And for that I am deeply grateful.

And as a migraine sufferer, I'm really grateful at all and migrant today.

So all things are pointing up, y'all.

So today we have firefighter Alan Green with us as part of a two-part public safety update.

When he heard us discussing the fact from Chief Hyman that we had seen some house fires increasing.

This council, myself included, asked some questions about, hey, what's going on with that?

That's weird.

And so he actually been doing some research already on that and doing some education, I think around it.

So wanted to invite him to come and share with us about that.

So now that I do have a quorum, can I get a motion on the minutes from our previous meeting?

So second.

All right, we have motion of proper seconds and the minutes will stand without objection.

All right, take it away.

Well, again, I appreciate y'all for allowing me to come and speak today.

I am Alan Green.

If you haven't met me, you probably heard about me or see me.

Talking a lot about fire prevention education.

That's pretty much my big thing.

So before I get started, I like to always kind of give a brief overview of my why.

Why I do something, why it's important to me.

So about a little over three years ago, before I got this position, I was sitting in an interview with the chiefs, and two questions that stood out was uh one of them was what rewards are you looking for with this position?

And the other one was what challenges are you looking for?

And my response to what rewards was I I'm not looking for any rewards.

I have plenty of rewards, accolades from the things I do in my personal life before I was even applying for this position.

I said the reward would be for firefighters to go home every day.

Um also for our community to be more safer.

That will be the rewards that I would be looking for.

Now the challenge is I said the challenges are not going to be for me.

The challenge is going to be for the whole department.

It's not a me, it's a we.

What I mean by that is to see our department be more engaged and involved in the community, which we have done that tremendously, and also to give back more to the community.

I like to put it this way, um, put the community back in community fire department and put the fire department back in the community.

You know, a lot of people understand that, uh, but I think we do a great job of that have been doing for a long time.

But those are my two uh questions that I always stood out.

That's my why to uh fire and life safety education, fire prevention, why this is really really important to me uh to serve and make sure our community is more safe.

So with that said, again, I'm Alan Green.

I'm the fire life safety educator for the attending fire department.

I'm also the community risk reduction and community outreach chair for the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters.

So the things I do is not just locally, it's a state, national level, um a little bit of international level as well.

So community risk reduction.

I know these terms uh has been coming up a lot lately, and it's to me it's kind of sad that it's not as prevalent in Chattanooga as it is around the country with other fire departments and some of my colleagues that I speak to on the regular about what is community risk reduction.

Um some of them have the vision, some of them don't.

Some of them are working towards having community risk reduction divisions, especially as a coordinator.

So what community risk reduction is is a strategic proactive approach that aims to prioritize risk within the community.

Then you implement those strategies to put to mitigate or prevent those risks.

It's not traditional, meaning we are looking at a broader range of potential hazards, natural disasters, public health issues, and other safety concerns.

So when people ask you, well, what does the fire department have to do with youth gun violence?

That's a public health issue.

We are mentors, we're father, we're uncles, we're cousins, mothers.

We have a lot to do with public health issues when it comes down to those areas.

So in a nutshell, that's what community risk reduction is.

Now, an assessment to a plan.

First, we start with a community risk reduction assessment.

What that is is we will look in the community, boost to the ground.

It's not one of those situations where you can sit behind a desk and figure out what's going on.

You have to get out there, talk to people, interact, engage, really listen to the community partners of what's going on, and then they will help you identify what those risks are.

Then you identify the risks within that community to enhance safety and preparedness.

Focus it on understanding hazards, vulnerabilities, and the capability of the community to respond effectively.

As you all know, we're looking at that right now with the flood, right?

So we will conduct an assessment.