Stick It!

Four firefighters from Maywood, Illinois were suspended or refusing to follow a command. That command was to remove American flag stickers from their lockers. Union President, David Flowers, Jr. was one of the firefighters relieved of duty.  Flowers refused to remove the Marine Corps sticker on his locker. The sticker was placed on that locker by Flowers's father, a Vietnam veteran and former Maywood firefighter. Flowers, Sr. passed the locker down to Flowers, Jr.

Maywood Fire Chief Craig Bronaugh issued the memo requiring all stickers to be removed, including the American Flag and Marine Corps sticker, because he felt that the stickers were a form of racism.

I believe it is safe that a fair census would be to tell Chief Bronaugh to stick it. Do these firefighters have to remove the American Flag from heir uniform? Should they take down the flag on the flag pole too? This is a slippery slope that Bronaugh is going down head first.

Helmet stickers is something nearly every firefighter has. Stickers range from 9/11 to glow in the dark eyes, to Maltese crosses. My company has a strict policy on stickers. We are only allowed to have our last name on the back of the helmet and one sticker underneath the back brim of the helmet.

At first it may seem like this policy is unfair. I have come to accept it and actually like it. Some firefighters have an extreme amount of stickers on their helmet. Sometimes all these stickers makes me think they gave a 5 year old a pack of stickers and the helmet for fun.

If you tell your firefighters to taken the American flag off different things, whether it be off helmets, lockers, trucks, out of the crew room, you can be sure that someone will throw you into the smoke!

NFPA Fire Prevention Week

This year's theme for fire prevention week is "Working Smoke Alarms Save Lives".
According to the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA)

• Having a working smoke alarm in the home cuts the risk of dying in a fire in half.
• On average each year, three out of five home fire deaths result in fires where there are either no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms.
• In one-quarter (23 percent) of the home fire deaths, smoke alarms were present but did not sound.

Recently, I covered a story about an elderly couple who lost their University City (Philadelphia, PA) home in a mid evening fire. Both the husband and wife were able to escape because of working smoke detectors. The wife was upstairs sleeping. She woke up to the sound of the smoke detector going off. She discovered upon waking up that her bedroom was already filling with smoke. her husband who was asleep downstairs on the sofa, heard the smoke detector going off. The fire was located a second floor bedroom. Two lives were saved by one smoke detector, one battery, and one simple test a month.

Check your smoke detectors every month. Encourage your neighbors to do the same. Something this simple and easy could save your life