Farmington Feed: Fire Recruitment and Fire Prevention
This is the Farmington Feed, bringing you information from the city of Farmington.
Caryn:Hi, and welcome back to the Farmington Feed. I'm Caryn Hojnicki, the city's communications specialist, and I'm hungry for another episode of Feed. It's that time of year for firefighter recruitment, and we're gonna talk a little bit about fire prevention 101 I have with me here Matt Brown and Heath Walker, our deputy fire chief and our fire marshal. Welcome.
Matt:Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Caryn:So we're gonna focus on firefighter recruitment, but we're also gonna talk about fire prevention. So first, Matt, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, as our deputy fire chief?
Matt:Oh, boy. I started my fire career in 1996. From there, I went to another I got hired full time in 2000 at a department in Southern Minnesota down in Mankato. Oh, boy. And then from 2003 till this year, I was with, the Saint Paul Fire Department for the past twenty one years.
Matt:And then in May, I was hired as the fire marshal here in Farmington. And then in October, I was promoted to deputy fire chief.
Caryn:Yeah.
Matt:So twenty twenty nine years this year of, fire service.
Caryn:Awesome. So what got you interested in it?
Matt:Oh, man. Every firefighter will probably say they either wanted us go to school to be a cop or a firefighter, and it just matters which test you scored higher on. So, you know, I I went to school to be a police officer, and then I decided at that point I was gonna go back into school to for my other love, which was broadcasting.
Caryn:Oh, okay.
Matt:So I
Matt:worked at a couple radio stations on at the time and a couple television stations and, met the fire chief in Negan and kinda set the ball rolling and against my parents' wishes, me being a firefighter because it's too dangerous. Here I am twenty nine years later, a firefighter. So
Caryn:For sure.
Matt:But, yeah. So kinda took different avenues to get to where I'm at today.
Caryn:Alright. So, Heath, how about you? This position is new for you, but Farmington Fire is not. So give us a little bit about your background.
Heath:Correct. I got hired as a fire marshal in December. Before that, I was with the I've been with the fire Farmington Fire Department for almost eighteen years.
Caryn:Oh, wow. Obviously, you live in Farmington?
Heath:I do live in Farmington. I've been in Farmington for a little over twenty years.
Caryn:And you like serving your community?
Heath:I I do.
Caryn:So tell us a little bit about responsibilities. So I need from to hear from both of you. So, Heath, why don't you go first? What does a fire marshal do?
Heath:Fire marshal's responsibilities, they're it's it's a long list. I'm only gonna hit a few of them.
Caryn:That's okay.
Heath:One of the big things that we do yearly is we do inspections or code enforcement inspections, and we go into commercial buildings and make sure they're following the written fire code.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Heath:Looking for violations that pose an increased fire risk or puts the safety of the public in harm's way. Big things are extension cords, Mhmm. Lack of fire extinguisher maintenance, exit lighting, not working, things of that nature. The other thing is, which is gonna be big is fire investigations.
Caryn:Okay.
Heath:So I'll be doing investigations on origin and cause of fires to see if it was accidental, arson, possibly undetermined depending on the severity of the fires. And the big thing is, public education.
Caryn:Yeah.
Heath:Trying to educate the public on fire prevention, do a lot of school functions, talking to the kids, try to get I mean, they they are our future. Mhmm.
Heath:So try to get them involved and get them hyped up to be to become a firefighter. Yeah. Best job in the world. We do a lot of stuff with, you know, cub scouts, boy scouts, stuff like that. We do Top the Tater Days now.
Caryn:Yeah. That's the new that's the new name,
Heath:Yeah. Not Dew Days anymore.
Matt:Not Dew Days? Top the Tater Days.
Heath:Our open house is a big one.
Caryn:Oh, yeah. That's in September. Correct?
Heath:September now. Yep. That's got moved. So that's a big one. Help with evacuation plans, drills, fire drills, stuff like that.
Heath:But, I mean, that list goes on and on.
Caryn:Oh, for sure. And so can you go over your position responsibilities
Matt:Yeah.
Caryn:As deputy?
Matt:As the deputy chief down here in Farmington, my primary responsibilities are training operations and personnel. So hiring and coaching firefighters, the day to day operations of the fire department, the district chiefs, the the captains, and the lieutenants, and all the firefighters kinda fall onto me, making sure everyone's training records are up to date. And I
Caryn:I mean, that's intense. There's a lot of
Matt:training. It's, it's not the old, hey, show up on Mondays for training, you know, a couple times a month. That's it's labor intensive. It's making sure that we have everybody's got all their require training that they need for the year then trying to figure out, okay, what are we lacking?
