2023.04.03 CC Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Meeting Minutes for April 3, 2023 Page 2 of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., the busiest day was Wednesdays, and the busiest month was July. He said it was important to know this information for staffing purposes, and he stressed the need for daytime firefighters. Three new firefighters were hired in 2023. The department had received $9,000 in donations from the Hugo Legion, and the department was awarded a 50/50 grant from the DNR for $5,000 for wildland gear. They will be replacing the Chief’s squad vehicle for a new F350 grass firetruck, which is on order, and they hoped to get it soon. This vehicle would use high pressure foam, reducing gallons per minute of water. Training in 2023 included 3,643 hours spent on drills, a bus extraction training done on a donated bus, and one live burn. Leadership development continued, and they try to get together once a month. Firefighters and officers were sent to schools throughout the state for training, and NIMS training was done through FEMA. The department continued to participate in blood drives, fire prevention classes, toy drives, boy scouts, parades, rodeos, etc. Compton talked about Hugo being a Heart Safe Community saying there were 23 AEDs in Hugo with six located in City buildings that are available to the public. These were all purchased through donations, and some volunteers on the department carry them. Some of their goals for 2023 included continued talks about a fulltime fire chief and work on their daytime staffing model. Petryk asked about electric vehicle (EV) fires and if foam worked on those. Compton replied there was no data tracking that, and Hugo had not had one yet. He said they are very dangerous fires, and a lot of the metro departments were learning about them. He estimated it took about 20,000 gallons to cool the batteries in the EVs, and it only took about 3,000 to put out a normal car fire. He added that a lot of the salvage yards were not taking those vehicles. Compton thanked Finance Director Anna Wobse and Accounting Clerk Amber Lozier for compiling the data. M Health Operations Manager Kevin Kane was in attendance to present the M Health Fairview EMS 2022 Annual Report. He had with him Clayton, their first and only facility dog. Clayton was a three-year-old lab bred and trained as a service animal. He provided passive therapy for the EMS crews and was good at interacting with the public during community events. He talked about a story Channel Five News did on them, and said they were looking at expanding the program. Kane provided a breakdown on the data for the northern region. There was a total of 4,963 requests in 2022, mutual aid was received 172 times and given 475. He reviewed call types on severity, which dictates whether they respond with lights and sirens or not. The emergent response for the overall region averaged at 7:37 and the overall combined was 8:24. In 2022 in Hugo, there were 1,032 requests for medicals with 28 cancelled in route, and there were 43 mutual aid requests. The combined response time was 7:46. He shared a breakdown of call types. Mental health calls made up 17.74% of all calls. Kane explained that number was not indicative of the mental health of the community, since some are repeat patients. One property in Hugo specifically brought that number up. Kane said they try to embed themselves into the community by attending events at no costs. They continue to provide education free of charge to the Fire Department to maintain their EMS certifications. He predicted requests to do community events will increase with the presence of Clayton.