an
A type fire and a B C. What it does,
it cools and it takes away the oxygen. Okay, okay,
ABC will put that powder all over it and it
(24:31):
blankets the fire as well as takes away the oxygen
and cools the fire.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Okay to us all three, Wow, this is amazing. So
do you with the AH two firesafe program? Kind of
a dumb question here, but are you are you relying
on the community to come to you to say, hey,
would you guys come in and do an assessment and
(24:56):
evaluation of my home? Or do you look at your
stats and say, you know, these following people are frequent flyers,
they're elderly. We should just go knock on their door
and just have a quick review and see what they've
got for fire prevention stuff.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So my role within the state is to be a
vehicle or a conduit for local fire departments. Okay, I
am in no way trying to tell a fire department
what they should do or what they need to do.
If they have questions they have they want guidance. I
don't know all the answers, but I will definitely help
them get the answers that they need to help make
(25:39):
their community safer. That's all my purposes is to be
that conduit for them. So to go back to your question,
could they come to me, I'd rather they go to
their local fire departments and ask them about you know, hey,
do you folks give away fire alarms? Right now? We
(26:01):
do have a cash of CEO and smoke combination alarms
that if they if a fire department decided that they
wanted to do an AT or two program, I have
a trailer or the state has a trailer that we
could bring up to the fire station like that weekend
we were talking about. And we have ladders, we have
(26:24):
a toolkit, we have mirrors, we have the whole gamut.
So all they have to do is show up the
fire department, and the volunteers show up, and they get
the alarms, and they get the equipment and go off
and do their thing.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Wow, you were You mentioned earlier high risk single family
homes and said, don't forget that I mentioned that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So yeah, So the fire Marshal's office within a stave
Vermont has no jurisdiction over single family homes. So apartment
buildings we do have, in commercial buildings, all of that
kind of stuff, the Fire Marshal's office has jurisdiction over them. These,
all of these fire desks that we mentioned earlier were
all from single family homes. Okay, So thus fire Safe
(27:08):
aight O two program comes into play on helping our
local our families be safer, right because obviously the data
shows majority of the fire deaths are within single family homes.
You know, So the eight O two program sixty plus yeah. Yeah,
So the eight O two program is have your local
(27:29):
fire departments go out and have a conversation a home
safety visit to help make you safer. The slip trips falls,
the Steps Safety program to the NFPA offul also offers
is basically older adults and I've done programs at like
Wake Robin. I've done a program up here for visually
(27:49):
and hearing it paired with Joe. That was a cool.
I had had a ball there. I've done Chittenham County
Community Services where special needs group. I did a fire
extinguisher training for that group. That was a ball. I
had probably the most fun I ever had doing a
fire extinguisher training program. But I've also done church groups
(28:11):
for Steps to Safety. So those are the demographics or
that's that group of individuals that you try to go
out and have a conversation with, and it's it's a
lot of fun because basically you start out with a
quick little presentation and stuff and you have a one
conversation one on one with these people and next thing
(28:33):
you know, you're off talking about fire extinguisher training, or
you're off talking about, well what about you know, what
about these fire blankets? I get that question? Or what
about what kind of extinguishers should I have? Or you know,
I love this carpet, or what about space heaters? You know,
bedshakers for the hearing impaired. It's it looks like an
(28:55):
alarm clock, but it's a little I call it like
it looks like a mouse for your laptop, and it
goes underneath the pillow of your you know, in your bed,
and it connects with your smoke alarm. So when your
smoke alarm goes off, it will vibrate underneath your pillow
and notify you that, hey, you have a fire somewhere
is in the home.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
You just said notify, and earlier you were you were
saying prevention, notification, and evacuation. Those are those are the
keys right there?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, so I think we mentioned earlier that you know,
back in the day, when the fire alarm went off,
you had probably ten to eight minutes to get out
of your home. Now it's less than two minutes, so
less than two minutes, within two and a half three
foot off the floor. Heat in your home, once flame
(29:47):
gets to fire, gets to open flame, so they call
it in sympathy in simpient stage where it's smoldering and
it's smoking like crazy. Once it becomes open flame, within
the first couple of minutes, it's over five hundred gas
about a foot off the floor two feet off the floor,
so it's very very quick.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Why why why is that? Uh? Why are we around
two minutes or less?
Speaker 1 (30:13):
It's it's the way furnishing. Furnishings are designed and built, carpeting,
that kind of stuff. You know, the molded boards, you
know that you see now in the basements, you know,
instead of the you know, you don't have those huge
trees anymore, right because of forestry, forestry services and stuff,
you know, building homes and that kind of stuff. Now
(30:34):
you've got the molded and the glued particle boards or
whatever you want to call them, those big beams. That's
glue holding that together. So that's a flammable material.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
You would think that they would make it non flammable.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
You would think, yeah, yeah, but you got you got
to build homes right.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Wow. Uh. A couple of comments here. Vermont was the
first state in the world to pass photo electric only
smoke alarms. Yes, that's amazing. I didn't know that. There
are new homes, homes that are sold apartments and have
(31:18):
a huge impact. Are a huge difference. More to come.
But we're missing a huge population, the people who still
have their homes with ionized alarms or no alarms at all.
How do we reach that population to get them to
install photo electric alarms? And are these people that are
(31:41):
dying in Vermont, or these are the people that are
dying in Vermont, how do we educate them and protect
them with the right alarms.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So that is a good question, and having something like
this your podcast for us to get that information out
there is one of the ways that we get the
get the word out there. Working with local fire departments,
we've actually I've actually started partnering with EMS groups as well,
not just fire departments, but EMS when they go out
(32:11):
excuse me, when they go out and do a lift
assist or they do a general good intent call to
go visit somebody. A lot of EMS groups are a
crossover I call them crossover where part of some of
them are fire department personnel as well, or you know,
so they work on a fire department, but on their
days off they work for EMS, so they understand what
(32:34):
the look for with first alarms, you know, that kind
of thing. But also I can go in and do
an educational program for EMS to help educate them and
what to look for for alarms, placement of alarms, that
kind of stuff. That's another way to get the word
out there.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Just had Jody Emerson in here yesterday from the Central
Vermont Career Center, and I note that they do fire
fire safety and like a fire school, their education with
with youth, which is so important. And District six and
eight are are teaming up with the Central from my
(33:13):
Career Center doing some big things in the coming year,
which is which is wonderful, you know. I I ask,
why are they even making ionization alarms? Why?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It's like it's like everything else, right, it's evolving. We
understand that, uh, you know, photoelectric is better sensing. It's
earlier in the incipient stage of a fire, so it's
quicker notification. Right, So things progress. There's also a newer uh,
there's a newer COO alarm that is coming out that
(33:48):
measures that lower levels of CEO. I believe I'm trying
to scratching some brain cell here, but a CEO alarm
is designed to start alarming when it senses carbon monoxide
in your home at twenty parts per million. I believe
it is for longer than a fifteen minute interval. So
(34:08):
if the alarm never reaches fifteen minutes, or if the
sensing never reaches fifteen minutes in duration, but you go
up to about twenty let's say it's I don't know,
I let's say it's ten minutes of twenty parts per million,
then it drops back down, but then it creeps back up,
but it never reaches that fifteen minute time window. That
alarm won't go off and notify you. But low levels,
(34:30):
they're finding out. Low levels of constant carbon monoxide in
your home helps. It causes some health effects of course,
of course, so newhere alarms are coming out now they
won't alarm at the lower levels, but you will have
readouts of that low level of carbon monoxide, so you can,
you know, you pay attention to that, and you look
(34:51):
and say, geez, I'm always having like ten parts per
million here, I have to have something checked to see
why am I having these low levels.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
It's amazing, amazing to hear this from you, and hopefully
it's thinking people that are listening, think what's in my house?
