It's No Accident

The Centennial Fire District completed 2012 with no reported injuries and no vehicle accidents or damage. The department handled 1,031 calls for service and racked up 2,828.5 hours of training during the year.

The department, which was formed in 1985, provides fire and rescue coverage for the cities of Lino Lakes, Circle Pines, and Centerville. It is a paid-on-call department with three full-time staff that operates out of three stations—one in each of the three cities.

The department has made safety a priority. Fire Chief Jerry Streich said, “We expose our paid-on-call firefighters to more risk and danger as firefighters than they ever face in their normal lives and need to make it as safe as possible.” The department was also a test site for the Training Safety Officer (TSO) program. Finally, the department has created a color-coded system to indicate the level of risk in their training sessions and is experimenting with rolling it over to their responses.

A TSO and firefighter work together at training.

Congratulations to the Centennial District on an injury-free and accident-free year! The emphasis on safety has truly produced results.

Remember:

Responder Safety = Public Safety

Up next time: “The Normalization of Deviance—If It Happened to NASA, It Can Happen to You”

In the meantime, stay safe and be careful.

Rob