Cooking up a good time

COLERIDGE — The sweet smells of pancakes, sausage,and eggs filled the Coleridge Community Building Sunday. The food was all prepared and served by the Coleridge Volunteer Fire Department.

The annual breakfast is much more than just a chance to enjoy good food and friendship. “We appreciate how the community helps us out to get the equipment needed to protect our community; we appreciate all they do,” said fireman Landon Jansen, one of the many firemen workingthe event.

The breakfast is well re- ceived by the community, typically serving 250-300 people. This year’s breakfast was another success.

“The breakfast gets thefiremen a chance to reallyinteract with the community members, so they know who serves them,” said Jeff Han-sen, assistant fire chief.

Through this year’s free-will donation breakfast, proceeds will go toward the purchase of a light bar for the current equipment truck. This equipment truck is an essential part of the department, hauling any equipment needed to the scene of a fire. Items in the equipment truck include air tanks, shovels, log chains, and air packs, supplies that are essential to take to a fire.

Throughout the year, the local firemen meet monthly. It is at these monthly meetings where the department can do training, communicate to make sure all are on the same page, and review past incidents. By reviewing past fires, this gives the members a time to reflect on what they did well and examine to see if there was room for growth and improvement.

The firemen will check the hydrants in the community throughout the year. They will also do a walk through of The Embers and Park View Haven as a refresher.

Members of the community have helped not only financially but have helped aid the department in training events.

One way community members have helped with training is through donating old cars for the department to practice using their “jaws of life.” The department has also had the ability to do controlled practice burns to help them train on putting out house fires.

Past fund raisers have aided the department to purchase much needed equipment. They helped to purchase a new pumper truck and scene lights, which are used to aid the firemen by shining light on the scene of an accident, particularly at night.

The CVFD was also able to purchase an “extractor.” The extractor is a special piece of equipment for a fire department, it can be compared to a super washing machine. It pulls any smoke or carcinogens out of the firemen’s gear.

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