How Wisconsin firefighters battle wintry weather

AccuWeather

Wisconsin firefighters Mike Schmid and Jade Besson join AccuWeather to tell how they conduct firefighting as the season transitions to winter. They offer some fire prevention tips for Thanksgiving.

Transcript

00:00A firefighter in Wisconsin wrote to tell us that he and his crew watch our weather updates

00:06daily before beginning their shifts. We want to welcome him in right now.

00:10Yeah, Mike Schmidt and Jade Besson of the Ripon Area Fire District,

00:15thanks so much for being with us.

00:17Thank you for having us.

00:19Hey, before I get into it, you're Green Bay fans, right? You have to be, right?

00:24It's almost a requirement in our state.

00:26Yeah.

00:27These are my people.

00:28They are your people. I love that. You can take Bernie and you guys can bring him.

00:32Bring me with you. I'm not that bad to deal with, although my wife may argue about that.

00:35I often say, I don't care how many Super Bowls your team's won,

00:37they can never say they won the first.

00:39That's exactly right. Or the second, or 13 NFL championships, including the Super Bowls.

00:45Okay, we got that out of the way. Go ahead.

00:47Phew, so glad we did it. All right,

00:49tell us a little bit more about Ripon, Wisconsin and the work you guys do.

00:53Certainly. So Ripon, Wisconsin, the way I like to discuss,

00:56the way I like to say it is, we're close enough to everything.

01:00We're equidistant from Wisconsin's three major cities, Madison, Milwaukee, and Green Bay.

01:05And we're also fairly close to the Fox Cities, Oshkosh, Appleton.

01:10So we're kind of on our own though, as far as being in the semi-rural part of the state.

01:16And tell us, how do you use AccuWeather and in what ways does it help in your planning?

01:22Oh, absolutely. So when we're getting ready for our day, sometimes the guys,

01:27they'll work overnight shifts. They could be up all night. So we always start off with a cup of

01:31coffee. And it's hard to find something that everybody agrees on in a firehouse. You have

01:36a lot of different personalities. One thing that we can all agree on is the weather. And we would

01:41just leave it on pretty much the whole shift. You guys are the first ones to see us go out on the

01:45call and the first ones to welcome us back when we get back safe.

01:48I got the chills. That's amazing. All right. What challenges does Wisconsin's winter weather

01:54bring you and your teams?

01:56Oh, certainly. So Wisconsin's got some of the coldest winters around and the way things have

02:00been going, things will freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw. That really leads to very icy conditions

02:05on the road. So we see a higher call volume typically in our wintertime. We see more car

02:10accidents, more structure fires, as people are burning more fireplaces, whether it's gas or wood.

02:17And as people are inside more, typically we say when the weather gets cold, you're more

02:21likely to get a call.

02:23All right. Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Do you have any holiday fire safety tips?

02:29Biggest tips that I can recommend is be checking your smoke detectors,

02:33be checking your carbon monoxide alarms. Please do not deep fry a frozen turkey.

02:39Make sure your chimneys are getting inspected. And

02:42one big thing I can suggest is watch AccuWeather to see what the road conditions are like.

02:46All right. Before you go, we have a present for you. No, I'm not going to put on a cheese head,

02:54but we have a special forecast just for the department. All right, take it away.

02:59Oh, the pressure's on now. You guys are describing how you're in that perfect

03:02sweet spot. We labeled it on the map there for you, south of the Oshkosh area. Now,

03:08unfortunately, I did have to pick it for the worst weather today. No shame towards you guys,

03:12but that thick cloud coverage outside, temperatures into the 30s, AccuWeather

03:16real field temperature is lower than that. Temperatures start to fall Thursday and Friday

03:22with highs only in the 20s, lows in the teens. And this is the special one here as Miami

03:29takes on Green Bay. It'll be dry, but it's going to be the coldest game there this year.

03:34Go Green Bay.

03:34Yeah, you know, I know about you guys. I'm worried. Our defense, I'm afraid we're going

03:38to go back to the Joe Barry era, that we're going to let them go up and down the field.

03:43The only thing that gives me some solace is that Tula, I can never say his name,

03:49the Miami quarterbacks never won a cold game. And guys, this is the coldest air mass of the

03:53season upcoming for you guys. And I'm sure you'll be watching the game, correct?

03:57Oh, absolutely.

03:59And you know what I'm going to say as always, go Packo.

04:03Go Packo.

04:04Go Packo.

04:05Mike Schmidt and Jane Vesson of the Ripon Area Fire District. We appreciate all your

04:09service and what you do to keep the community safe. And thanks so much for joining us on

04:12AccuWeather Early.

04:14Thank you so much.

04:15You guys have a fantastic Thanksgiving.

Category

Transcript

Recommended