Caryn:Mhmm.
Matt:What do we need more training on? What what do we have now in our area that we haven't trained on Right. That we should start training on. So it's kind of one of those things where you come in on a Monday morning and you just go take a deep breath and let's go to work. And then by Friday, you're ready to have the weekend.
Matt:And even then when you have the weekend, sometimes it's not a day off or weekend off.
Caryn:Right. Because there's that's never stopping. Right?
Matt:Correct.
Caryn:So let's talk a little bit about fire prevention one zero one. Looking at fire calls from last year, we did a nice little, totals graphic. What do you think is the biggest area of concern in Farmington and the surrounding communities? Because technically, you don't just serve Farmington. It's a little bit outside of Farmington as well.
Matt:Correct. We cover the the city the township or the cities of Empire, Eureka, Castle Rock, and then the city of Farmington proper. I didn't realize how big the area was coming from the city of Saint Paul where it's 36 square miles
Caryn:Mhmm.
Matt:Of total urban area. We're 80 plus square miles that we cover and
Caryn:Yeah.
Matt:Man, I think my furthest response was practically down near the Northfield.
Caryn:Okay.
Matt:I mean, straight down Denmark Avenue and next thing you know, I'm in 500 feet. I'm in Northfield. So it's a huge area that we cover and we're we do it all at two stations and it's it's, it's kind of impressive and it's it was an eye opener for me. As far as our calls go, you know, fires are on the downward slope of our our prevention is showing that it's doing a good job.
Caryn:Yeah.
Matt:Medical is probably just nationwide what 80% of the fire departments go on. Okay. Every day is medical in nature. Yeah. The other 20% roughly is and it might even be 70%, but I'll do 70 to 80% is what we do in medical in nature.
Matt:Medicals are are number one, probably followed by good intent calls. People call 911 wanting to know, my smoke detector is beeping. What do I do?
Caryn:Yeah.
Matt:So we send somebody out.
Matt:Usually, it's an officer or Heath will go out and check it out, and we might have to replace a detector or the homeowner will have to replace a detector.
Heath:Try try to educate them Yeah. On their smoke detectors, you know, why it's beeping, what to look for, try to get them into a rotation where they're changing batteries, you know, like we like to say, when you set the clocks Mhmm. Move forward or fall back Yep. In time to change batteries, look at the manufacture date on the, smoke detectors. They're good for ten years, and at that point, they'll start beeping and you gotta replace them.
Heath:So try to educate them on that level.
Matt:Especially too with detectors if if we're what we're seeing a lot now is some of our homes that were built fifteen, twenty years ago, the detectors are already turning yellow. The house is brand new. In the scheme of the house, it's twenty years old. Yeah. But the detector has been it's normal.
Matt:It's like the colors of our walls here. Yeah. It started off as a white whiteboard, and now it's a cream colored. Mhmm. If it starts changing color, it's time to change.
Matt:Yeah. Change out your detectors. In ten years, though, I mean, we've watched pulling up the data for everything. In ten years, the City Of Farmington fire calls have almost doubled
Caryn:Okay.
Matt:In ten years. And we have pretty much the same staffing as we did ten years ago. Mhmm. So 2014, we had a total of 630, six hundred and 20 some calls. We're last year, I believe we were almost 1,100.
Caryn:Yeah.
Matt:The year before that in 2023, we were almost at 1,200. So in ten years, our call volume has doubled. And that's just Farmington's growing.
Caryn:Yep. Let's flip over to recruitment.
Matt:Okay.
Caryn:Let's talk a little bit about that. Right now is the time for recruiting for Farmington.
Caryn:What's the first step that someone's gonna take?
Matt:So the first step that somebody's gonna take when they recruit will be to go to the city's website and go to the job application. You can apply right online. You don't need any experience whatsoever. We put you through the EMT or the EMR training, emergency medical responder. We put you through firefighter one and firefighter two.
Heath:Hazmat.
Matt:Hazmat, hazardous materials, response. We put you through all the training that you need to become a firefighter. Okay. So the first thing you need to do is to just go in and apply. If you're interested, find out what the requirements are.
Matt:You have to live within ten minutes of a Farmington fire station. Have a clean background. Mhmm.
Heath:We got we have some informational meetings that we do.
Caryn:Oh, okay.
Heath:And those are those are really important because we're gonna kinda lay out the time commitment involved going to these classes
Matt:Mhmm.