What do I have? Yeah? In what rooms? Where? When's
the last time I checked my patterns?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Part of this too, JD is not it's not the
fear factor. It's what we're trying to do is educate.
So an educated population is a informed population, right, So
we give them the tools, like with the fire department,
we give them the tools and they help better understand
(35:41):
how to get the information out there. And the more
the public understands, and the more the public knows, the
more educated they are and they can make proper choices.
You know, we don't we don't want to tell a
homeowner what to do. All we want to do is
inform them that these are the right things they should
look for.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Folks listening right now, if they would like a home
a free home analysis, should they contact AIGHTO two Fire
Safe or should they what do they do? Or do
they contact their local fire.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Contact their local fire department. Go through there and then
the fire departments will notify me and I can help
them set up a program.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Okay, Yeah, it's that simple.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
It's that simple. Yeah, I mean, and obviously so some
fire departments within the state of Vermont. I mean, you
have really small departments that have thirty calls a year.
You have some departments that have thirty calls an hour. Right,
So there's a wide range of fire departments out there,
in a wide range of skilled fire departments and staffed
(36:51):
fire departments. A lot of fire departments they'll rely on
a mutual aid system like Grotten for example. They'll rely
on their neighboring town to help them with larger fires.
But they also team up for fire education as well.
Swanton where I'm from, Swanton and Highgate we did a
mutual aid fire prevention program in the schools once, so
(37:12):
I partnered with Highgate and we co taught fire prevention
in the school. We do a lot of that type
of stuff. So you're sharing information, you're sharing ideas with
local fire departments. And then now you're expanding your staff
to be able to go do these home safety visits.
So you're not relying on your group of fifteen or
twenty firefighters. Now you're expanding that to forty potentially firefighters
(37:35):
to go out and do a home safety visit.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
What do you say to our younger demographic that is
maybe in high school and thinking beyond high school and
thinking about getting into fire science.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
So you mentioned Central Vermont has a program here in
the high school. I know the Saint Albans Career Center
also has a firefighter program. Swanton has a cadet program
where we teach firefighters that are I believe sixteen. You
can come in and become a cadet firefighter. So you'll
(38:15):
get a pager, you'll get a set of gear, you
would not respond to a fire, but post the fire,
they would probably have you come in and help pick
up hose. You come to Monday night trainings, that kind
of stuff. You educate people on your educate the younger
adults on fire prevention, fire safety basically. And we've had
(38:37):
I can tell you that we've had assistant chiefs lieutenants
that came up through high school within Swanton Fire that
through the cadet program. You know, once you that bug
is bit you, boy, it's hard to shake it.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
I've heard that before.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
I've went thirty six years. I've retired since COVID in
a middle of COVID. So my prior, my prior life
I was. I used to work for IBM for twenty
six years. I was a HASMAT Tech all twenty six years,
so I've been has MATT Tech for plus thirty six years.
I retired from the State HASMAT team. I used to
(39:16):
be on the State has MATT. I used to be
on Swanton Fire as well, thirty six years. I retired
through COVID in the middle of COVID because my other
career I was a Swanton village manager, so I had
to manage the community and trying to figure out how
do you run a community in the middle of COVID.
So something had to give and I had to focus
on the community. So I backed off and retired from
(39:39):
fire department and state has.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Matt But you don't check out, man, You still get
shirt your nails in.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I haven't figured out how to retire. This is my
third career. I'm still the emergency manager emergency management director
for Swanton for plus. Nineteen eighty eight is when I
became Swanton's emergency management director of.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Fire departments, Mont Pilier, Berlin, Perry Have. I believe those
are the three I could be missing. One have teamed
up recently with the Central Vermont Hospital. Yes, and Serve pro.
But what's that all about?
Speaker 1 (40:17):
So that was part of they did. Basically, they would
give out an alarm to newborn the families of a
newborn before they left the Uh. You know, it's kind
of like you get a car seat, you get a
smoke alarm as well. Yeah, and so through our fire
Safe Atal two program, we donated along with Berlin and
(40:38):
those and Berry and mont Pilier fire departments, we donated
fire alarms for Central Vermont Birthing Center. So they could
give those alarms out to families.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
They're thinking about everything other than a fire. They're thinking
about the car seat, they're thinking about the red or
the blue or or whatever it is. Yeah, but they're
just not thinking about fire.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Or carbon monoxide right right.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
And the alarms that we handed out they were dual
so CEO and smoke, so they detected both.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
When was that time just recently?
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, last week, last week, I'm trying to remember how
many I think it was plus seventy alarms that were
given out to the Center of Vermont Medical.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Center and Surf Pro many that that that's been part of,
like almost like a family tradition for them to do
that with local hospitals.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
That was pretty cool. Yeah, they well, yeah, a lot
of area. I don't know what the other I think
they did, Copley Yeah, also I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm
not sure where else they went, but yeah, I guess
the prior owner used to do that. And when the
Sun took over the company, Yeah, same thing. COVID kind
of slowed things down and he said, hey, we got
(42:08):
to bring this back up, and Joe did some outreach
and uh, I love love having that guy for for
a partner for sure, and uh I got roped in
and uh yeah, I was an honor being there.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
That's so cool A question that that's just come in.
How dangerous is living in an apartment with four times
the recommended radon levels?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Okay, so that's not my wheelhouse, so I can't answer that.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, well, y'all are such an integral part of our community.
