Planning vs Propagating

   Winter is definitely upon us. But in an effort to remain positive, June is coming. 

   The SDFA Board held the winter meeting in Fort Pierre in January.

   The first item on the agenda was appointment approval of Richard George from Woonsocket, Town & Country VFD as the Director for Central District. He will serve the remainder of the term through June 2026. We look forward to utilizing Rick’s fire service experience and knowledge on the state board.

   We finalized the course list for State School in June. We are looking forward to getting the list out next month and registration open in April. Keep an eye on the SDFA website.

   The President position will be up for election this summer. The term for President is a 3-year commitment. Nominations and letters of intent to run can be submitted to the nomination committee until the first session of the SDFA General Membership meeting, 16 June 2023, at State Fire School in Watertown. 

   Nomination committee members include three SDFA Board members and two at-large appointments from the membership. Denny Gorton, North Haines VFD, serves as chair, Ron Hines, Huron FD, Chad Baumgarten, Lemmon VFD, Kevin Schuelke, Milbank VFD, and Glenn Sealy, Colome VFD. Submit a letter of intent or an accepted nomination to any of the nominating committee members.

   If you are interested learning more about the President position, feel free to contact me about some of the duties involved. 

   The SDFA, Auxiliary, and Dear Old Timers post-secondary school scholarship application is available on the SDFA website. Applications are due 15 March.

   I have had some communications and conversations over the past several weeks with groups and individuals concerning various proposed developments across our state and the region. Some of these issues included concerns of solar fields, pipelines, animal and commodity production facilities, and groups for and against these developments.

   Apparently, there were local departments asked to sign onto letters to be submitted to local city councils, county commissions, and area legislators indicating they would not respond to emergencies at these facilities. 

   This is definitely not the radical type of statement a department should be taking to the public.

   Keep personal bias separate from duty as an emergency responder. 

   Like any hazardous situation in your coverage area, pre-plan and prepare accordingly. Educate your department and ask companies for information and training on what the hazards or concerns could be. Find out “how to...,” what to do/not do, if you are called to an incident at their location.

   Get educated on how to safely react and respond rather than propagate likelihood. We all have potential possibilities of an incident happening. But what are the plausibility or probabilities of them actually happening. Risk analysis is the term.

   Everyone involved wants everyone to be as safe as possible.

   Thank you and be safe.

Charlie Kludt,

SDFA President