Chief Joe Sanford is a few months away from celebrating 40 years as a firefighter. The biggest change over four decades? The fire itself.<\/p>\n
“The rate at which fire burns has changed, mostly because the furniture in modern homes is often made with synthetics,” he says. “We need to arrive at fires faster — it’s gone from a 30 minute response time to five minutes.”<\/p>\n
The composition of modern furniture also has an affect on firefighters’ health, because it may release hazardous toxins when it burns.<\/p>\n
“Cancer is now the leading cause of death for firefighters on the job,” Chief Sanford says. “When I was hired, it was fire.”<\/p>\n
It’s been nearly 40 years since Chief Sanford became a firefighter, and nearly 30 years since Kirkland City Council asked voters to help fund Fire and EMS. Voting YES on Kirkland Proposition One<\/a> will provide resources and infrastructure upgrades that will help first responders adapt to the changes Chief Sanford has witnessed.<\/p>\n “We’ve seen tremendous support from the public through the pandemic. We’re just blessed beyond imagination,” Chief Sanford says. “Most firefighters get into the job because they really want to serve. There’s very few jobs where you can make such an immediate and profound difference, on what’s likely one of the worst days of someone’s life. Most firefighters I talk to say it’s just the best job on the planet.”<\/p>\n Voting yes on Prop 1 brings:<\/strong><\/p>\n “The bottom line is that Proposition 1 will save lives and better serve the city,” says Mayor Penny Sweet. “It’s a recommendation that was developed by the community, for the community.”<\/p>\n The levy would cost approximately $.23 per $1,000 of home value, or $14.25 a month for the owner of a median-valued Kirkland home. Learn more about Kirkland Proposition 1 at www.saferkirkland.org<\/a> or at facebook.com\/saferkirkland<\/a>.<\/p>\n Paid for by Neighbors for a Safer Kirkland PO Box 3209, Kirkland WA 98083. <\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the first time in nearly 30 years, Fire & EMS is on the ballot<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1044,"featured_media":30047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[103,128,129],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30046"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30046"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmond-reporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n