What you all do, not just fighting the fires, but
preventing and educating is so tremendous. You know. I was
(42:57):
at I pulled into a fire department not long ago,
a couple of weeks ago, and there was some training
that was that was going on with a young man
who was fully suited up and learning some techniques. And
I got to I pulled in, parked, parked my truck.
(43:20):
I was actually looking for Joe and was just observing
this and I'm like, this guy is just busting his
ass learning this this stuff, and this is I don't
know for me not seeing this all the time. That
(43:41):
was really cool for me. I'm like, man, that makes
me feel so good.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
You know, there's there's so many there's so many things
within that fire service career, even as a volunteer. I have,
you know, thirty six years, I've seen it quite a
bit of stuff. You I've gone through months of therapy
after I retired from the fire service. You know, there's
certain things you just can't unsee, right, And so just
(44:08):
I'll do a sidebar really quick. I am a big
proponent of mental health for our first responders. Plain and simple, Okay,
there are there. You know, we need to take care
of our mental health. Plane and simple, yeah, okay, and
I'll leave it there. But there's so many things that
we do in our life with the fire education and
the fire prevention and fighting fires, that we probably won't
(44:32):
ever see that benefit that how we've impacted someone's life
in a certain way. I'll tell you a quick side
story if I could so. Village manager. So, I had
one of my employees come in and just happened to
sit across the desk from me, and he just sat
down there and I'm on a computer doing my thing,
you know and stuff, and look over and it says, hey,
(44:53):
what's up. He says, oh, you know, it was just
an anniversary of his brother dying got killed in a
car accident. And I says, oh, really, he said when
and he told me, and I said, well, there was
the location and he told me. I said, I told him.
I happened to be the officer in charge of that
fire call that day. The gentleman died instantly, and I
(45:16):
told him, I said, I stayed right by his side.
I had. I had a thing that I did any
fatality of a car accident, I would stay by the
victim until the corner showed up and the body was removed,
something I always done. So anyway, he looked at me
(45:38):
and I told him. He says, I, I never left
your brother's side. I sat there, and it was an
hour and a half. It was probably twenty degrees out
in a crappy day, and once the corner came, you know,
we removed his brother and took him away. I told
him I was there, and he broke down into tears.
He said, knowing you were there, my brothers is I
(46:00):
never knew how that happened, but knowing you were there
helps me put closure. So I had the privilege of
knowing one thing that I have done that impacted someone's life.
But we go through so many days that we don't
know how we impact another person's life, either negatively, or positively.
(46:24):
But you always should have that motivation to do the
right thing, regardless of who is there seeing you.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
So anyway, that's powerful man. According to the CDC, and
I just pulled this up, ninety seven firefighters and one
hundred and fifty five police officers die each year in
(46:54):
the line of duty. This is an important time. This
is a great time. It's always a good time to
have someone on to talk about fire safety, fire prevention.
As you said, uh, education is the key. Having having
(47:18):
the knowledge in the education is probably the biggest proponent
to fire prevention. I would love to have you on
more frequently on again. Maybe we could get Joe in here.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
That'd be cool.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I'd love that. Yeah, let's you know, let's let's do that.
And and frankly, it doesn't really matter what time of year.
But you know, during these colder months, you know, we've
got venting to to think about. We have snowfall, we
have the holidays coming, holidays coming up. Yeah, there's there's
(47:59):
a lot of stuff going on, and you guys serve
as a great reminder to me to just kind of
tap the brakes in a few other areas of life
that we're very preoccupied with and remember fire safety. I
(48:19):
mean it's not the most exciting subject to talk about,
but think about those smoke detectors, those fire alarms that
you have in your home, and whether or not you
have a fire extinguisher, and if so, how many and
how are they rated? And when was the last time
that you know they have a shelf life? Too, when
was the last time that they've been checked? Turn them
(48:42):
upside out and give them a bang with a rubber
mallet and make sure that they're ready to go. This
is great stuff, man. This is a day that is
serving as a National Day of Gratitude, National Firm Responders Day.
We pay tribute to the endless hours and sacrifice around
(49:07):
the clock that all first responders give to our communities.
And it's one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.
I think most of us know that we should take
a moment today pay tribute to fallen first responders as well,
and remember that if you have any questions, what's what's
(49:31):
the best way to learn more about A two fire
safe And and maybe too, is there a website? Is
it firesafety dot Vermont dot gov? Believe so that's what
it is. That's it right there, And I'm gonna put
that in the in the comments here. This is amazing,
(49:51):
rech and I hope you come back. I hope you
come back soon. Let's do this again. Let's let's get
Joe in here as well, and we invite any other firefighters,
fire departments, first responders to get in here and keep
banging this drum. Good stuff, great stuff. Thanks thanks for
(50:12):
coming in man, appreciate you. Don't forget tomorrow Sweethearts and
Heroes Day right here on the aired out podcast, and
it's gonna be a good one. I can't wait to
have our guests on tomorrow morning, a great lady who's
doing remarkable things, and it's gonna be a great day.
(50:34):
Thanks for liking and following the page. Don't forget to comment,
to share, to spread the word on any episode that
you're paying attention to that you enjoy, especially this one
right here. Will always live, We're always local, we're never edited,
and we appreciate your eyes in hears so much. I
have about fantastic rest of you day,
Two peoples.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Peculs. Well, we got five days until daylight savings time ends,
(01:48):
three days to Halloween. Time is flying. It is first
Responder's Day. We have our assists in state Fire Marshall,
who's gonna be with us here in just a moment.
Welcome to aired Out, Welcome whoever you are aware of
(02:10):
you are. We have a couple of new listeners over
in New York, two of which are in Plattsburgh. Good morning, Mary, Jane.
Fly on the Wall productions live on Facebook and YouTube
and streamed everywhere you get your podcasts. Of course, we're
(02:30):
on the web at airedoutvt dot com. Brad Paisley on
birthday list today at fifty three, Ben Harper fifty six,
Julie Roberts is fifty eight today, Conan O'Brien Henchman, Andy
Richter fifty nine years old. And this guy. His homecovers
(02:53):
just about sixty six thousand square feet. All the floors
are heated, including the driveway. This women pool's got massive
speakers in it so that you can hear your favorite
music underwater. Bill Gates seventy years old today. I know
nobody cares about Bill Gates. Right here in Vermont, which
is what everyone really cares about. Joe Carroll on the
(03:14):
birthday list today, Gary Sheridan, Randy Moore, Tanja Davis, Troy Kellogg,
Alan Cussen, Carlo Rivetto, Don Tefanni, Tyler hort Or, Hoyt Rather,
William Partlowe, and I missed Dulcy Taylor yesterday. It is Tuesday,
five dollars Tuesdays back at the Capitol Theater, skip the line,
(03:37):
get to a movie over at the cap in Montpillier.
