Cortlandville and Homer Fire Chief’s Talk Holiday Fire Safety

Jack Eves: [00:00:00] X 1 0 1, always classic Jack here in the studio. And joining me today is Chief of the Cville and Homer Fire Department’s Chief Mike Biviano and Chief Jay Riley. Good afternoon guys. How are you today?

Chief Biviano: Good, Jack. How we doing today? We’re doing well.

Jack Eves: Awesome to hear. Great to have you guys in again. And obviously the holiday Christmas is coming up and still more importance and making sure that you don’t burn your house down,

Chief Biviano: right?

Yeah. With every holiday there’s always different levels ofHoliday safety. So with the Christmas holiday coming up, brings a lot of ’em. One of the big ones we like to talk about is, with your, with your Christmas trees. Everybody likes the real tree. They look nice. They smell nice.

Just always remember you gotta water the tree. There’s plenty of videos out there quick. YouTube search of Christmas tree firescan show the dangers and how quick they can go up if they’re not watered, if they dry out. And it doesn’t take much to light ’em up. I guess the biggest reference, one of everybody’s favorite movies, Christmas vacation, how quick that tree goes up, and it’s just a quick flash.

And that’s close to a reality, butnot that quick, but they do go up quick

Jack Eves: and it, it, it’s a good point to mention, you do have to water it frequently. They’re gonna be taken in a lot of water. You, you’re [00:01:00] just cut down the tree too andthey’ll dry out quick and those needles, they’ll be fall andgo right up, especially if you have lights, ornaments, and that.

All of that is also very flammable.

Chief Biviano: Or uncle who was walking by withwith his togi.

Jack Eves: Oh yeah. And also especially it’ssome of those videos too I see online it’s, some people still go the old school way of putting actual candles on their Christmas trees. I know it’s a tradition for some, butI don’t think that’s something you guys would recommend.

Chief Riley: I have always had a fake tree because it’s a one-time cost. But also the, the fire safety, the, the risk is pretty huge when it comes to that. So that’s why we have, these talks and things like that. ’cause it is reality that they will catch on fire pretty quickly and then before you know it, it could be beyond, beyond any help.

So,

Jack Eves: exactly. And, a round, a Christmas tree too, if it catches fire, you’re gonna have. Gifts wrapped in paper. It’s a lot of flammable stuff there too. And with the holidays, a lot of people are using fireplaces too. Either gas or conventional wood log fireplaces. It’s also important to make sure that you keep your chimney [00:02:00] clean,

Chief Biviano: right?

And you should have your chimney checked, at least once a year. And the other parts of that is make sure you’re burning, you’re not burning, green wood, you’re not burning paper products. Cardboard actually burn, dried wood, seasoned wood. Okay? And that’s the easiest way to keep it, clean and to build up or prevent that Creo buildup.

But always have your. Chimney checked, cleaned a simple chimney fire, could turn into a, pretty catastrophic house fire. So just, once a year, look down your chimney, you have somebody come check it out, make sure it’s clean.

Jack Eves: And what are some of the signs to, if you’re burning something in your fireplace, what’s a sign that your chimney might be on fire?

Chief Riley: So there’s not gonna be any airflow coming up through the, the vent or the chimney portion of it. So a lot of the times, all the byproducts of combustion will actually filter back into the residence. So that’s a huge part of that as well. That’s really, besides that, maybe your wall’s getting hot, which is what it, when you hear chimney fire with extension, it means that it’s, it’s done, its convection heat or, and it’s transferred into a wall structure, something like that.

So those are two big signs is, if your wall’s hot or if you, if you start [00:03:00] having your if house fill up with smoke

Jack Eves: and obviously call 9 1 1 once you start experiencing that.

Chief Biviano: Alright. And as, as Chief Riley mentioned to other signs, vva have the exposed, chimney piping off your wood stove into the wall.

So sometimes that’ll get cherry red hot. You might hear what sounds like a jet turbine engine. You might hear the roar, the going up the chimney pipe. So, all good signs to look for.

Jack Eves: Good to know. And obviously looking at the weeks we’ve had, it’s been pretty cold. A lot of people probably are also using space heaters and all that, and there’s some big important things,

I think one of the big ones is don’t plug a space heater into, an extension cord or even a search protector. Right?

Chief Riley: So, this is a topic of conversation. We don’t recommend space heaters at all, but if you do choose to use so in your residence, then it needs to be hooked up to something of a ground fault, GFI or a search protector, strip.

A lot of people will plug them into just a regular extension cord and if something happens, they draw a lot of power. Maybe more than. What your house is capable of drawing for whenever the things are running. So that’ll short [00:04:00] out and then that’s what will cause the fire. A lot of times it could happen behind the receptacle, so you won’t know until it’s showing some signs and it could be a little too late to try to get ahead of it yourself.

So although we don’t recommend space heaters, we get the reality of it. People are going to use them. Let’s just use ’em safely by using those two methods.

Jack Eves: Awesome. And would you say, space heater related incidences, obviously the more common in winter, but have you guys noticed an increase in recent years with us?

Chief Biviano: Yes and no. There, there’s some occasional ones that pop up. The mores of the ones is like, your portable heaters, your, your propane, your gas heaters, if you’re using those kerosene heaters, anything that burns a fuel, if you’re using that additionally till your hot water heat or whatever, you have your residential heat.

Make sure you have a carbon monoxide detector. If they blow out in the middle of the night or they have some kind of malfunction, they’re gonna produce some carbon monoxide. Wanting that you. Definitely don’t want to use, we haven’t seen it in a long, long time. The salamander heaters, that people used to use.

Don’t use those to heat your home. Don’t use those enclosed spaces. They’re not good. They’re not designed for that. They put out a lot of carbon monoxide and which falls back to our [00:05:00] discussion last time, right? If you’re using any heat sources, always make sure you have a working carbon monoxide detector ’cause that’s your best early detection.

Jack Eves: Chief Biviano. Chief Re, thank you so much for taking time outta your busy schedules. Speak with us again on some fires. Safety. Is there anything else you guys want to add?

Chief Biviano: I guess I’ll do one more. One pitch for us, Saturday Town of Ville. Residents. Follow us on the Facebook page where Santa Claus is coming to town.

So we’ll be hitting the neighborhoods again for second annual Santa Run. We’ll be starting at, nine o’clock in the morning is when we start. So check us out on Facebook. Look at the maps. Bring the kids out for your chance to see Santa

Chief Riley: Village Residents a similar thing. Here comes Santa Claus.

This will be our sixth annual. But, we’ll be starting nine o’clock, leaving from the Horn Fire Department in various spots. If you check out the Facebook page, it’ll tell different maps. Just as, chief B alluded to, one last thing. It is getting pretty heavy with the snow, so we wanna make sure that we can.

Adequately get a water supply. So if you can shovel your fire hydrants, that would be a big help for us as well.

Chief Biviano: Yeah, I’ll, OJ does a statement, help us, help you and, give some distance around the [00:06:00] hydrants and make sure they’re clear,

Jack Eves: especially when time is over. The essence. Guys, thank you so much for joining us.

Chief Biviano: Thanks Jack. Thanks for having us. Thank you for the cookies.

Chief Riley: Sinfully Sweet.

Jack Eves: For X 1 0 1,

Chief Biviano: I’m Jack Eves.