By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Fire Chief Steven Beer, as part of his annual report to the Hutchinson City Council Tuesday noted that the drop in fires in Hutchinson is as a result of proactive work by his department.
"In 2017, we looked at our fires," Beer said. "At that time, over 50% of our fires were due to arson. We made a major campaign in 17 and 18 and continue to do so, from addressing that with aggressive investigation. We have shift investigators. We just met in the last month with the police department with their detectives. We have a great relationship with the Fire Marshal's Office with the detectives over here."
Beer notes that the public knows the department is serious about enforcement.
"People know, I mean the word gets around," Beer said. "We're going to pursue everybody to the fullest extent of the law with arson. If you look at every one of our fire trucks, you'll see big stickers. We're part of the Crime Stoppers. We've got arson on ours, though. Arson is a crime."
He also thinks education in the neighborhoods where they have had fires helps.
"One of the things that we do to help educate our public is that after we have a fire, we go around a two-block radius and we talk to every one of the homeowners of what happened," Beer said. "They're standing out there with their cameras, filming us, taking pictures, they see a firefighter cut a hole in the roof, or we break out a window, why'd you do that? They don't know."
Firefighters offer those in the neighborhood of a fire a free home inspection if they want it, so that they can see if there's anything the department can do better to protect property.