Of course, follow him on social media Instagram, all of
that stuff for updates, added showtimes, special events and more. Well,
we have the thirteenth named storm of the Atlantic Hurricane season,
Hurricane Melissa, making landfall right now impact Jamaica as a
(04:01):
Category five storm with sustained winds upwards of around two
hundred miles per hour. I'm not sure how anybody can
can survive that, but man, this is the strongest system
to hit Jamaica since their record keeping started back in
(04:26):
eighteen fifty one. So our thoughts and our prayers are
with the people of Jamaica and all of the islands
down there, the Dominican Republic Haiti man oh man, and
we still have what another month or so of the
(04:46):
hurricane season upon US thirties right now, A nice one
here ahead in from a partly cloudy and around fifty
five tonight partly cloudy and thirty A lot of this morning.
Waking up tomorrow looks like sun, clouds, fifty five and
some clouds and some rain on Thursday, a little bit
(05:07):
of a cool front pushing in fifty for the daytime
high on Thursday. And that's Halloween. Yeah, Friday, Friday Halloween
rain showers. So pack an umbrella for the kids. Dodgers
got the edge in the World Series after taking the
Blue Jays last night in a record eighteen inning Game three.
(05:30):
This is the longest World Series game in Major League
Baseball history by innings. Game four tonight at eight o'clock.
Man hanging on, I hope the Blue Jays can get
it done. As I said, this morning is a very
(05:52):
special day. It was in twenty nineteen, just a couple
of years ago, that the United States passed a resolution
designing October twenty eighth as National First Responders Day to
honor the men and the women who put their lives
on the line and are there for us no matter
(06:14):
when we need them. Twenty four to seven with us
this morning is our Assistant State Fire Marshal Rege. And
I want to make sure I say this right. Reg
Is it Bellevue?
Speaker 1 (06:27):
That's good?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Is that good? That works? Do others screw up your
last name?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah? Yeah, kind of It's it's French.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
It's belle Vaux, the vision. Oh, I got it right
on the second time.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But everybody calls you, Reggie. Yes, how are you man?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I'm doing great. Thanks for the invite.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's an absolute pleasure to not only meet you this morning,
but also have you share a microphone with me. Listen
I said to you just a few minutes ago. When
Joe Waltsworth tells me I need to have somebody on
the air, I don't. I don't ask questions. He's a
great guy and a fantastic community leader here in Central Vermont.
(07:14):
I don't even say Barry. It's beyond well, well well
beyond Barry. And he knows what's going on, and he
knows the best people to have on the air to
talk about the most important things.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I appreciate that. Appreciate Joe also being a good partner.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Tell me, first of all, thank you to all of
our first responders here in our state, no matter who
they are, men and women, it doesn't matter fire, police, ambulance, everything,
everyone on this first responder's day, we are all, every
single one of us, completely screwed. Without each of you.
(07:53):
I appreciate that we love you, We rely on you
twenty four to seven, no matter what the weather's doing,
no matter what's happening. So kudos and a tip of
the hat to all of our first responders this morning,
hearing fromont and beyond wonderful to have you in here. Man.
First of all, I would love to say, let's make
(08:16):
this a little bit of a habit if we can.
Let's get you back in here because it's fun. Talking
about fire safety is massive. This is probably, and I've
said this to Joe before, this is probably one of
the biggest subjects that I think so many of us
are guilty myself. Included of just taking for granted, is
(08:41):
that we get caught up in our routine. Things are good,
we're busy, we don't we're not always thinking about stuff
like this, our fire alarms, our fire prevention stuff, whether
our home is safe, bad habit that we may or
may not have, and especially this time of year, when
(09:05):
things start getting chili, We're turning on space heaters, We're
cranking up the heat a little bit more. We're not
really thinking about whether or not we had our furnace
cleaned or our chimneys cleaned. We get busy, we get
caught up. Yeah, absolutely, we're thinking about hunting. We're thinking
(09:26):
about what we're doing for the holidays. We're thinking about
maybe doing some some installation work in our house. But
we're not really thinking about fire prevention so much. What
are we doing here in fromont to kind of combat
that a little bit?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So within the let me go and try to frame
what I actually what my job is. So I fall
under a Department of Public Safety, Division of Fire Safety
under the Fire Marshal's office, and I'm an assistant fire Marshal.
But I don't do not do inspections. I am public education.
(10:06):
So I go out and I, you know, do these programs,
present these programs throughout the state.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Okay, So, and you have just slept a long way
to get here this morning, and we appreciate your time
and your your dedication to this. What is the eighth
two firesafe program? This is something that I think I've
(10:34):
seen that logo in the past before, but I'm not
sure what.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It means, okay, so let me frame it as fire
Safe ATO two is a state program that we that
we established through a Firefighters grant that would help distribute
home fire alarms to single family homes that that require them.
(11:02):
Fire alarms have a ten year basically a ten year life.
After ten years, it's recommended that you get rid of
them and replace them after ten years. So the fire
Safe ATO two program is very, very similar to the
Sound the Alarm program the American Red Cross offers as well.
So we have partnered in the past in Berlin at
(11:25):
the Berlin Fire Department with the American Red Cross and
fire Safe ATO too in their department to distribute smoke
alarms to I believe it was fourteen fourteen homes that
weekend that we did that program last year.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
To find these homes, how do you get connected with them? Okay?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So typically what happens is so one of the things
I try to do with the fire departments when I
go out and I do these presentations on community risk reduction.
So community risk reduction is a program the NFPA has
developed to basically help fire departments do a drill down
(12:09):
within their communities as to what are their main hitters,
their main causes of calls. Okay, so community risk reduction
is basically take your department, look at what your high
flyers are. Every call a fire department has to enter
into it's going to be nearest, but it was enfers.
(12:30):
It's a national database where you know, you say, okay,
we had a call at X y Z address. This
was the call, These are the trucks that responded, this
is how many personnel we're on truck, and this is
what we found back in service at X. So at
the end of the year you can take what basically
(12:50):
run a spreadsheet on what these calls were. Then you
can see what your high flyers are. So community risk
reduction is said, look at these and see how you
can help reduce them. So it's basically being a preemptive
rather than a reactive program within a fire department is outreach.
And the big thing I think that gets lost in
(13:14):
these programs is it is that community outreach. It's that
one on one sitting down with the community and just
talking with them, brainstorming, spitballing, and say what have you
got going on in your home? Do you mind if
we come in and do a visit. So your question
was how do they do that? The fire departments would
sit there and they would put out like a notification,
(13:35):
say hey, we want to do a home safety visit
in your single family home. And I'll go back to that.
