Inside Arvada
Inside Arvada is the City of Arvada’s official podcast where we bring you conversations with the people who make Arvada a thriving community. Hear stories about the past, present and future of Arvada through the lens of the City team members who help make it all happen. Explore the complex topics impacting our community and dig in to conversations about parks and sustainability, development, transportation, water resources and more.
Inside Arvada
Inside Arvada Fire with Steven Parker
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This September, in honor of National Preparedness Month, we’re launching a two-part series with our partners at Arvada Fire. The first episode, Arvada Fire 101, features Fire Marshal Steven Parker. The second episode, which will come out Sept. 17, brings together Arvada Fire’s Wildfire Mitigation Specialist Chris Warren and the City of Arvada’s Emergency Manager Brian Wilkerson to discuss the Community Wildfire Protection Plan and what it means for our community
In this episode:
- What exactly does the Fire Marshal's Office do?
- Common fire code violations and the most frequent causes of residential fires
- Overview of the Arvada Fire Protection District and how it operates as a special district covering parts of Arvada and unincorporated Jefferson County
- Programs and services offered by Arvada Fire, including free home safety visits, Dave's Locker for medical equipment loans, and educational community involvement initiatives
- Arvada Fire Safety Day is Saturday, Sept. 27 featuring kid-friendly demonstrations, including residential fire sprinklers and a "Flight for Life" helicopter landing
- Emergency preparedness tips from the City of Arvada’s Emergency Manager Brian Wilkerson
- Other community engagement opportunities with Arvada Fire include Senior Safety Camp, Youth Fire Academy and Citizens Fire Academy
News and Events:
- Movies Around Town featuring "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is Friday, Oct. 3 at Michael Northey Park
- The second annual Swing for Community Charity Softball Tournament benefitting the Arvada Vitality Alliance, featuring Arvada Fire vs. Arvada Police Department
Visit us at arvadaco.gov/podcast or email us at podcast@arvada.org.
Meet Fire Marshal Stephen Parker
Speaker 1Welcome to Inside Arvada , the official podcast of the City of Arvada . I'm Sean Starr , one of your hosts , and September is National Preparedness Month , so our guest for today's episode is Stephen Parker . Stephen Parker is the Division Chief and Fire Marshal for Arvada Fire . He's been with Arvada Fire for 10 years , serving as the Fire Marshal for the past seven . Been with Arvada Fire for 10 years serving as the fire marshal for the past seven . In total , he has 16 years experience , both as a firefighter and as a fire code official and , as always , I'm joined by my co-host , katie Patterson .
Speaker 2Hi , katie , hey Sean , yeah , it was great to have Steven on something definitely outside of our regular scope , and one thing unique that we both learned about is that in-home sprinkler systems are a thing you think about them in businesses and apartments , but they actually now are starting to put them in homes and single family homes , and so what is really cool about this is that they have Arvada fire safety days at the end of the month , so that's on September 27th , and they're actually going to be doing a demo of how fire kind of reacts differently with and without that system in your home . So pretty cool thing that we encourage folks to check out . Hey Steven , welcome to Inside Nevada . Thanks so much for joining us today , so just kick us off . Tell us what is your favorite part of your job .
Speaker 3Good morning and thanks for having me here . The nice thing about my job is it's versatile . I get to do a lot of stuff , but when I really boil it down , the problem solving aspect of my position and the technical application of fire codes and so many other things is really fun , because every day is different and we get to challenge ourselves on a daily basis .
Speaker 2Nice .
Speaker 1Yeah , and so now that we know like the favorite part of your job , tell us a little bit more about what you do as the fire marshal for Arvada Fire .
Speaker 3Of course . Yeah , so I'm the fire marshal and a lot of people know that title but they don't necessarily know what it is that we do and really our number one task is to ensure code compliance with the fire code , and we do that in multiple facets . You know we do it for existing businesses . So a lot of people that are in businesses they see us on a fairly regular basis and we go in there and make sure that that business is safe and compliant with the fire code . And we always try and take an educational approach because we understand that we're the technical experts . But a lot of people out there don't quite understand that what we also do is development and construction .
Speaker 3So , similar to what the planning department and building department do , we're involved with the new construction process . So we do the plan reviews to ensure fire code compliance for new buildings commercial buildings , not residential and then we go out and do the inspections up until the point where that building is given a certificate of occupancy by the building department , and then that's when our compliance team takes over . And then the last thing that we do is fire investigations . So everybody knows we respond to fires , but we always try and go out and figure out what started the fire . Where did it start , how did it start so that we can provide that education to the community and hopefully reduce that risk knowing what had happened at other places . So it's a multifaceted position but it is definitely different than what people think of in the fire department .
Inside Arvada Fire's Organization
Speaker 2Yeah , and a common or like a fire code . I know the most is like the occupancy of a room or a building . What are maybe like some other common ones that people might or might not be familiar with , that you're looking for ?
