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.
With the chilly weather, if you plan to heat your home, please be careful.
Chief Colina said, “When you get that rush on people buying the wood and stuff, we just want to be sure that people understand it’s not just the cold, but it’s also the wind. The wind potentiates those ashes from going and starting in other places. It’s dry conditions right now that we’re facing and we just need everyone to be real careful, especially keeping the houses nice and warm at night. We’ll start seeing a surge of people using the space heaters. Just make sure that after a couple days of using space heaters, remember, they tend to dry out. If you have it next to a curtain, next to any type of material, couches, that space heater is such a dry heat that eventually, any of the moisture that’s left in these couches, or these window shears, they eventually become very brittle. So it’s important to make sure that you move those space heaters around, make sure that there’s nothing in contact with them and just stay safe. Like always, there is no open burning allowed in Monroe County. But if you have a small fire pit or a small area, and you’re just having a gathering and you want to burn some wood, just be sure you’re out of the wind at least 10 feet away from your house and just operate safely. Just know that your enjoyment can cause tragedy to somebody else by flying embers.”
Electric heaters can overload a circuit.
Chief Colina said, “We see a lot of electric heaters down here in Monroe County because just for the fact that we don’t use them very often, and that’s the other thing, since we don’t use them very often, we’re not apt to making sure that where we’re putting them in the placement of them. It must be maybe once or twice a year, somebody will pull out a little space heater and just kind of try to knock the chill out of the house. And those are the ones we’ve got to be concerned about, because they haven’t been running, they’ve been sitting up. We have a lot of salt air that affects any type of electronics. So you may plug it in one year and it works great. You plug it in the next year, and there might be some issues with it, with corrosion, or just that salt air that’s been sitting on there for a while. So just be very mindful. Take a look at the space heater. Make sure it’s in good working condition. Plug it in first, away from anything else. Let it run for a little bit to make sure that it’s operating safely and properly. And then you can start positioning it for where you need to stay warm.”
There was a pretty significant fire at the transfer station in Cudjoe Key last week.
Chief Colina said, “At this point with the transfer station, it’s still not operational. So you’ll have to contact them. They’ll let you know where you can take any of your garbage or trash or plant debris. They are trying to get that up and running, but it did sustain some pretty significant damage to the building itself and that lift table that they have there. It’s an accidental fire, started most likely from combustion of hazardous material that was set in the back and it transferred into the building. So it’s unfortunate because a lot of people use those transfer stations, especially the one in the Lower Keys, Cudjoe is a pretty happening place for the weekend, and to get all your yard waste and everything set aside. As far as I know they’re still not open. They’ve completed the investigation. It was accidental, and they’re going to try to move forward with getting the repairs done to that facility.”
There was a residential fire in Blue Water recently.
Chief Colina said, “We had a residential structure fire that broke out in the late afternoon in blue water. Unfortunately, the fire spread very quickly with these rapid winds that we have. We have 20 to 30 mile per hour winds coming through and something that just loves to feed a fire is oxygen, and that oxygen was just blowing through there. They were able to maintain it to the single structure and protect the exposures and the surrounding houses and the main fact to take away from this is thank the Lord and the rapid response of Monroe County Fire Rescue. We had no injuries reported from any of the homeowners or firefighters on scene, and the scene was mitigated quite rapidly. But there was a significant amount of overhaul just because of the amount of wind that was blowing. It just kept wanting to rekindle in certain areas, so they spent some time out there making sure that all the hot spots were put out. But that’s just our big concern right now we’re going to spend a week where we’re going to have some high winds, and we just want everyone to take as much preventative measures as possible. Keep the fires down. Don’t have anything too close to the house. If you have a little fire pit, just know that a little bit of gust of wind can take all of those embers and move them over to your neighbor’s house quite rapidly.”
Aaron Sparber achieved full-time flight status after successfully completing his Flight Medic orientation and passing his final exam recently.
Chief Colina said, “What an achievement. I will tell you, we’re so unique here in Monroe County Fire Rescue as we operate three aircrafts, three helicopters for medical evacuations and inter facility transports and just emergency operations. We look upon our personnel to step up. It’s a very intensive program to become a flight medic, because along with being a flight medic, they’re also still fulfilling their duties as firefighters with Monroe County, and we rotate them through the aircraft. But very, very intensive program. They go through a Critical Care Program, also for paramedics that it kind of gives them the ins and outs of these serious inter facility transports, and they work very closely with our flight nurses. So as opposed to other programs that run dual medics constantly, we do staff our aircrafts with critical care nurses. So we do have a critical care nurse and a flight medic on there, which compliments Monroe County’s Trauma Star being the only units that carry whole blood. So we were able to do transfusions in the air on the way to a receiving facility. So our partnership with the sheriff is just an amazing partnership, an amazing program. As the sheriff operates the pilots and the maintenance, and he runs that part of the operation, and then Monroe County Fire Rescue runs the medical operations. So my hat’s off to Sheriff Ramsay and his team of professionals to make sure that these aircrafts are ready to go at a moment’s notice for operations.”
On Friday, 31 students graduated from MCFR’s minimum standards class.
Chief Colina said, “We held the graduation at Marathon High School. We appreciate them for allowing us to use the facilities, and just what a great day. We had a family’s day during the day where the those 31 got to show their family members, kind of an exhibition of what they do and what they did through the academy with lifting ladders, putting out propane fires, climbing these buildings and actually letting them feel the gear, feel some of the equipment, the weight. It was one of the largest classes that we’ve graduated, 31 students in total that now will be certified Florida firefighters. Out of those, 31 we had 22 that are actually local residents, live here in the Florida Keys, so we look forward to them providing service in the Florida Keys in the near future. I appreciate all the listeners out there, and just remember, we’re sincerely proud to serve Monroe County and all the residents and visitors that come here. We’re here 24/7. We’re here for any emergency, and we’re proud to serve.”
For more information, click here: https://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/1323/Fire-Rescue