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Bulletin, Progressive, Record, Reporter Wednesday, May 11,2011 7B
L,ocal fire chiefs sig00 up.for mutual aid'
INSIDE THE
FIREHOUSE
TOM FORSTER
Assistant Fire Chief
Plumas Eureka Fire Department
The members of the Plumas
County Fire Chiefs Associa-
tion (PCFCA) have finalized a
regional fire mutual aid
agreement. All local govern-
ment fire department chiefs
have signed the pact after sev-
eral years of development.
Federal and state resources
are already covered by sever-
al related agreements.
While a number of local fire
departments (FDs) have exist-
ing, written automatic aid
agreements, this is the first
formal, regional mutual aid
agreement. It covers those ar-
eas already served by local
FDs. Automatic aid occurs
when the original incident is
first dispatched, while mutual
aid is usually requested on an
ad hoc basis by the local inci-
dent commander. In mutual
aid, the fire departments have
basically agreed to give each
other assistance across juris-
dictional boundaries during
incidents where the local de-
partment's resources are in-
sufficient.
This occurs only if the re-
quested agencies have
enough resources to help oth-
ers at the time, and no finan-
cial charges are made for the
assistance. Mutual aid is vol-
untary, and may not occur if
the requested agencies are
dealing with incidents of
their own and/or do not have
enough equipment or fire-
fighters to share at the time.
The closest available FD re-
sources are usually request-
ed, and the circle of requests
gets larger until enough help
can be found.
Local fire resources gather in a staging area for mutual aid to the Beckwourth Fire Department for a wildland interface fire• Photo by Tom Forster
These types of agreements
are common in most counties
in California, and are in use
across the nation. In most cas-
es, local crews are capable of
handling small incidents
themselves, but in the case of
larger incidents, surrounding
FDs may be called in along
with the local resources. For
instance, local fire depart-
ments will typically handle
routine EMS and other calls
such as vehicle crashes, while
structure and wildland inter-
face fires may need more re-
sources than are available
with one department.
Major incidents that are
not mitigated the first day
usually result in an escala-
tion to the larger state and
federal agreements, managed
in California through the
California Emergency Man-
agement Agency (Cal EMA),
formerly known as the Cali-
fornia Office of Emergency
Services, or Cal OES.
5TIH£
. ** **
Unfortunately the new pact
does not address the roughly
20 percent of Plumas County
residences that are not within
a fire district. While the FDs
will respond to incidents in
those areas, costs may be
charged to those served since
there is no funding or tax ex-
changes being made for the lo-
cal FDs currently. This chal-
lenge was detailed at length
by the 2009-10 Plumas County
Grand Jury report, and is cur-
rently being worked on
through the Board of Supervi-
sors, Plumas County OES, the
Special Districts Association
and PCFCA.
The new mutual aid agree-
ment was one of the goals in
a long-range strategic plan
for PCFCA developed start-
ing in 2008. It is updated
each year for the next three-
year period. Our mission
statement describes PCFCA
as "a volunteer association
of fire chiefs and rural fire
departments united in our
efforts to organize, lead, and
improve the fire services in
Plumas County.'
The vision statement for the
organization is: "We are rural
fire departments who are
united and working together
to provide high quality
Fire/EMS/Rescue services in
a seamless and cost effective
• manner. To achieve this vi-
sion, we will:
"Strive to be leaders who
promote regional efforts
through common goals, mutu-
al and automatic aid, fire pre-
vention, and training;
"Operate in a well-orga-
nized manner and serve as a
r01e model for other rural
county fire chief associations;
"Exercise our political in-
fluence in a positive and help-
ful manner and promote equi-
table fire protection and fund-
ing/taxation throughout the
County."
Many of these efforts are
rooted in the National Inci-
dent Management System and
Framework (NIMS), where
kY roles and responsibilities
promote partnerships at all
levels.
The Framework has five
key principles, promoting:
Engaged partnership, devel-
oping shared response goals
and aligning capabilities so
that no one is overwhelmed in
times of crisis.
A tiered response system,
meaning that incidents must
be managed at the lowest pos-
sible jurisdictional level and
supported by additional capa-
bilities when needed.
