https://www.redcross.org/…/smoke-alarm-request-nh-vt.html
Need a smoke detector installed in your home? The American Red Cross, offers free smoke alarms and instillation. For more information please use the link above to register today!
You can also check out there website at: www.redcross.org/endhomefiresNNE
Creosote buildup may not look dangerous, but it ignites at a mere 451 degrees F, and once it starts burning, it expands like foam sealant. In less than a minute, it builds to more than 2,000 degrees F and can engulf your entire chimney and destroy your home.
Even if you clean your chimney regularly, you should still have it inspected by a qualified chimney sweeper once a year. Certified chimney sweeps are trained to recognize chimney deterioration and venting problems and can assess your fireplace chimney’s condition.
If you burn mostly green (wet) logs, have your chimney cleaned or inspected every 50 burns. If you see moisture bubbling out the ends of the logs when they’re burning, the wood is wet. This green wood doesn’t burn cleanly and sends a lot of unburned particles (smoke) up the chimney, where they build up as creosote and soot. Dry hardwoods, such as oak and birch, burn hotter and cleaner. With them, have your fireplace chimney cleaned or inspected every 70 burns.
How To Tell If Your Fireplace Chimney Needs Cleaning
A quick way to tell if your chimney needs cleaning is to run the point of your fireplace poker along the inside of your chimney liner. If you find a 1/8-in. or more layer of buildup (the thickness of a nickel), call a chimney sweep.
Chimney sweeps may see 40 to 50 chimney fires a year, and more than half of the chimneys they service require extra cleaning because the homeowners wait too long before calling. In extreme cases, the hardened layer of buildup requires cleaning with special tools or chemicals.
A professional cleaning includes an inspection for soot buildup, obstructions, cracks in the chimney liner and signs of water damage. Older chimneys often have gaps between clay liner sections where the mortar has fallen out.
When hiring a chimney sweep, look for someone who’s certified and insured and will provide an upfront cost estimate. (For a list of certified chimney sweeps, contact the Chimney Safety Institute of America at csia.org.)
Do an Inspection
Strap on goggles and a respirator, clean the ashes out of the firebox and remove the grate. Then open a door or window and wait a few minutes before opening the damper so the pressures equalize. Then open the damper and wait a few more minutes for heat to rise from the house.
Grab your brightest flashlight and a fireplace poker and lean into the firebox. Shine your light into the smoke chamber and flue and use the poker to scratch the surface. If the soot has a matte black finish and the scratch is 1/8 in. deep or less, it’s a DIY job. But if the buildup is deeper or has a shiny, tar-like appearance, you have heavy creosote buildup. Stop using your fireplace immediately and call a professional chimney sweep.
The Aroostook County Emergency Management Agency would like to thank the Caribou Community School and the Caribou High School for allowing us to participate in their first practice of a full scale evacuation of students and staff. AKEMA staff observed the loading of students and staff onto buses and the unloading at the school’s relocation sites, to practice attendance and the reunification process. It was a very successful practice run and both students and staff did a great job. The Caribou community should be proud of the efforts being put into the safety of our schools.
The Aroostook County ARES Team, had a great afternoon with the students and staff at Loring Job Corps. Members spoke on the importance of HAM Radio Communications, CERT Training and on the ARES Team itself.
Accidents happen and knowing what to do when one occurs can mean the difference between saving and losing a tooth.
Here are some tips for common dental emergencies:
When you have a dental emergency, it’s important to visit your dentist or an emergency room as soon as possible.
Here are some simple precautions you can take to avoid accident and injury to the teeth:
Most dentists reserve time in their daily schedules for emergency patients. Call your dentist and provide as much detail as possible about your condition.
We are aware of the heightened level of stress that world events such as what is going on in Ukraine can bring to each of us. We’ve been asked, “What can we do to prepare?” While we all know that you can’t prepare for everything, taking small steps in personal preparedness can be empowering and lower stress. Here are some things that you can do and that you can share with others:
Overview for Senior Officials (Executives, Elected, and Appointed)
Three Opportunities Available – Virtual Delivery via Zoom
Are you a retired medical worker or someone who has time that would like to help during a disaster?