Remind me of that, say send us an email or
call us. We'll put you on a list and we'll
do a weekend. We'll do a Saturday, and we'll come
out and do an install. So, like I said, I
did an example of Berlin. Fourteen families, fourteen homes called
(13:58):
and they scheduled that Saturday. So we had I think
it was like twenty five thirty volunteers the fire department
as well, along with the Red Cross, along with other
community partners. So it could have been like the Boy Scouts,
it could have been the Girl Scouts. It could have
been like the Eagles Club or the Lion's Club, or
the Masonic or whatever that you have within your community.
(14:20):
Everybody congregated at the fire station. We gave them a
quick training on how you do a home safety visit,
and then they all went out with their equipment, the alarms,
and they did an install. So that's how people would
do that. So within the state of Vermont, there's conflicting numbers,
but about two hundred and thirty one fire departments within
(14:41):
the state of Vermont. And I would say in the
past two years that my mission was to get out
and get these these programs out there, educate the fire
departments to say this is out there. We probably hit
better than a third or so of the fire departments
within the state of Vermont.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
And there's many and.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Thirty one roughly fire departments within the state. And I
couldn't tell you exactly how many full time departments. I mean,
I have visited Montpellier, I've visited obviously Barry, Barry City, Burlington,
South Burlington, Colchester. I've been to Saint John's Berry fire departments.
(15:23):
So there are a few full time, there are a
few mixed full time on call, and then there's strictly
volunteer fire departments throughout the state of Vermont.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Wow. Man, and how many how many others assistant fire
so Marshall.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Are doing this the pub ed division. It's myself. So
I have a direct report a supervisor, Michael Greenia that
has been doing this since God War Nickers. He's been
forever in the pub ed division. So back when I
got hired two years ago as a part time employee
within the State of Vermont, my mission was to work
(16:04):
under Michael to go out and get these programs out
there and help fire departments one help them understand that, hey,
these programs are out there and they're not state pushed programs.
They are the two programs I mentioned, the Community Risk
Reduction and the Steps of Safety program. They are NFPA,
the National Fire Protection Association. They are NFPA driven, just
(16:29):
like Fire Prevention Week in the schools. Yeah right, I
mean the fire departments do an exceptional job at Fire
Prevention Week in the schools going out and doing that outreach.
I got one of the first documented fire saves within
the state of Vermont back in twenty I can't remember
what the date is now, but due to the programs
that the Swanton Village Fire Department presented in the schools,
(16:52):
I've done that for twenty six years and I got
the privilege of having it work. So anyway, we talked
about Fire Prevention Week, NFPA does a really good job
of that. These other two programs that we're finding out
that the Steps to Safety program that within the past
(17:14):
This year alone, we've had nine fire desks within the
state of Vermont and all of them have been over
the age of sixty. Within the past ten years, fifty
four percent of the fire desks within the state of
Vermont have been over the age of sixty. So what's
that telling us is that we do an exceptional job
at fire Prevention Week in the school. We're missing a demographic.
(17:34):
We're missing that older adults.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Wow, and you were just telling me before we went
live here this morning. Slips and trips. This is stuff
that is well documented. Yeah, slips, trips and falls. When
I went to a National Fire Protection Association, I went
to a conference boy in this case me where it
(17:57):
was it wasn't conquered and talking to other fire departments
throughout New England, majority of them if their EMS combination
of EMS and fire or strictly EMS, it's lifticists. You know,
older adults falling. And one of the things that for me,
it's scary to think about because my partner, her mom
(18:20):
is her mom is like eighty four years old, and
I worry about her falling because when an older adult
falls and they break their hip, that is that is
catastrophic for them. Sure, right, So that decreases their mobility
and that's where it.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
For whatever reason, it seems like their health declines after that.
So preventing that fall is important. Thus the Steps of
Safety program that the NFPA put out there for us
to help educate fire departments. Yeah wow, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And combine you know mobility or general mobility with egress
and throw in you know a cooking mishap. Yes, this
is a this is a very bad combination.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
They say that an average, so majority of fires within
the homes start in the kitchen. Okay, it is heating. Also,
smoking is a large cause, but one of the number
one causes are cooking fires in the in the home.
An average kitchen fire through the insurance companies, I've heard
(19:37):
seventy four thousand dollars for an average kitchen fire. Okay.
So one of the things to try to prevent cooking
fires are, you know, you have lids to the pans
or the pots that you're cooking with, you have anoven
met but also you have a fire extinguisher that's nearby. Okay,
all of these things I've had, I've had older adults
(19:57):
ask me about what about the fire blanket. You know,
you see this fire blanket advertised and all this other stuff.
I would argue that in my years of doing fire
education fire prevention, if you're that comfortable being that close
to a fire, why not use an extinguisher instead? Right,
because if you look at the concept, you take a blanket,
(20:19):
you open it up, and now you put it over
your face like this, you know, and you're walking up
to the fire. I can't see me, I'm on radio,
but anyway, you're walking up to the fire like okay.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Where is it?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Now you drop it and now you're exposed again. So
you're right up close to that fire. So a fire
blanket is not UL listed and the NFPA doesn't recognize
it as a piece of firefighting equipment. Okay, it's a suppression.
It's not a piece of firefighting equipment. A fire extinguisher
is is UL listed and is recognized as a piece
(20:48):
of fire fighting equipment.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
What's what's the uh? What? What kind of fire extinguisher
do we need to have in the kitchen?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
A b CD yeah, ABC, ABC, Yeah, So ABC is
what we call dry kem. It's a dry chemical. Is
it tastes like crap? If you get it in your mouth.
It's sodium bicarbonate and some other chemicals in there. But basically,
if you understand the fire triangle right, you need heat, oxygen,
(21:19):
and fuel. What it does is it smothers. It takes
away the oxygen. Okay, it makes a mess. It's a powder.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
The way I when I teach fire extinguish your training,
Type A fire is like what makes ashes, so wood paper,
that kind of stuff. Type B is like boiling liquids,
so oils, gasolines, cooking oil. That kind of stuff is
anything that'll boil. That's a type B fire. Type C
fires like circuits, so your toaster, your microwave, your computers,
(21:51):
your cell phones, that kind of stuff. Anything that's electrical is.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
A type C.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
ABC encompasses them all, all of those fires. They are
good to have in your home in your kitchen area
near your furnace. But understanding the size of the extinguisher
limits your firefighting capabilities. So if you have an eight
pounder or so, you know those are the regular small
(22:16):
ones that you see you can buy at you know,
your local hardware store, you have within five to ten
seconds of firefighting capabilities.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
So once you decide you're going to fight that fire,
you pull the pin, you aim, you squeeze, and you
sweep you one one thousand and two, one thousand and three,
one thousand and four, one thousand and five. Now you're
starting to dissipate. Six, one thousand and seven, one thousand
and eight, one thousand. You're spent. Okay, Okay, that's not
a lot of time. Okay, understanding that understanding one your
(22:49):
ability to fight a fire, but understanding what type of
fire you have, but hopefully knowing where your egress is
in the event of a fire.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah quickly, and not just you, but your family, your
kids too. So guys like me might just say, screw it.