A response that is scalable,
flexible and adaptable depend-
ing on operational needs.
Unity of effort through uni-
fied command. Unity of effort
respects the chain of com-
mand of each participating or-
ganization while encouraging
seamless coordination in sup-
port of common goals.
A prepared readiness to act.
Now that the plan is adopt-
ed and signed, the next steps
include developing "run
cards" for each department so
that dispatch and resource es-
calation is predetermined,
working with the Blumas
County Sheriffs dispatch for
much of the county and/or
the contracted dispatch ser-
vices from CalFire in the
northwestern areas of the
county.
Numerous appendices to
the plan will also be devel-
oped starting this year to help
responders. These include
helpful guidelines for tasks
such as response, communica-
tions, command, training and
handling specialized inci-
dents. "We are working to be-
come a strong team to better
serve our communities and
the county," said PCFCA
president Gary Castagnetti.
"We look forward to building
and exercising our plans."
DENTISTRY
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TREATMENT OPTIONS FOR THOSE WITH GUM DISEASE
Now that we have established some of the impacts gum disease has on your systemic
heath and that the primary focus in any dental practice must include clear and educated
definitive treatment options for you or referral to someone that is an expert in this field, I
will present a discussion in the next few weeks about what these treatment options are and
what they can, or cannot, do for you. The options listed below are an overview for within
and in addition to these are medications, home brushing and flossing, etc. Please note
that definitive treatment for this condition can be done with no cutting, no sewing,
and really no fear for there is a gentle series of treatments with very little discomfort
postoperatively that I will discuss when we get to Option #3, below.
Option #1: Deep Cleaning, otherwise known as Scaling and Root Planing.
Option #2: Conventional Periodontal Surgery.
Option #3: Laser Periodontal Surgery (LANAP = no cut, no sew, no fear!)
(please realize that just like dentists, not all lasers are the same.)
Option #4: Adjunctive therapy, etc.
Option #5: No treatment because the patient declines therapy.
For the remaining portion of this article lets discuss Option #1 (deep cleaning or Scaling
and Root Planing) which has for many years been the fundamental initial procedure
provided in mild Periodontitis (inflammatory gum disease) and even moderate to advanced
conditions. This is the procedure that is usually done in the dental office by the dental
hygienist. In many cases of mild disease, this can be a definitive treatment, definitive
meaning complete treatment with resolution of disease over the long term if regular
adequate cleanings are continued after the initial treatment. This is a wonderful service
that the dental hygienist provides. Costs for this procedure can range $1000 or more and
therefore must be done with excellence or your money is not well spent.
Scaling and root planing is one of the most difficult clinical periodontal procedures to
provide with excellence, and excellence is what is required to achieve successful therapy.
Without excellence in this initial treatment the patient can experience slowly worsening
gum problems as time goes by even though the evaluation following this procedure can
show an improvement over what was seen prior to treatment; thus the message that 1 have
been writing about in these articles. Indeed, what complicates the evaluation process is that
almost any cleaning procedure by almost any method creates improvement but it is the
difficulty in the evaluation of this improvement that makes it essential that the evaluation
be provided by a dentist trained and/or experienced in treating advanced gum disease
because improvement does not necessarily indicate resolution of the condition. The dental
hygienist should be the facilitator of the therapy, not the evaluator of the final outcome in
moderate to advanced cases. If dental hygienists were trained sufficiently function in that
role, why would you ever need a periodontist and for what? So if the hygienist does not
have sufficient training to treat advanced disease to the end-point of therapy, why do many
dentists rely on them as primary caregivers of gum treatment in their offices rather than
learning how to manage periodontal disease to the end point themselves or refer the patient
early on in the treatment? To be very clear, 1 am a fan of the Dental Hygiene profession,
but even more a promoter of the dentist being in control as it should be, if they are
qualified. More on the subject of "Deep Cleaning" next week as Straight Talk for the
Consumer about Dentistry continues. Contact me at Drmichaelwh@gmaii.com.
DR. MICHAEL W. and DR. EMILY S. HERNDON
431 Main St., Quincy, CA .283-1119