Heath:And the schooling
Caryn:Yep.
Heath:And then the potential impact on your family
Caryn:Yeah.
Heath:And your home life. And, you know, to be honest, it's not for everybody
Caryn:For sure.
Heath:But it's important to know the commitment, but the reward that you get out of it, if you do become a a firefighter here in Farmington, I mean, it I it's it's hard to put into words the reward that you get
Caryn:Yeah.
Heath:The relationships that you build between your the men and women that you work with. You go through a lot as a department with with the members that you work with, and there's obviously, there's a there's a bond that forms there.
Caryn:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Matt:Especially, I mean, man, talking about the bond. I just had dinner with the guys and gals that I went through my recruit academy with Mhmm. Twenty nine years ago in Eagan. We met up and had a nice dinner together and reminiscing and here we are almost thirty years later still maintaining our friendships, talking about this person, that person, remember this call, remember that call. And it's just like yesterday, I started as a firefighter.
Matt:Yeah. And here I am on the downward spiral of my career. Yeah. I as everyone says in the fire service, but it's fun to watch now that I'm in the spot I'm in is teaching. Mhmm.
Matt:Because I I teach a lot outside of the fire department at a couple tech colleges. It's fun to see that next generation. Yeah. And remember what you went through, and we just had a live fire training for one of our recruits, that we had to go through and just to see the look on his face was made it worth it.
Caryn:Yeah.
Matt:Just like the, wow. This is this is so cool. And here we are going, oh, yeah. Whatever. It's just a normal flyer.
Matt:But then you put you go back to when you were in the academy going, this thing's this is awesome. This is great. You're on the call that you saw on the news. Yeah. You know?
Matt:So that's what I always would do is when I was in my career, like, talking to my mom or my grandparents about stuff, they're like, oh, you had a fire in Mankato, didn't you? Yeah. How'd you know? What was on the news here? Well, I was on it.
Matt:You know? What did they say there? And it's just kind of fun to see some of that stuff that you're on the front edge of history really. But yeah. So the first step is to
Heath:Go go on go on the city website. Apply. Yep. Apply.
Matt:And then look for our recruitment open houses, which we have one coming up here in February and then a few in March and then the applications close on March 24.
Caryn:Okay.
Matt:And then once you're done with that, you'll get a letter saying, you know, welcome aboard. You're a candidate. We'll have a couple more informational meetings where you bring your family, your spouse, because it is a huge time commitment. And it's kind of important to have your spouse and your or your girlfriend or even your parents come in and see what's it gonna take. Are they always gonna be home?
Matt:Are they not gonna be home? Are they it's a huge time commitment.
Heath:And it's important to have that support behind you because, I mean, you're gonna be you're gonna be at birthday parties. You're gonna be at family functions, you know, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and that pager might go off, and you're going. Yep. So it's important to have your family, your friends to support you on that. Yeah.
Heath:You can't you can't go about this by yourself.
Caryn:Right.
Heath:You you need that support.
Caryn:Yeah. What is the next few months, year look like for a new candidate?
Matt:Oh, boy. What the what the year looks like is we'll start the academy usually in September, and then that'll go all the way through March. So that'll be your medical training, your firefighter one, your firefighter two, and your hazmat training. We'll go from September till roughly March. Once you're done with the academy, then we have another probably four months, roughly, of kind of on the job training.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Matt:You'll get a pager at that point. You'll get cleared to go on all the calls. You get to ride the truck. And then after about four months, you'll so in July, you'll actually graduate with your badge.
Matt:Mhmm. You get pinned in front of everybody, your family members.
Caryn:Yeah. There's a nice little ceremony.
Matt:Yeah. Nice little ceremony that, the whole department shows up for. So if you don't like standing in front of a group of people, tough. Yeah. It's a kind of a big deal to be in the fire service to get pinned.
Matt:And, you'll get your badge and then you're you're a member.
Caryn:Yeah.
Matt:You're a full fledged firefighter. You're going on the calls. You're riding the trucks. You're Yep. You're a firefighter.
Matt:So
Heath:and the training doesn't end there.
Caryn:Right. I mean, you guys are continuously training.
Heath:Yeah. We train, you know, once a week. You you get the you you select a, a crew that you want to be on Monday through Wednesday right now.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Heath:Run six shifts. And then you're you're on a training crew, and you're gonna train with those same, men and women every week. And then on top of that, once you get cleared, there's, weekend duty crews to sign up for, state schools that you can you can always go to Mhmm. To expand your knowledge, which is highly recommended. That enables you to move up that chain.