I'm just going to get the biggest ABC that they make,
and I'm gonna buy half a thousand of them and
have one in the garage, one in the kitchen, one
(23:21):
in the whatever. But just best to just go with
all three. ABC.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
ABC is the one to have at a home yesday.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
A lot of a lot of businesses, computer companies and stuff.
They'll have the BC, which is the carbon dioxide, not
carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is that poisonous gas that you
have in your home that is derived from the incomplete
combustion of a carbon Okay, so from woodstoves, propane fuel oils,
(23:53):
that kind of stuff that's monoxide dioxide. Is the that
fog so to speak, that really cold stuff it comes out.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
But what's the difference if we're just missing the A
is it just a little cheaper.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Now it'll do the same thing, But for paper it
comes out with such a force. The BC extinguisher, I
mean you could, you could. It's better to blanket an
A type fire and a B C. What it does,
it cools and it takes away the oxygen. Okay, okay,
ABC will put that powder all over it and it
(24:31):
blankets the fire as well as takes away the oxygen
and cools the fire.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Okay to us all three, Wow, this is amazing. So
do you with the AH two firesafe program? Kind of
a dumb question here, but are you are you relying
on the community to come to you to say, hey,
would you guys come in and do an assessment and
(24:56):
evaluation of my home? Or do you look at your
stats and say, you know, these following people are frequent flyers,
they're elderly. We should just go knock on their door
and just have a quick review and see what they've
got for fire prevention stuff.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So my role within the state is to be a
vehicle or a conduit for local fire departments. Okay, I
am in no way trying to tell a fire department
what they should do or what they need to do.
If they have questions they have they want guidance. I
don't know all the answers, but I will definitely help
them get the answers that they need to help make
(25:39):
their community safer. That's all my purposes is to be
that conduit for them. So to go back to your question,
could they come to me, I'd rather they go to
their local fire departments and ask them about you know, hey,
do you folks give away fire alarms? Right now? We
(26:01):
do have a cash of CEO and smoke combination alarms
that if they if a fire department decided that they
wanted to do an AT or two program, I have
a trailer or the state has a trailer that we
could bring up to the fire station like that weekend
we were talking about. And we have ladders, we have
(26:24):
a toolkit, we have mirrors, we have the whole gamut.
So all they have to do is show up the
fire department, and the volunteers show up, and they get
the alarms, and they get the equipment and go off
and do their thing.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Wow, you were You mentioned earlier high risk single family
homes and said, don't forget that I mentioned that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So yeah, So the fire Marshal's office within a stave
Vermont has no jurisdiction over single family homes. So apartment
buildings we do have, in commercial buildings, all of that
kind of stuff, the Fire Marshal's office has jurisdiction over them. These,
all of these fire desks that we mentioned earlier were
all from single family homes. Okay, So thus fire Safe
(27:08):
aight O two program comes into play on helping our
local our families be safer, right because obviously the data
shows majority of the fire deaths are within single family homes.
You know, So the eight O two program sixty plus yeah. Yeah,
So the eight O two program is have your local
(27:29):
fire departments go out and have a conversation a home
safety visit to help make you safer. The slip trips falls,
the Steps Safety program to the NFPA offul also offers
is basically older adults and I've done programs at like
Wake Robin. I've done a program up here for visually
(27:49):
and hearing it paired with Joe. That was a cool.
I had had a ball there. I've done Chittenham County
Community Services where special needs group. I did a fire
extinguisher training for that group. That was a ball. I
had probably the most fun I ever had doing a
fire extinguisher training program. But I've also done church groups
(28:11):
for Steps to Safety. So those are the demographics or
that's that group of individuals that you try to go
out and have a conversation with, and it's it's a
lot of fun because basically you start out with a
quick little presentation and stuff and you have a one
conversation one on one with these people and next thing
(28:33):
you know, you're off talking about fire extinguisher training, or
you're off talking about, well what about you know, what
about these fire blankets? I get that question? Or what
about what kind of extinguishers should I have? Or you know,
I love this carpet, or what about space heaters? You know,
bedshakers for the hearing impaired. It's it looks like an
(28:55):
alarm clock, but it's a little I call it like
it looks like a mouse for your laptop, and it
goes underneath the pillow of your you know, in your bed,
and it connects with your smoke alarm. So when your
smoke alarm goes off, it will vibrate underneath your pillow
and notify you that, hey, you have a fire somewhere
is in the home.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
You just said notify, and earlier you were you were
saying prevention, notification, and evacuation. Those are those are the
keys right there?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, so I think we mentioned earlier that you know,
back in the day, when the fire alarm went off,
you had probably ten to eight minutes to get out
of your home. Now it's less than two minutes, so
less than two minutes, within two and a half three
foot off the floor. Heat in your home, once flame
(29:47):
gets to fire, gets to open flame, so they call
it in sympathy in simpient stage where it's smoldering and
it's smoking like crazy. Once it becomes open flame, within
the first couple of minutes, it's over five hundred gas
about a foot off the floor two feet off the floor,
so it's very very quick.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Why why why is that? Uh? Why are we around
two minutes or less?
Speaker 1 (30:13):
It's it's the way furnishing. Furnishings are designed and built, carpeting,
that kind of stuff. You know, the molded boards, you
know that you see now in the basements, you know,
instead of the you know, you don't have those huge
trees anymore, right because of forestry, forestry services and stuff,
you know, building homes and that kind of stuff. Now
(30:34):
you've got the molded and the glued particle boards or
whatever you want to call them, those big beams. That's
glue holding that together. So that's a flammable material.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
You would think that they would make it non flammable.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
You would think, yeah, yeah, but you got you got
to build homes right.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Wow. Uh. A couple of comments here. Vermont was the
first state in the world to pass photo electric only
smoke alarms. Yes, that's amazing. I didn't know that. There
are new homes, homes that are sold apartments and have
(31:18):
a huge impact. Are a huge difference. More to come.
But we're missing a huge population, the people who still
have their homes with ionized alarms or no alarms at all.
