Hicks updates Gillett on fire department

Gillett Fire Chief Curt Hicks provided the Gillett City Council with his monthly fire update during the council’s meeting on Aug. 4.

“We have been busy,” said Hicks, who spoke specifically about a barn fire in Gillett. “We had 50 firefighters plus on scene at that call. We went to unified command. Everything went immensely well. We were able to contain things. Between the departments that were there, we put on about 250,000 gallons of water.”

Hicks said that putting out the barn fire took from 5:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.

“We were able to knock things down,” said Hicks. “It went really well. It shows how the system works. We were able to get resources in from different departments close to us, which was nice.”

In terms of training in the department, Hicks said that they are involved in driver operator safety with the Gillett EMS department.

“We are getting more and more involved with EMS as it goes,” said Hicks. “Let’s say that two gals respond to a call and they have to work on the person in the back then they need someone to drive the ambulance. We end up, a number of times doing that and that’s fine. But, technically, you have to have this training to be certified to do that.”

Hicks said that five people went on the first training session and that he plans to go to the second training session.

“We will be certified to assist and drive the ambulance,” said Hicks. “We do driver’s ops for fire every year. It is just expanding what we can do and how we can help our community.”

lreimer@newmedia-wi.com