Heath:You know, you start out as a fire or a cadet, become a firefighter, then you can move into a crew leader.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Heath:That's certain requirements to move into that position. Then from there, you can go into lieutenant and on up, but those that comes with certain requirements in in state schools that you have to go to and then pass and
Caryn:Yeah.
Heath:Qualifies you for that next next, step up that ladder.
Caryn:So what would you say to someone right now if they were asking you about becoming a firefighter?
Matt:Oh, man. If you're asking me, I say do it. I this has been the coolest ride, the coolest career. I started out as a volunteer paid on call, like I said in Eagan. And I realized that I loved being a firefighter way more than I wanted to be a cop.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Matt:Nothing against my friends in blue.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Matt:Love them to death. But I realized that this is something that I wanted to do for a career.
Matt:And I started taking tests everywhere. Started seeing, like Heath was saying, there's certain requirements to move up the chain. Yeah. I noticed that I wanted to do more than just be a firefighter my whole career. And so I started taking classes and classes and classes, and it got me to where I'm at today.
Matt:Yeah. And I would tell you whether you're just on the pay on call side or if you decide you're you start out on a pay on call and then move your way into a career field in this, do it. It's awesome. It's probably the best career I've ever had in my well, I mean, I've done a lot of jobs in my life, but as far as careers go, no no two days are the same. Mhmm.
Matt:Boy, I don't know what else to say about it. It's just amazing. It's it's never the same day. I know you hear that a lot people say that they want to help their neighbors and it's true. I mean we like helping people.
Matt:Yeah. But at the same time it's just it's amazing. It's a fun career. You you get to do stuff that you've only seen on TV for the most part.
Caryn:Right.
Matt:And then you go home and you're just like, let me tell you about what I did today. Yeah. And yeah. So that's where that's fun to you know my kids have grown up around it their whole life. So they're like, whatever dad.
Matt:You're on TV again. Whoop dee doo. Oh, dad. You're doing a podcast. Whoop dee doo.
Matt:But at the same time, you also see when they come in, they're like, dad. That was really cool.
Caryn:Yeah.
Matt:You know? So I I don't know. I think it's a great deal. It when in doubt, check it out.
Heath:It's it's a great time right now because the fire service is evolving.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Heath:When I got on and when deputy chief was on, I mean, we were 95% of all fire departments were either volunteer or paid on call. Yeah. We're making that switch now
Matt:Mhmm.
Heath:Where because of the NFPA standards today and what they outline, the majority of the fire stations are they're going full time now. Yeah. And it's there's something to be said about getting up and, with this profession, you don't go to work. Like, you don't I don't get up in the morning and be like, oh, I have to go to work today.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Matt:I mean,
Heath:I work at a fire department.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Heath:I mean, I don't I don't go to work.
Caryn:Yeah.
Heath:This is this is, this is awesome. Yeah. So, yeah, absolutely.
Heath:If you wanna become a firefighter, yeah, it's the best job you'll ever have.
Caryn:Now you said that they're transitioning, so a lot have been volunteer and paid on call that kind of what hit and you said the NFPA kind of is putting that forth. What's the NFPA and why it's important?
Matt:Oh, sorry. NFPA is the National Fire Protection Agency. So they kinda help develop their their standards that have to be met. And so most of the departments around the country adopt NFPA standards. Kind of an unwritten law.
Matt:I mean, it's not a law, but it's Mhmm. Their standards so you every department should follow NFPA. A lot of departments are doing it because one, they're just so busy. Yeah. I know our friends to the West Lakeville are transitioning from an all part time paid on call department to now a combination department with full time staffing and volunteers or paid on call.
Matt:And someday we might be getting there. Our call volume is starting to increase. We we might get to that point where we're we're gonna bring on some full time staff, but that's a little bit way a little further down the road, I think. But you're starting to see that transition more. There's more things that the fire service is doing more than back in the old days where people were like, well, we don't wanna pay you to sleep.
Matt:Well, there's not a whole lot of sleep going on.
Caryn:Right.
Matt:It's not like the movies where you just see us sitting around playing cards all day.
Caryn:Oh, like, Tacoma FD?
Matt:Kinda like to exactly. The show. Kinda like Tacoma FD where they're just sitting around. I can tell you my worst day in the fire service was 30 runs in twenty four hours.
Caryn:Wow.