How do we reach that population to get them to
install photo electric alarms? And are these people that are
(31:41):
dying in Vermont, or these are the people that are
dying in Vermont, how do we educate them and protect
them with the right alarms.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So that is a good question, and having something like
this your podcast for us to get that information out
there is one of the ways that we get the
get the word out there. Working with local fire departments,
we've actually I've actually started partnering with EMS groups as well,
not just fire departments, but EMS when they go out
(32:11):
excuse me, when they go out and do a lift
assist or they do a general good intent call to
go visit somebody. A lot of EMS groups are a
crossover I call them crossover where part of some of
them are fire department personnel as well, or you know,
so they work on a fire department, but on their
days off they work for EMS, so they understand what
(32:34):
the look for with first alarms, you know, that kind
of thing. But also I can go in and do
an educational program for EMS to help educate them and
what to look for for alarms, placement of alarms, that
kind of stuff. That's another way to get the word
out there.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Just had Jody Emerson in here yesterday from the Central
Vermont Career Center, and I note that they do fire
fire safety and like a fire school, their education with
with youth, which is so important. And District six and
eight are are teaming up with the Central from my
(33:13):
Career Center doing some big things in the coming year,
which is which is wonderful, you know. I I ask,
why are they even making ionization alarms? Why?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It's like it's like everything else, right, it's evolving. We
understand that, uh, you know, photoelectric is better sensing. It's
earlier in the incipient stage of a fire, so it's
quicker notification. Right, So things progress. There's also a newer uh,
there's a newer COO alarm that is coming out that
(33:48):
measures that lower levels of CEO. I believe I'm trying
to scratching some brain cell here, but a CEO alarm
is designed to start alarming when it senses carbon monoxide
in your home at twenty parts per million. I believe
it is for longer than a fifteen minute interval. So
(34:08):
if the alarm never reaches fifteen minutes, or if the
sensing never reaches fifteen minutes in duration, but you go
up to about twenty let's say it's I don't know,
I let's say it's ten minutes of twenty parts per million,
then it drops back down, but then it creeps back up,
but it never reaches that fifteen minute time window. That
alarm won't go off and notify you. But low levels,
(34:30):
they're finding out. Low levels of constant carbon monoxide in
your home helps. It causes some health effects of course,
of course, so newhere alarms are coming out now they
won't alarm at the lower levels, but you will have
readouts of that low level of carbon monoxide, so you can,
you know, you pay attention to that, and you look
(34:51):
and say, geez, I'm always having like ten parts per
million here, I have to have something checked to see
why am I having these low levels.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
It's amazing, amazing to hear this from you, and hopefully
it's thinking people that are listening, think what's in my house?
What do I have? Yeah? In what rooms? Where? When's
the last time I checked my patterns?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Part of this too, JD is not it's not the
fear factor. It's what we're trying to do is educate.
So an educated population is a informed population, right, So
we give them the tools, like with the fire department,
we give them the tools and they help better understand
(35:41):
how to get the information out there. And the more
the public understands, and the more the public knows, the
more educated they are and they can make proper choices.
You know, we don't we don't want to tell a
homeowner what to do. All we want to do is
inform them that these are the right things they should
look for.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Folks listening right now, if they would like a home
a free home analysis, should they contact AIGHTO two Fire
Safe or should they what do they do? Or do
they contact their local fire.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Contact their local fire department. Go through there and then
the fire departments will notify me and I can help
them set up a program.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Okay, Yeah, it's that simple.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
It's that simple. Yeah, I mean, and obviously so some
fire departments within the state of Vermont. I mean, you
have really small departments that have thirty calls a year.
You have some departments that have thirty calls an hour. Right,
So there's a wide range of fire departments out there,
in a wide range of skilled fire departments and staffed
(36:51):
fire departments. A lot of fire departments they'll rely on
a mutual aid system like Grotten for example. They'll rely
on their neighboring town to help them with larger fires.
But they also team up for fire education as well.
Swanton where I'm from, Swanton and Highgate we did a
mutual aid fire prevention program in the schools once, so
(37:12):
I partnered with Highgate and we co taught fire prevention
in the school. We do a lot of that type
of stuff. So you're sharing information, you're sharing ideas with
local fire departments. And then now you're expanding your staff
to be able to go do these home safety visits.
So you're not relying on your group of fifteen or
twenty firefighters. Now you're expanding that to forty potentially firefighters
(37:35):
to go out and do a home safety visit.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
What do you say to our younger demographic that is
maybe in high school and thinking beyond high school and
thinking about getting into fire science.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
So you mentioned Central Vermont has a program here in
the high school. I know the Saint Albans Career Center
also has a firefighter program. Swanton has a cadet program
where we teach firefighters that are I believe sixteen. You
can come in and become a cadet firefighter. So you'll
(38:15):
get a pager, you'll get a set of gear, you
would not respond to a fire, but post the fire,
they would probably have you come in and help pick
up hose. You come to Monday night trainings, that kind
of stuff. You educate people on your educate the younger
adults on fire prevention, fire safety basically. And we've had
(38:37):
I can tell you that we've had assistant chiefs lieutenants
that came up through high school within Swanton Fire that
through the cadet program. You know, once you that bug
is bit you, boy, it's hard to shake it.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
I've heard that before.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
I've went thirty six years. I've retired since COVID in
a middle of COVID. So my prior, my prior life
I was. I used to work for IBM for twenty
six years. I was a HASMAT Tech all twenty six years,
so I've been has MATT Tech for plus thirty six years.
I retired from the State HASMAT team. I used to
(39:16):
be on the State has MATT. I used to be
on Swanton Fire as well, thirty six years. I retired
through COVID in the middle of COVID because my other
career I was a Swanton village manager, so I had
to manage the community and trying to figure out how
do you run a community in the middle of COVID.
So something had to give and I had to focus
on the community. So I backed off and retired from
(39:39):
fire department and state has.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Matt But you don't check out, man, You still get
shirt your nails in.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I haven't figured out how to retire. This is my
third career. I'm still the emergency manager emergency management director
for Swanton for plus. Nineteen eighty eight is when I
became Swanton's emergency management director of.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Fire departments, Mont Pilier, Berlin, Perry Have. I believe those
are the three I could be missing. One have teamed
up recently with the Central Vermont Hospital. Yes, and Serve pro.
But what's that all about?