Signing up for this program does NOT commit you, it simply puts you in a database that would get you information when there is a need. You decide if you are available or not when it happens. See below for more information:
Looking to volunteer? Then, your invited you to join Maine Responds and the Maine Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) today!
What does Maine Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) do? – Our volunteer programs reinforce our state’s public health infrastructure and support low-stress/no-fault exercise environments that test critical response capabilities.
When MRC members are not responding to an emergency or disaster, most of the time, your focus will be on public health and emergency preparedness.
By registering with Maine Responds at maineresponds.org, you will join our listing of volunteers, which we search for any emergent volunteer workforce needs.
What are some of the key reasons to join Maine MRC?
• Enjoy free trainings in healthcare, public health, and emergency management. Many of those provided by Ad Care Educational Institute now come with continuing education credits for various license types.
• Meet, learn from, and collaborate with stakeholders from front-line responders to high-level administrators throughout Maine and across New England.
• Improve your mindset. Studies have shown that volunteering can alleviate feelings of loneliness and impart a sense of purpose, value, and community to volunteers.
• Do what you want to do. Nearly all aspects of our programs are voluntary, though to participate in some roles there may be pre-requisite trainings. Do what you know you are good at or broaden your horizons and change up your routine from the office grind by learning to drive a forklift truck, or assisting with emergency planning, or facilitating a monthly meeting. You are empowered to shape your role in our organization.
• Give back to your community through our public service volunteer opportunities. Improve your area’s response capabilities and identify new resources that can be leveraged to reduce post-incident recovery times.
• Improve your preparedness personally, in your family, in your neighborhood, and beyond! Life-saving skills and knowledge can save your loved ones, and the preparedness mindset can help turn tragedies into near-tragedies.
• Enable your response when you see a major event take place on the news or elsewhere and you decide to lend a hand. By pre-registering, you can volunteer sooner via expedited credentials verification. By statute, the State of Maine provides liability coverage when you act as part of the state’s official emergency response force AND while training for such!
o NOTE: Never self-deploy! Always await deployment instructions and do not self-dispatch to the scene of a disaster.
• Participate in exciting exercises and drills with our many partners. Frequent multiagency practice is key to our response readiness. We regularly work with groups such as the Maine Center for Disease Control, Maine Emergency Management Agency, and county-level EMAs, National Guard, Maine State Police and local PDs, local Fire Departments, local EMS providers, various behavioral health agencies, American Red Cross, Community and Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters and the list goes on!
Our training courses are designed to support volunteers throughout deployment, should the worst strike our state and the need to call you to action arise. Breathe easy though, there is no set minimum volunteer commitment to join either Maine Responds or Medical Reserve Corps. If a true public emergency should occur, we simply contact you and ask if you can volunteer at a public shelter, supply warehouse, or in another capacity depending on circumstances. We encourage you to address any obligations – familial, professional, or otherwise – prior to volunteering, and to express interest in deployment later as able. It is always OK to say “no” to a volunteer request.
We do ask our volunteers to complete FEMA ICS trainings to fully understand their role within larger response operations. Your first training is IS-100, which can be taken on-line by going to training.fema.gov and registering for a student ID number. Once you have a student ID, you can enroll in many FEMA trainings that might interest you. At the completion of these FREE on-line trainings, you will be provided a certificate of completion that can be submitted for verification of training AND used to bolster your professional resume.
Register today for Maine Responds at maineresponds.org. You will be able to select your local unit in the drop-down menu under the “Organizations” section of the registration. For more information, please go to maineresponds.org
Anyone wanting to learn more about Emergency Management or Local EMA Directors that want to excel should check into this recognition program. Feel free to reach out to us with suggestions.
The Maine County Directors Council has updated their Maine Basic Emergency Manager 1 & 2 program. This is a great way for people to learn about Emergency Management and a good start for Local Emergency Managers.
Get more information on the program at:
