Fire Department gets new breathing masks

By Sara QuamThe City Council got a demonstration on the new Luverne Fire Department self-contained breathing apparatuses. Don Deutsch said, "As Fire Chief, I would like to thank the Council for stepping up and making sure we had enough masks that everyone gets their own."The Luverne City Council paid $36,736 and the Fire Department received a grant for $87,780 to go toward the new equipment.Deutsch said, "By getting the grant, we could get them all at one time."Each firefighter now has his own mask that he is responsible for maintaining, which Dan Nath said is good for cleanliness and efficiency because with ownership comes increased care for the equipment.The new apparatuses have many improvements from the previous equipment:
They are voice amplified, whereas the former made vocal communication muffled.
The new breathing apparatuses can hook up to one another, in the case of a firefighter running out of air.
The new have more comfortable harnesses and masks.
The new breathing apparatuses have fewer moving parts, requiring less maintenance.
The new equipment has a timer, indicating how much air is left to the firefighter and an alarm alerting them when there is about five minutes of air remaining.
They also have the capability of calculating how much air a firefighter is using based on individual breathing patterns. Each air tank lasts about a half hour.Some of the previous equipment was up to 30 years old, although pieces had been replaced or updated through the years.Emergency trainingAlso at the Luverne City Council meeting Tuesday, Building and Zoning Administrator Dan Delgehausen reported about his training in emergency management.Federal law requires all cities to have an Incident Command System. Delgehausen said, "It’s not for putting out fires, or running down terrorists or anything of that kind. It’s more for being organized and having a plan in place in the case of a disaster."Delgehausen said a flash flood, massive fire, chemical spill or tornado would all be devastating to the community. Handling the situation starts with effective communication and going into it, knowing who can help — whether it’s national or state agencies or working with Rock County.Much of the city’s plan already follows Rock County’s and avoids redundancies. Public Works Director Ken Vos said, "In Public Works, we all know that if we lose communication, we all meet down at the shop, no matter what." That was valuable in the case of the windstorm during the summer of 2004.Key city staff members are meeting almost weekly about the Incident Command System, even though it is just in the rough draft stages.Part of the plan and Delgehausen’s training includes how to properly document work done or resources used for federal reimbursement for costs.The plan will come before the council for approval, outlining procedures and protocols for how to handle any feasible type of disaster as efficiently as possible.Delgehausen said, "You can’t prepare for every single possibility, so we can be ready to work together."City Administrator John Call said the plan will be helpful."In the case of mutual aids, it’s not as much that we won’t have resources, but it’s how we manage them, because everybody will want to come to help," Call said.The City Council will keep up with Delgehausen’s training throughout the process and will look at a draft of the plan in about a month.