Speaker 1 (40:17):
So that was part of they did. Basically, they would
give out an alarm to newborn the families of a
newborn before they left the Uh. You know, it's kind
of like you get a car seat, you get a
smoke alarm as well. Yeah, and so through our fire
Safe Atal two program, we donated along with Berlin and
(40:38):
those and Berry and mont Pilier fire departments, we donated
fire alarms for Central Vermont Birthing Center. So they could
give those alarms out to families.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
They're thinking about everything other than a fire. They're thinking
about the car seat, they're thinking about the red or
the blue or or whatever it is. Yeah, but they're
just not thinking about fire.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Or carbon monoxide right right.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
And the alarms that we handed out they were dual
so CEO and smoke, so they detected both.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
When was that time just recently?
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, last week, last week, I'm trying to remember how
many I think it was plus seventy alarms that were
given out to the Center of Vermont Medical.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Center and Surf Pro many that that that's been part of,
like almost like a family tradition for them to do
that with local hospitals.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
That was pretty cool. Yeah, they well, yeah, a lot
of area. I don't know what the other I think
they did, Copley Yeah, also I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm
not sure where else they went, but yeah, I guess
the prior owner used to do that. And when the
Sun took over the company, Yeah, same thing. COVID kind
of slowed things down and he said, hey, we got
(42:08):
to bring this back up, and Joe did some outreach
and uh, I love love having that guy for for
a partner for sure, and uh I got roped in
and uh yeah, I was an honor being there.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
That's so cool A question that that's just come in.
How dangerous is living in an apartment with four times
the recommended radon levels?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Okay, so that's not my wheelhouse, so I can't answer that.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, well, y'all are such an integral part of our community.
What you all do, not just fighting the fires, but
preventing and educating is so tremendous. You know. I was
(42:57):
at I pulled into a fire department not long ago,
a couple of weeks ago, and there was some training
that was that was going on with a young man
who was fully suited up and learning some techniques. And
I got to I pulled in, parked, parked my truck.
(43:20):
I was actually looking for Joe and was just observing
this and I'm like, this guy is just busting his
ass learning this this stuff, and this is I don't
know for me not seeing this all the time. That
(43:41):
was really cool for me. I'm like, man, that makes
me feel so good.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
You know, there's there's so many there's so many things
within that fire service career, even as a volunteer. I have,
you know, thirty six years, I've seen it quite a
bit of stuff. You I've gone through months of therapy
after I retired from the fire service. You know, there's
certain things you just can't unsee, right, And so just
(44:08):
I'll do a sidebar really quick. I am a big
proponent of mental health for our first responders. Plain and simple, Okay,
there are there. You know, we need to take care
of our mental health. Plane and simple, yeah, okay, and
I'll leave it there. But there's so many things that
we do in our life with the fire education and
the fire prevention and fighting fires, that we probably won't
(44:32):
ever see that benefit that how we've impacted someone's life
in a certain way. I'll tell you a quick side
story if I could so. Village manager. So, I had
one of my employees come in and just happened to
sit across the desk from me, and he just sat
down there and I'm on a computer doing my thing,
you know and stuff, and look over and it says, hey,
(44:53):
what's up. He says, oh, you know, it was just
an anniversary of his brother dying got killed in a
car accident. And I says, oh, really, he said when
and he told me, and I said, well, there was
the location and he told me. I said, I told him.
I happened to be the officer in charge of that
fire call that day. The gentleman died instantly, and I
(45:16):
told him, I said, I stayed right by his side.
I had. I had a thing that I did any
fatality of a car accident, I would stay by the
victim until the corner showed up and the body was removed,
something I always done. So anyway, he looked at me
(45:38):
and I told him. He says, I, I never left
your brother's side. I sat there, and it was an
hour and a half. It was probably twenty degrees out
in a crappy day, and once the corner came, you know,
we removed his brother and took him away. I told
him I was there, and he broke down into tears.
He said, knowing you were there, my brothers is I
(46:00):
never knew how that happened, but knowing you were there
helps me put closure. So I had the privilege of
knowing one thing that I have done that impacted someone's life.
But we go through so many days that we don't
know how we impact another person's life, either negatively, or positively.
(46:24):
But you always should have that motivation to do the
right thing, regardless of who is there seeing you.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
So anyway, that's powerful man. According to the CDC, and
I just pulled this up, ninety seven firefighters and one
hundred and fifty five police officers die each year in
(46:54):
the line of duty. This is an important time. This
is a great time. It's always a good time to
have someone on to talk about fire safety, fire prevention.
As you said, uh, education is the key. Having having
(47:18):
the knowledge in the education is probably the biggest proponent
to fire prevention. I would love to have you on
more frequently on again. Maybe we could get Joe in here.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
That'd be cool.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I'd love that. Yeah, let's you know, let's let's do that.
And and frankly, it doesn't really matter what time of year.
But you know, during these colder months, you know, we've
got venting to to think about. We have snowfall, we
have the holidays coming, holidays coming up. Yeah, there's there's
(47:59):
a lot of stuff going on, and you guys serve
as a great reminder to me to just kind of
tap the brakes in a few other areas of life
that we're very preoccupied with and remember fire safety. I
(48:19):
mean it's not the most exciting subject to talk about,
but think about those smoke detectors, those fire alarms that
you have in your home, and whether or not you
have a fire extinguisher, and if so, how many and
how are they rated? And when was the last time
that you know they have a shelf life? Too, when
was the last time that they've been checked? Turn them
(48:42):
upside out and give them a bang with a rubber
mallet and make sure that they're ready to go. This
is great stuff, man. This is a day that is
serving as a National Day of Gratitude, National Firm Responders Day.
We pay tribute to the endless hours and sacrifice around
(49:07):
the clock that all first responders give to our communities.
And it's one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.
I think most of us know that we should take
a moment today pay tribute to fallen first responders as well,
and remember that if you have any questions, what's what's
(49:31):
the best way to learn more about A two fire
safe And and maybe too, is there a website? Is
it firesafety dot Vermont dot gov? Believe so that's what
it is. That's it right there, And I'm gonna put
that in the in the comments here. This is amazing,
(49:51):
rech and I hope you come back. I hope you
come back soon. Let's do this again. Let's let's get
Joe in here as well, and we invite any other firefighters,
fire departments, first responders to get in here and keep
banging this drum. Good stuff, great stuff. Thanks thanks for
(50:12):
coming in man, appreciate you. Don't forget tomorrow Sweethearts and
Heroes Day right here on the aired out podcast, and
it's gonna be a good one. I can't wait to
have our guests on tomorrow morning, a great lady who's
doing remarkable things, and it's gonna be a great day.
(50:34):
Thanks for liking and following the page. Don't forget to comment,
to share, to spread the word on any episode that
you're paying attention to that you enjoy, especially this one
right here. Will always live, We're always local, we're never edited,
and we appreciate your eyes in hears so much. I
have about fantastic rest of you day,
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.