Cortland Fire Department Open House set for Saturday During Pumpkinfest

Jack Eves: X101, always classic. Jack in the studio, and joining me in the studio today is Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds and Captain Hill from the Cortland Fire Department. Guys, great to see you and thanks for coming in.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Yes, thanks for having us.

Captain Hill: Thanks for having us.

Jack Eves: You know, Pumpkinfest obviously is this weekend, but also marks the Fire Department’s open house, right?

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: That is correct.

Captain Hill: Yep. Yep, it’s going to run this Saturday, October 3rd. It’s going to run from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Normally, it’s in our fire station, but because of the construction going on out front, we’re going to move it right out onto Court Street and in the parking lot between headquarters and City Hall. Just a heads up, Court Street will be closed that day, so plan accordingly if you live or work around there. But we’re hoping to do all the stuff we normally do. We have a little obstacle course for the kids.

Jack Eves: Nice.

Captain Hill: We’ll have the trucks there for them to go in and out of and take a tour. And we’re going to have popcorn and cider that we’re going to be giving away, and a couple of people exhibiting different things from the county that are available to everybody who lives here.

Jack Eves: Yeah, it’s a great way—open house—because it’s a wonderful opportunity for, you know, firefighters and members of the community to meet one another, learn more about the department, too, and learn about everything you guys do as well.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Yeah, it’s one of our bigger events throughout the year, and we definitely enjoy the community engagement. It means a lot to us. Over the years, we’ve seen the stigma and fear from firefighters to citizens go down, and it’s a big push for us. Community risk reduction and fire prevention are two of the things we pride ourselves on.

Jack Eves: Yes, and adding onto that, it’s Fire Prevention Week starting on Sunday, running through the 10th as well, so it’s perfect timing for it.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Correct. This year’s theme is actually, again, lithium-ion battery fires. Captain Hill worked hard to work at some of those fire prevention messages for us. And if you follow 101.5, you would have seen just in the past couple weeks, we had multiple lithium-ion fires back-to-back, so…

Jack Eves: Yeah, this area is not a stranger for lithium-ion batteries, and, you know, it’s a good thing to highlight, too, is they’re pretty much in everything. I mean, one of the incidents you guys had, it was just a portable speaker. And then, obviously, you know, the electric scooters and bikes, that was the other one you guys have had. And with lithium-ion batteries, it’s a ripple effect, and it’s a pretty violent fire from when you see them go up.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: It is. And the big safety talking point for us is making sure you have the right charger and the right battery pack for the right device. Amazon has done great things, makes it really easy to get anything you want overnighted…

Jack Eves: Especially at the price you want, but you don’t know if it’s going to be a legit product if you’re getting it.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Correct. And with Fire Prevention Week coming up, another big one is smoke detectors. Amazon might have a cheaper price point, and if people are going to do that, we encourage them to look for either the ETL or UL certification on the device before they buy it. Several times we see them installed, they mention a cheaper price point, but they’re not certified and listed in the United States, which is definitely a concern for us.

Jack Eves: Yeah, and that’s critical at times when you’re going to be hearing a smoke detector, especially, you know, if it’s in the middle of the night and you’re sleeping. And even if not even a smoke detector, but also a CO alarm as well.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Correct. So the carbon monoxide alarms are huge for us. We’re transitioning into the winter season, unfortunately, and when we fire up those heating appliances, it’s a big deal to have working carbon monoxide alarms.

Jack Eves: Yeah, so it’s going to be great for this open house, you know. People might have questions, and it’s going to be a great opportunity for them to come on down and ask anything they might have, and even offer something, too, right?

Captain Hill: Yeah, we’re actually going to have a couple—a couple representatives from the county. One is going to go over car seat safety, but the one I just thought of when you were talking about detectors was there’s a program that offers detectors to certain people that qualify for them in the community.

Jack Eves: That’s amazing.

Captain Hill: So yeah, we’re going to have a person that works in that office hopefully manning a table, weather permitting.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Yeah, and the advantage to the individual from the county we have coming down, her resources are a little wider than ours, so she can actually go countywide. So if somebody’s from Homer, Virgil, McGraw, if they stop by, we’ll be able to put them in touch. And she offers smoke detectors, carbon monoxide alarms, fire extinguishers. She has a pretty amazing program, and we’re actually very excited to team up with her and bring this county resource some spotlight.

Jack Eves: That’s great. And you mentioned some demonstrations might be happening, too, as well tomorrow?

Captain Hill: Yeah, I mean, we’ll have our obstacle course like normal. We’ll have a bunch of different tables with information. Like I said, we have the car seat safety table, which was a big hit last year, gave a lot of people information about how tall and how heavy a child can be before they’re out of a car seat, and all their stuff. We’re going to have the new table with the smoke detectors there. And we’re going to have our recruitment table with information about the department. We’ll have our code enforcement table. I know that’s another one that people don’t always like to deal with code enforcement, but we’ll have information there, and we’ll be as friendly as we can talking to the public about anything they have questions about.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Unfortunately, we had to step away from our live fire demo this year. We had another lithium-ion battery fire planned, but given the site work that’s happening in front of our station and our construction partners and respecting where they’re at in the project…

Jack Eves: Maybe a little bit safer than…

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Any water damage to the foundation and stuff they’re laying would set us back, and we’re just… we’re excited to be making progress, and we don’t want to jeopardize that.

Jack Eves: Yeah, you don’t want the apron to the fire department to be under work a little bit longer, especially with you guys having to utilize the back doors.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Yep. We’re very excited. We’ve worked with the partners in the construction project. Our DPW has done phenomenal work. McKinney Masonry’s down there helping out quite a bit, and so is JMS Plumbing and Heating. I mean, we’re doing a great thing, and we’re super excited for the project and how everyone’s come together to make it is what it is.

Jack Eves: And that’s going to be happening from 10:00 a.m. till 3:00 p.m. on Saturday. As well, during Pumpkinfest, so it’s like you can stop by, see the fire department, and then go enjoy the festivities across the street.

Captain Hill: Yep, sounds great. We look forward to seeing everyone there.

Jack Eves: Yeah, and thankfully, I’m looking at the weather forecast, knock on wood, it’s looking like a good day, guys.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Looks like a perfect fall festival.

Jack Eves: Perfect fall festival, indeed. Guys, thank you so much for coming in. Always appreciate it.

Captain Hill: Yep, thanks for having us.

Deputy Chief Derek Reynolds: Thank you.

Jack Eves: For X101, I’m Jack Eves.