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Fire Safety House burglarized
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Posted by editor Mon Apr 3, 2006 13:08:30 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments The Tehachapi Fire Department’s state-of-the- art mobile “Fire Safety House” was broken into and vandalized sometime over the weekend of March 25 through 26. 
“The Public Works Department discovered their gate had been broken over the weekend,” Fire Chief Tim McLaughlin said. “Vandals then used some sort of crowbar and pried open the door in our trailer.”

McLaughlin said the criminals ransacked the interior, stealing the TV, VCR and DVD player. He said they also stole the Honda generator and destroyed the electronics for it. Total loss to the department is estimated to be $15,000.

Purchased with federal grant money in 2004, the $68,152 mobile trailer is used to teach fire safety classes to more than 1,700 school children each year in Tehachapi.
According to McLaughlin, the programs are taught jointly with the city and Kern County Fire Department.

“We have spent two years going to schools, giving our safety message,” he said. “It just kills me; we are public servants trying to serve the community, and put out a positive message.”

McLaughling said the city fire department had to have their East Coast peers judge them to see that department had a need for a Fire Safety Program.

“I don’t even have words for this,” he said. “We have a Fire Safety Program to do this evening at the library and no teaching trailer.” 

The Fire Safety trailer had an interactive 911 program installed on the TV that taught children how to dial 911 and correctly report an emergency. It also had a “pull station” that could generate smoke to teach children how to feel the wall for heat and get out of bed and safely evacuate the house in the event of a fire; all of the software programs for the interactive education were stolen.

McLaughlin said assistant fire chief Dave Dimmett spent a lot of time writing the grant application and he and the entire department were very excited when it was approved.

Congressman Bill Thomas even wrote a letter supporting the project. McLaughlin says that Thomas always “knew Tehachapi and had a touch on his constituents and what the community needed.”

Prior to receiving the grant money, the city fire department would have to wait in line for a county trailer. In addition to being used as a teaching tool, the trailer was also the city’s mobile command post, vital in the event of a disaster that might isolate the community from outside resources

McLaughlin said that in the event of a major disaster today, the city would have no mobile command post.

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