During the September 20 City Council meeting, the Southlake Fire Department, along with City Response Personnel and Mutual Aid Response, were recognized for their recent actions and pre-planning efforts regarding the DalDen Corporation fire.
On August 17, crews responded to a fire incident at 4285 T.W. King Road. The DalDen Corporation is a manufacturing company for hazmat chemical filling and packaging.
Due to the severity of the fire and the presence of chemicals, a total of four alarms were requested. Other resources in use that day include:
Approximately 75 fire personnel arrived at the scene to combat the fire.
“Thanks to the pre-planning process and working with different departments and agencies, the fire was under control within 90 minutes,” Southlake Fire Chief Mike Starr said during the City Council presentation.
The pre-planning process played a significant role in containing the fire at DalDen Corporation. Before firefighters began putting out the fire, crews identified onsite chemicals and investigated how they would respond to water to avoid any reactions. Crews were also able to bring in equipment from Public Works to build dirt damns and stop the flow of hazardous run-off into creeks.
By implementing these procedures, the City and all partners can take precautionary measures and respond to emergencies effectively and efficiently.
“We enhance our response by our mutual aid part of the NEFDA group,” said Chief Starr, “Most of the cities are part of our NEFDA resources, and we trained with them constantly to make sure that we understand their capabilities; they understand our capabilities, and we had those specialty resources.”
“We had everybody from Public Works to PD to the building department,” Chief Starr said. “Our City team really steps up.”
To learn more about the City of Southlake’s Elements for Effective Fire Response, please watch the City Council presentation online.
During the September 20 City Council meeting, the Southlake Fire Department, along with City Response Personnel and Mutual Aid Response, were recognized for their recent actions and pre-planning efforts regarding the DalDen Corporation fire.
On August 17, crews responded to a fire incident at 4285 T.W. King Road. The DalDen Corporation is a manufacturing company for hazmat chemical filling and packaging.
Due to the severity of the fire and the presence of chemicals, a total of four alarms were requested. Other resources in use that day include:
Approximately 75 fire personnel arrived at the scene to combat the fire.
“Thanks to the pre-planning process and working with different departments and agencies, the fire was under control within 90 minutes,” Southlake Fire Chief Mike Starr said during the City Council presentation.
The pre-planning process played a significant role in containing the fire at DalDen Corporation. Before firefighters began putting out the fire, crews identified onsite chemicals and investigated how they would respond to water to avoid any reactions. Crews were also able to bring in equipment from Public Works to build dirt damns and stop the flow of hazardous run-off into creeks.
By implementing these procedures, the City and all partners can take precautionary measures and respond to emergencies effectively and efficiently.
“We enhance our response by our mutual aid part of the NEFDA group,” said Chief Starr, “Most of the cities are part of our NEFDA resources, and we trained with them constantly to make sure that we understand their capabilities; they understand our capabilities, and we had those specialty resources.”
“We had everybody from Public Works to PD to the building department,” Chief Starr said. “Our City team really steps up.”
To learn more about the City of Southlake’s Elements for Effective Fire Response, please watch the City Council presentation online.
Fire station tours have been an important bond between residents and the City of Southlake Department of Public Safety. However, COVID-19 restrictions hindered how the Fire Department continued to deliver this educational service to residents.
Calendar coordination, time constraints, social distancing guidelines and even making sure those on the tour were able to see more than just offices were all considered as the team brainstormed how to continue to bring every day public education to the community.
“The message wasn’t going to change. We had to change the medium to continue to deliver our quality services and engage the community,” Southlake Public Information Officer Brad Uptmore said. “Throughout our planning, my goal was to engage viewers with a Disney World-like ride so that the education aspect stuck and people would continue watching to the very end.”
The team tested a virtual tour on groups before planning a virtual tour video for social media. Filming took place on two Mondays and included more than 20 people. Editing and finalizing the video took 2-3 weeks.
“The coordination for completion was complicated. We don’t have a dedicated film crew to put videos like this together,” Fire Prevention Officer Renni Burt said. “It was a team effort and everyone participated to make a great video that was entertaining and educational for children and adults.”
The final product combined an interactive infomercial with Uptmore’s creative concept of an amusement park ride to create a digital version of a fire station tour that was entertaining enough to keep viewers glued to the video for seven minutes.
They video was also recognized as one of the reasons the Southlake DPS Facebook page received the Government Social Media’s Facebook Favorite Award.
“We’re still here and still working for the community. The work Brad and Renni have done to stay connected to our community virtually and continue to promote public education and events has been imperative to making the lives of our residents safer,” Fire Chief Mike Starr said.
Through our Southlake values of Teamwork and Innovation, Uptmore and Burt delivered a memorable experience for the Southlake community.
For more information about the Southlake Fire Department, visit: www.CityofSouthlake.com/Fire.
