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Naperville Fire Department news

Apr 26

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 6 Comments

Excerpts from the DailyHerald.com:

Spending $1.4 million, the city of Naperville will test two fire engines and two maintenance companies for the next 10 years.

Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis said the plan will allow the department to see which engine better withstands the test of time and which maintenance company provides better service.

The city will compare a $565,300 Pierce engine the department has favored in the past with a $559,308 E-One engine with similar specifications. Global Emergency Products of Aurora will maintain the Pierce for an estimated $172,000 during the next 10 years, while Fire Service Inc., of Naperville, will service the E-One for an estimated $134,000.

Fire engines have been maintained by city mechanics in the fleet services division of public works, but the number of mechanics certified to work on fire engines is down from six in 2014 to three. Using maintenance companies that specialize in fire engines will decrease the wait of between 16 and 30 hours for city crews to conduct the work.

The new arrangement comes after the city planned to begin leasing an engine last year for $75,000, but never entered into a contract.

“The outright purchase of vehicles continues to be the best option for us financially,” Finance Director Rachel Mayer said, adding it will save an estimated $240,000 per engine throughout the life of the vehicle.

Contracting out the maintanence work also seems to be the best option for equipment reliability, Puknaitis said.

thanks Scott

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Naperville Fire Department news

Jul 22

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | Comments off

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

Naperville is the first municipality in Illinois to begin using a smart phone app that will allow people who have CPR and AED certification to respond to cardiac emergencies in public places, Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis said.

The PulsePoint Respond app informs users of emergency situations within a 12-block radius of their current location in the hope that volunteer help might arrive to provide assistance in those dire minutes before firefighters or EMTs can make it to a location.

As a bonus, the app also provides users with the dates, times, locations and natures of all of the department’s emergency calls as they are received in much the same way radio scanners once allowed citizens to monitor police and fire emergency situations.

Naperville paramedics since January have been sent out on 70 CPR-related calls and 120 other situations in which someone was not breathing.

Puknaitis said more than half of U.S. citizens know how to perform CPR or use an AED. Local residents with such knowledge and training can step in and help during the estimated six minutes firefighters and paramedics typically have to spend on the road en route to a 911 call.

The app also shows people where they can find the 100-plus publicly accessible defibrillators in Naperville’s municipal buildings, parks, schools, churches, hotels, and banks. For those unsure of how to use an AED, step-by-step instructions are provided.

While the app does not display addresses of private homes where someone might be having a medical emergency, precise addresses are provided where someone is in need of medical assistance in a public place.

Firefighters already have done dry runs and performed tests to ensure the app’s viability. An estimated 547 people in the Naperville area are already using the app, including city employees and others who discovered its availability on their own.

Puknaitis praised fire department Division Chief Andy Dina, who found the service and worked for about a year with the city’s IT department to have the program implemented and made available to the public.

The app and information about the program can be found by linking to the city’s website at naperville.il.us/pulsepoint.

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