Monroe County Fire Chief RL Colina joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
The Big Coppitt fire station will hold a big Easter egg hunt tomorrow at 6 p.m.
Chief Colina said, “It’s amazing. That outreach really sparked significant interest in the community. We really do enjoy it. The firefighters enjoy it. All those that participate, it gets larger and larger each year. This year we have 6,000 eggs that we will be hiding all over. We have the mystery egg, of course. You can come out there to take a picture with the Easter Bunny. We’ll also have a visit from farmer Jeannie and her friends. She will be there. That’s always a spectacular time when she brings her friends out there, so everyone can kind of put hands on and see what we’ve got there. We also will have solid waste and emergency management will be out there. We’ll have the earthworms, talking about composting, emergency management, spreading the news about hurricane preparedness, the snow cones, the fire trucks. It’s just a jam packed day starting tomorrow at 6pm at Big Coppitt station nine for Monroe County Fire Rescue.”
There are also educational opportunities for children.
Chief Colina said, “The best educational opportunities are the ones when they don’t realize they’re being taught something. So we love incorporating all of these important messages and these tips and these safety briefings to the children and to the parents as well, and the adults, they don’t even realize what they’re grasping. But for us, it gives us a lot of peace of mind, and it’s what makes this outreach even more unique for us, that we can spread this message of safety throughout the community.”
April 16 is Safety Day with the sheriff’s office at Sugarloaf school.
Chief Colina said, “We’re glad to participate with good partnership with the sheriff’s office, and we’ll be there actually, we will have an extrication so we will have a vehicle donated to us that we’ll be doing a demonstration on how we extricate from vehicles. The extrication part is removing the vehicle from the people, and that’s how we’re able to get people out of the vehicles when they’re somewhat stuck in a vehicle, not able to get out on their own. So we’ll have that demonstration. We’ll also be giving some brief discussions and talks about the electric bikes, something that we have down here in the Florida Keys. These electric bikes have taken over down here, all over the place, and there’s a lot of safety and a lot of tips that we can help provide and pass along to homeowners and those residents and visitors that are using these e bikes with their lithium batteries and some of the other hazards that are associated with that. So Safety Day is a great day to come out. We should have Trauma Star on the field as well. So just a great time to come out and meet your first responder partners that are here in the community, 24 hours a day, between the sheriff’s office and fire rescue and Florida Wildlife there, there’ll be so many different entities out there.”
Wild Fire Community Preparedness Day at Big Pine Community Park will be on May 2.
Chief Colina said it’s “starting at 10am at Big Pine Community Park, we’ll have fire prevention handouts and giveaways. It’s all about the community preparedness tips to help protect you and protect the community. We’ll have Smokey the Bear out there. Sparky, the dog will be there. We’ll have our fire trucks. And our new addition to our resources down here from Monroe County, and Big Pine area is Monroe County Fire Rescue now has allocated the funds, and we’ve got a brush truck. So we have a brush truck that’s specifically geared for that wild land interface that we face in those areas of Big Pine facing some of those houses. We have so many different unique areas within the Florida Keys, and Big Pine is one that they are impacted by wildfires. And as much as we work with the Department of Forestry on those controlled burns, we have had extremely dry, dry weather, which impacts that area significantly. So we’ve got the brush truck now to help mitigate some of those responses.”
What are some ways to prevent wildfires?
Chief Colina said, “So right now, open burning in Monroe County is not prohibited. You can have a controlled area if you have a fire pit or a small area, but any type of open burning is not prohibited. The Department of Forestry will put out different advisories, and they normally go on a day by day occurrence of whether or not they’re going to allow even the controlled burns for some of the construction areas and areas of that nature. But we just tell everyone, just be smart about it. Make sure you have a good separation. If you have a fire pit that you want to roast marshmallows or cook some hot dogs, any type of open fire, make sure you’re at least 10 to 15 feet away from any type of structure. Make sure the debris around it is nice and clear. Make sure that you don’t have anything that may impact that fire or help that fire to spread. And then just check the conditions. If it’s a breezy day like we had last week, that might not be the optimal time to spark an open fire in any of those type of containers and pits.”
How is recruitment going for fire rescue?
Chief Colina said, “We had such a good class that had just finished up. We had 31 that finished up successfully with our academy class, and now we have a second class that will be starting here in about a month or so. So we will be running two minimum standards classes per year on this schedule that we’re running now, has been very successful. We had about 90 applicants come in for about 30 spots. We look forward to that class starting, and just lot of good stuff coming from our training division. I couldn’t be prouder of the men and women that serve Monroe County Fire Rescue and serve this community. So as a fire chief, I am honored to be in this position and and work here and serve this community.”
For more information, click here: https://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/firerescue