Attention to all members of the Stepney Volunteer Fire Company Number One Inc, The Annual meeting of the Company will be held on July 09th, 2009 directly following the Regular business Meeting, (food will be served at 18:30 prior to both meetings), all members are urged to attend. If you have any questions please contact President Glenn Squires.

In anticipation of the arrival of our new engine and ladder, we are offering these two pieces of apparatus for sale:
 
Engine 102 is a 1972 Maxim, refurbished in 1983.
Truck 100 is a 1990 LTI 100-foot ladder tower.
Details about both trucks are available on our Apparatus page.
Please email trucks4sale@stepneyfire.com for more information.

Stepney’s volunteers, along with many firefighters across the state, had their hands full Friday as a very strong thunderstorm made its way through Connecticut. 

The evening started at 1712 hours when Engines 101 and 104 responded to a carbon monoxide alarm on Arrowhead Drive.
 
Engines 101 and 104, along with Rescue 120 then responded to Vishay Intertechnology at 1720 hours for a fire alarm, caused by the lightning storm.
 
Two minutes later Stepney was toned out as mutual aid for an appliance fire call on Harvester Road.
 
If that wasn’t enough, two minutes after that, at 1724 hours, Engine 102, Rescue 120 and Chief 151 rolled to a “smoke in the building” call at 68 Stable Ridge Road in Monroe’s fire district.
 
In addition to that, Stepney Engine 101 was requested as mutual aid to go to the Nichols section of Trumbull to assist with a fully involved structure fire (see photo). The photo shows what the building looked like when Engine 101 arrived.
 
Finally, for those who didn’t go to Nichols, Engine 104 and Rescue 120 responded to an active, arching, downed power line on Purdy Hill Road.
 
And that was just Friday.

Chief Klemish today provided some new photos of the new E-102 and T-100, he also reported that the Engine is now at the final factory that will be installing all the components and that the ladder should be leaving the chassis plant in the next few days joining the Engine for final component installation.

The 3 Companies of the Town of Monroe participated in a tri-company drill this evening, Monroe, Stepney and Stevenson did a preplanning walk thru of the new and soon to open Stop and Shop in the Monroe district on RT 111, very good turn out from all companies and a lot of good preplanning information was obtained, Fire Marshal William Davin was on hand to give us information from his point of view. Thank you to the Stop and Shop Management for hosting this walk thru.

Today, several Fire Fighter Volunteers of Stepney hosted a Birthday Party for a local child, his family and friends and potential future Firefighters. The festivities were held at Stepney Station 2, hosted by Chief Mike Klemish, Cpt. Scott Schmaling, Fire fighters Andrew, Caty and David Schmaling, along with Jr. Fire Fighters Shawn Ryan, Amanda Mace and Will Schmaling.  The party guests enjoyed checking out the fire trucks, playing with booster lines and soaking our Junior Firefighters Shawn and Will with the hoses. On behalf of the Stepney Fire Company, Happy Birthday Jared!!

Today will be the last daily update as the fire danger is in a prolonged period of Low to Moderate. The DEP - Division of Forestry continues to monitor fire danger parameters on a daily basis and will return to daily updates when conditions warrant.

The DEP's Forest Fire Control Office urges all who enjoy the use of Connecticut's parks, forests and open spaces, to use fires with caution and heed the following recommendations especially during forest fire season:

• Obey local laws regarding open fires, including campfires;
• Keep all flammable objects away from fire;
• Have firefighting tools nearby and handy;
• Carefully dispose of hot charcoal;
• Drown all fires;
• Carefully extinguish smoking materials.

For Connecticut homeowners, the following steps are suggested to protect your family members and home:

• Make a fire safe zone around your house. Clean flammable vegetation and debris from at least 30 feet around the house and any outbuildings;
• Prune away the lower limbs of evergreens that are within the fire safe zone. Evergreens catch fire easily during dry periods and burn quickly;
• Remove any limbs which overhang the roof or chimney;
• Regularly remove leaves and needles from gutters;
• Don't store firewood in the fire safe zone;
• Use fire resistant roofing materials;
• Make sure firefighters can find and access your home. Mark your house and roads clearly, and prune away limbs and trees along your driveway which don't allow fire truck access;
• Have an escape plan-- and practice it;
• Follow state and local open burning laws;
• Stay with outside fires until they are completely safe and dead out;
• Dispose of wood ashes in a metal bucket, soaking them with water before dumping them.

