Chief RL Colina from Monroe County Fire and Rescue joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county
Chief Colina was appointed as the chief of Monroe County Fire Rescue recently.
He said, “I’m honored and just extremely happy to be able to serve in the continued capacity here for the residents and the visitors and Monroe County Fire Rescue members. It’s definitely an honor, and I look forward to it.”
The apartment fire on January 23 in Bahama Village on Emma Street had two parents and a child pass away.
Chief Colina said, “We train and train, and those aren’t the events that we want to hear from. We don’t want to hear about occupants still being potentially inside. We’re there to try to make a difference. But we really look to the community to take this and see what the impact is and make those small choices and those small decisions that hopefully can change the outcome to a greater good. Some of those things is don’t ignore the smoke detector that hasn’t been changed in years, or that that’s missing. Replace those smoke detectors. Make sure they work. Educate your family, the children, always ensure that you have an exit plan so that when these circumstances happen, and this happened at seven o’clock. It wasn’t like two, three o’clock in the morning, this was at seven o’clock in the evening, relatively still early. Make sure that you guys have a plan, that we all get outside. We don’t go back inside to a structure and just keep going over this stuff, and we do our best. We reach more and more schools and more and more children every year with our prevention through the fire marshal’s office. But it was a tragic, tragic event, impacts so many people in the community, and our goal is to minimize those to never have one again. We can always we can rebuild structures. We just can’t rebuild a person.”
An exercise today in Marathon deals with the possibility of a potential radiological event.
Chief Colina said, “Here in Marathon at the new Emergency Operations Center, which is also our Fire Administration and headquarters. Emergency management is putting on one of the multiple training sessions and practice sessions that we do for radiological emergencies in South Florida, being that our close proximity to Turkey Point, we have to look at those cases where, if we have some type of exposure, how are we going to take care of it? How are we going to take care of our residents from exposures? We go through hot washes, and we go through a whole process of decontamination, and then also evacuation monitoring and then notification. So there’s a lot of steps, a lot of agencies get involved in this type of process, and then eventually, I believe it’s in about three months, three or four months, FEMA will actually come down and grade us. They’ll grade emergency management on whether the benchmarks are hit and how effective and efficient the operation runs, so these are these pre meetings to make sure that we’re all on the same page.”
The seventh Hot Shot class graduated on December 19 with 21 qualified men and women, 18 of those were residents and 11 new firefighters will be signing on here very soon.
Chief Colina said, “Throughout the year, we get some vacancies here and there, and most of the time, we hold those vacancies until we can get a small class together to make sure that there’s a good orientation process. We were able to get 11 on boarded and out there serving the community within Monroe County Fire Rescue, successfully completed the orientation process and kind of filled those little gaps we had throughout the Keys with staffing, and very excited to say we’ve got 11 on and they’re doing great.”
There are still a few vacancies.
Chief Colina said, “We always kind of run where it seems like we’ve got a couple vacancies here and there, but they never impact daily operational services. Our stations are still staffed. We still have four personnel at every station. Some stations carry a little bit more, depending if they if they house the Trauma Star crew or not. So we ensure that our staffing, at least, is that four that we have qualified members responding, and then those stations are backed up by other Monroe County fire Rescue stations, or like we have we have in Tavernier, we back up Islamorada and we back up Key Largo, and they do the same for us. So we all kind of take care of each other and make sure that we have coverage here with Marathon and even down in Key West.”
Space heaters can be a hazard with cold snaps.
Chief Colina said, “People improvise different things because if the heaters are not working, or it’s not large enough, and they’ll try different things. They don’t pay attention sometimes to the location of the space heaters and then even the space heater, if you keep in the same location time after time, and it’s never been a hazard, just realize that space heater is putting out a dry heat, so even though it may have never affected the furniture or the blinds and the drapes in that area, after a certain amount of time, those drapes, everything starts drying out and becomes a little bit more crisp, a little bit more flammable in terms of what its ignition is going to be. We’ve seen it before. That space heater in that certain area will create a dryness and changes the composition of some of that material to where it does ignite a little bit quicker. So just always be cognizant of where you have those space heaters. Make sure you have power strips on them, so that if there is a short and there is an overload, that it’ll trip that power strip, that’s what they’re there for, to make sure that it doesn’t go back in or it doesn’t catch fire and melt right there. So just important little things.”
Job fairs are also coming up.
Chief Colina said, “Between Coral Shores, Marathon and Key West High Schools, we do have the job fairs coming up on February 25, 26 and 27. We will also be at Safety Day at Sugarloaf, and then we’ll be at Bernstein Park setting up a fire prevention booth on the 22nd for the SOS, the Stars of the Sea Foundation. We always participate with the sheriff’s office and the FWC for the kids’ fishing tournament, which will be held on February 23. We provide a first aid tent there. Also, remember, today’s the last day for the Seven Mile Bridge run to sign up. So the 28th is the last day for that bridge run. We partner with Marathon, and we help provide fire safety and medical and we’re just there on the south end of the bridge to help and make sure everything goes good. We’re super excited to be where we’re at right now and our mission stays the same. We’re here to protect the lives and the property of the residents and visitors in Monroe County, 24/7. If you need us, you call us.”