If your child is wanting to participate in this year’s Bicycle Rodeo, feel free to bring them by Riley Elementary.   Check-in is at 9am and the cost is FREE.  Two lucky children will be going home with a certificate for a new bike from Wal-Mart on St Rd 46!  The weather is supposed to be beautiful.  Couldn’t ask for a better day to be outside!

Riley Fire Department’s officers and command staff spent the week of December 5th-9th at Fishers Fire Department Command Training Center participating in the Blue Card Incident Commanders Certification Program.  The program was written by the Brunacini’s, a family of Phoenix firefighters and consists of 50 hours of online instruction, including text, simulations, video coaching, quizzes followed by a 3-day practical exercise at any number of Command Training Centers located around the country.  The Blue Card Command Certification Program teaches Incident Commanders and other fire officers how to standardize incident operations across their department providing:

• Safer, more effective procedures when operating at an emergeny incident
• System-wide accountability among all firefighters and other emergency response personnel
• A reduction in the number of firefighter injuries and deaths
• Simulation-based training to complement on-the-job learning
• A low-cost training alternative that can be delivered in-house

The Blue Card program is designed to manage NIMS Type 4 and 5 incidents-which represent more than 99 percent of our department’s incident activity.

Six of RFD’s eight officer’s completed the cetification program this week.  The remaining two are scheduled to complete the training in 2012.  However, we are not done.  We are in the process of planning a training program that passes the information that we learned to our firefighters.  In addition to training our own, we are the first department in Vigo County to use this program, we are planning on working closely with our neighboring and mutual aid departments to be able to fully utilize this program.

If you or your department has any questions regarding the Blue Card Cerification Program, please feel free to contact us.  We will be more then happy to assist you in any way we can.

Vigo County’s public safety agencies utilize a program named CODERED.  For more information on the CodeRED system, please click here.  If you have any questions about the system, please feel free to call the Vigo County 911 Office at 812-462-3333.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, an estimated 260 children under five years of age drown each year in residential swimming pools and spas.  The Commission estimates that another 3,000 children under age five are treated in hospital emergency rooms following submersion accidents each year.  Some of these submersion accidents result in permanent brain damage.

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Severe heat may cause illness or even death. When temperatures rise to extreme highs, reduce risks by taking the following precautions to reduce the risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke:

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