Connecticut traditionally experiences high forest fire danger in the Spring from mid-March through May.  DEP's Division of Forestry constantly monitors the danger of forest fire to help protect Connecticut's 1.8 million acres of forested land. Throughout the Spring forest fire season, DEP sends daily advisories on forest fire danger levels to DEP's state park forest field staff, municipalities, fire departments and the media. Forest fire danger levels are classified at low, moderate, high, very high or extreme. In an average year approximately 1,300 acres of Connecticut woodland are scorched by forest fires.

If you have received a permit from your local Open Burning Official to burn brush on your property, the permit is not valid if the Forest Fire Danger is rated high, very high or extreme and you are burning within 100 feet of a grassland or woodland.

If you spot a forest fire, remain calm, go to the nearest telephone and dial 911 to report the fire as quickly as possible to your local fire department. Calmly tell the emergency dispatcher when you saw it and where you saw it. Stay on the telephone until the dispatcher tells you to hang up.

Please refer to the CT DEP web site at:www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp

Stepney Volunteer Fire Department’s TRUCK 100 once again helped out the science classes at Monroe Elementary School with their annual Egg Drop. Stepney firefighter Greg Loehr and Fire Marshal Bill Davin assisted the school’s classes by dropping eggs that had been specially prepared and packaged by the students from a height of approximately 100 feet onto the pavement.
While most of the eggs returned to earth successfully, some, sadly, did not.

Please click the heading to see the PDF file link for a detail view of the Graphics for the new Truck 100

Very busy morning for the volunteers in the Town of Monroe.

From aprox. 9am to 11:30 am today all 3 departments were active and took 5 calls related to storms in the area, 3 in the Stepney district and 2 in Monroe, the 3 in Stepney were all due to lightning from the storm 2 entering in the cable TV system and 1 from a electric dog fence, the 2 Monroe calls were for wires on fire on telephone poles

The Save Our Stepney Task Force took on a monumental task of building a history lesson about the Village of Stepney, incorporated into the town of Monroe, CT.  They realized the vanishing history that made this Village of Stepney such a vital part of the area’s development and today it is still the most productive part of Monroe with its residential areas, manufacturing firms, retail stores and restaurants.

The Stepney Heritage Trail was born out of a passion to preserve the past and pass it along to future generations.  SOS identified eighteen sites within Stepney that they felt held a significant position in our history and should be researched and recognized.  But how could this task best portray these moments in the past to today’s citizenry?  The SOS task force researched, from many sources, the history of these sites and decided to make it available to the residents of Monroe by using the vehicle of the Stepney Heritage Trail.  The trail idea grew in momentum and soon they were raising funds to build the centerpiece, the Gazebo/Kiosk on the Stepney Green.  At the same time they realized that to have a “trail” there must be markers and plaques to identify each of these sites for viewing and reading.  So the Trail was born and today they are still fund raising and continue to work to complete it.

The Stepney Heritage Trail consists of the trailhead Kiosk on the Green, Roadside markers at each site and/or oval Plaques placed on the existing buildings. The Stepney Volunteer Fire Comany is stop number 17 along the historic trail. http://www.stepneyct.org/history/ht/stop01.html

Please take time to enjoy the trail, and please support the SOS task force.

http://www.stepneyct.org/index.html

Today at about 13:30 the Stepney Volunteers were requested to respond to Harmony Lane for a cat stuck up in a tree, 104 & 101 went enroute with traffic, 104 arrived and found that the cat was about 40 feet up a tree. The home owner stated the cat was chased up the tree by a fox at 9 am. Clearly the ground ladders on the engines were too short, 101 arrived with Assistant Chief Scott Rose Sr (152). Scott assessed the situation and ordered the 28 ft. ladder up the side of the tree, he then ascended the ladder and climbed the rest of the way to the same level as the cat. The eager, hot and scared cat came directly to Scott, they then repelled down the tree to the ground, the cat is doing well at this time.

Photo by James Candee

2009 Golf Tournament
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Breakfast @ 7:00AM Tee Off @ 9:00AM
Lunch @ 11:00AM Dinner @ Completion of Round
Snacks and Drinks Provided Throughout The Day of Golf
Whitney Farms Golf Course
175 Shelton Rd. Rt 110
Monroe, CT 06468
E-mail us at: golfouting@spffafightingburns.org
Cost: $150.00 per golfer
Prizes for closest to the pin and longest drive
Prize raffle during dinner
All Proceeds Donated to:
The Stratford Professional Firefighters Burn Foundations'
areas of support!
This year a portion of the proceeds will be donated to
the Salerno Family of Shelton to offset costs incurred
during treatment for their 2 year old son, Antonio
who has sustained burn related injuries.
Forms can be found on their web site:
http://spffbffightingburns.org/upcomingevents/2009golfouting.html