Matt:Heath and I were just talking, last week. He he asked, you know, how many fires did we have in Saint Paul One? I think it was last year. Yeah. We had a 157, I think it was, fires in one one year, house fires.
Matt:Mhmm. And he was just like, woah. You know? And but that's the big city. Yeah.
Matt:We've had 47, I believe, last year. No. We had 26 last year. 23, we had 47. Yeah.
Matt:That's a lot. Mhmm. That's a lot where and I know since I've been here as the fire marshal, I've investigated at least probably six house fires.
Caryn:Yeah. So it's It's more than you think.
Matt:It is definitely more than you think.
Caryn:Because you you hear about some, but those are the only the big ones. Right? Like, you don't hear about all of them.
Matt:Correct. And anytime there's a fire, it has to be investigated. Right. So it could be a simple trash can fire. Mhmm.
Matt:But I or Heath have to go out and we have to investigate it.
Caryn:Yep. Why did it happen?
Matt:Why did it why did it happen? We scour for ring cameras. Is there something that was caught on a ring camera? Was there Yeah. I mean, you're kind of a in the fire marshals, well, I thought it was kind of fun because you're kinda like a cop.
Matt:In a way.
Caryn:Because you're investigating stuff.
Matt:Right? Investigating stuff. So, you know, my kids would always say, dad, you're a fire cop. You're investigating fires. And I'm like, I never thought of it that way.
Matt:But but it is true because you are kind of playing Perry Mason in a way. And for those young people that don't know who Perry Mason is.
Caryn:I'm not sure everybody might know who that is.
Matt:That's an old old TV show, but for an old fart like me. But but you're you kinda gotta put two and two together. Yeah. Trying to find the the cause of a fire is investigating it.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Matt:And you gotta kinda play detective. And it's gets kind of fun when you think you know what happened and then all of a sudden you find a ring camera and you're going, holy cow. What I thought happened actually happened. Mhmm. Or boy, was I way wrong.
Matt:Yeah. So that's the fun part about it.
Caryn:Well, and I imagine I mean, how obviously, you're trained for it, but I just how hard that is to figure something out after something's been burned. Right?
Heath:Like, Even being trained, I mean, there's there's times where you you might have an idea
Caryn:Mhmm.
Heath:But you can't it's not you have to have the proof. Yeah. And if you can't come up with the proof, you can't really label it something.
Caryn:Right.
Heath:You know, those times it might become it's it's undetermined. Yep. There's a lot of science there. There's Yep.
Matt:A lot of science. Yeah. A lot of lot of ruling things out. And if you don't if like Heath was saying, if you can't put your finger on it, even though you know that it's this or you think it's this, but you can't prove it, it's tough. Yeah.
Matt:It's tough. But that's where they've got other people that can come in and we can call for assistance if we need it. We've got the state fire marshal's office. We've got the ATF that we can call in.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Matt:And they're they're ready to help us out in a moment's notice.
Caryn:Yeah. Give
Matt:us an hour. We'll be there.
Caryn:Yeah.
Matt:So we're pretty lucky down here or in in the state of Minnesota. We have such a huge list of people we can call to assist us if we need to. If something seems a little bit out of place, I have no problem picking up the phone if I had to. Yep. And people come running.
Matt:Yeah. So
Caryn:Anything else you guys wanna talk about regarding recruitment or fire prevention?
Matt:Well, for recruitment, if you're interested, give me a shout at the city of Farmington, MBrown@FarmingtonMN.gov Mhmm. I'll answer any questions you might have. Come see us at any one of our, recruitment open houses, see what it's like, try on some of the gear, talk to some firefighters. We'll have, the trucks where everyone can sit in it.
Matt:Try on the gear, see what it's like, and ask questions. I mean, that's the big important thing. We ask questions because we will we'll answer open and honestly and truthfully and wanna see more and more people come out.
Caryn:Well, before I wrap up today's episode, I do wanna thank you guys for coming on, and I'll be happy to have you on again if you wanna talk some more.
Matt:Oh, man.
Caryn:But I do wanna remind all our listeners, the recruitment informational meetings are being held in February, March. I think the first one's the February 17. That's correct. Okay. At 7PM at Fire Station 1.
Caryn:But you can check out all the dates, times, and locations at FarmingtonMN.gov/BecomeaFirefighter Well, that concludes this month's episode of the Farmington Feed. Thank you for listening. We look forward to connecting with residents with this podcast. If you have any feedback, guest requests, or ideas, email me at Communications@FarmingtonMN.gov.