Speaker 3Yeah , and a lot of the fire code violations are pretty typical across all occupancy types and some are specific to those . But you know a lot of things that we find generally are improper use of extension cords and power strips , fire extinguishers , maintenance of their fire protection systems like their sprinkler systems , their fire alarm systems . Those are a lot of the common ones . But then when we get into you know the occupancies that are different than you know your businesses or your mercantiles , which are stores . It gets a lot broader and we're looking at hazardous materials . Occupant loads really play a factor into every occupancy . To make sure that people can get out safely , we want to make sure buildings are designed so that , in the event of an emergency , people can get out before it's a problem for them .
Speaker 2Nice yeah , are there any common ? And then the last part of what you're talking about was investigations . Are there any common like , I guess , fire starters that you see in investigations ? Are there kind of like some I don't know bad practices that you see a lot of ?
Speaker 3Yeah , you know , a lot of the fire causes that we see are related to improper disposal of smoking materials . That happens quite often and then cooking practices . A lot of times it's not intentional starting that fire but you have other combustible materials maybe your groceries or a delivery box right next to the stove and you forget to turn the stove off and it starts a fire around that cooking surface . Then it extends . So those are two really common causes of fires that we've seen , but it ranges the spectrum . You know . A lot of the times we can't definitively figure out what happened because it's a very scientific and technical process that we don't always have the resources available to us in order to forensically go into determining if it was electrical . We don't have the resources to fully figure that out , so we have to rely on a lot of third-party insurance companies and third-party investigators to help out with that . But cooking and smoking materials are two of the common causes .
Speaker 2That makes sense . That probably aligns with what I would have guessed if I were to have guessed . So then , taking a bit of a step back , we wanted to talk a little bit about our ratifier more broadly . Can you help us understand , kind of , who our ratifier is ? You all are a separate organization from the city , which isn't necessarily always the case . A lot of our surrounding communities they're kind of one and the same as far as an organization . And so how does Arvada Fire work and how's the organization set up ? Who do you serve ?
Speaker 3Yeah , that's right . We are different than your standard municipal fire departments Because we cover areas outside of the city of Arvada . We can't be a municipal department , we have to be what's called a special district . We have to be what's called a special district and what that really means is that we're a separate governmental agency that runs parallel with the municipalities or the county . We do have an elected board of directors that's elected by the community , same as the city council , and there's five of those that serve on that board , that kind of direct , you know , the overall direction of the fire department . So special districts are coming a lot more common , especially in Colorado .
Speaker 3But as opposed to like Westminster , they're a city department where we cover portions of Arvada , so not the entirety of Arvada .
Speaker 3Sheridan East or , excuse me , sheridan West to Highway 93 is what we cover within the city of Arvada . Sheridan East or , excuse me , sheridan West to Highway 93 is what we cover within the city of Arvada . So the bookends , as I call it , you know , the east side and the west side are covered by other fire protection districts and recently , as of January 1st of this year , we merged with the Fairmount Fire Protection District . So our footprint expanded , didn't go further into the city , but it went further into unincorporated Jefferson County . So now we cover all the way almost into the city of Golden at the Coors Brewery north . All the way up to Candelas is really kind of our northern boundary . Our fire department as a whole , you know we're situated with not , or excuse me 11 fire stations since our merge and we are a career fire department , so all of our personnel are paid and we have six engines , three trucks , one rescue and seven ambulances that protect our jurisdiction .
Speaker 2There's still volunteer fire departments out there . Is that what you mean when you say career ?
Speaker 3Correct . Yeah , there's , the vast majority of fire departments within this country are volunteer , but commonplace around the metro area here are career fire departments , but there's still plenty of volunteer departments and combination where they have some paid and some volunteer .
Speaker 1How common is like format of Arvada Fire and that it covers mostly just Arvada , because you hear Westminster , I think , has their own city department , but then West Metro Fire probably covers a larger , multiple communities . I mean , is it a unique jurisdictional coverage that Arvada Fire has ? Is it compared to others ? I mean , how does that compare ?
Speaker 3Arvada Fire is pretty similar to most fire departments anymore in Colorado . Okay , you know , if we look at West Metro , as you brought up , they cover part of Wheat Ridge . The other part that we don't cover they cover . They cover Lakewood and then unincorporated Jefferson County . Other special districts are like South Metro , Adams County Fire Protection District . They
Community Risk Reduction Programs
Speaker 3cover the eastern side of Arvada . So really fire protection districts come in when you're not a municipal fire department and you cover multiple other authorities .
Speaker 1Sure , you know . Obviously everyone's pretty familiar with fire department responding to . You know structure fires and fires at houses . But what other sort of programs and services does Arvada Fire do ? You work closely , I'd imagine , on a lot of the mitigation and safety programs that you do , so what sort of programs and services does Arvada Fire do other than just responding and putting ?
Speaker 3fires out . Yeah , so , as you mentioned , everybody knows our emergency services and we do respond to about 19,000 calls a year and so everything else that we do kind of isn't on the forefront because we're not riding around in the big apparatus with our ratifier on the side . So there is a lot that we do in our department , generally split up into four divisions Emergency services , which we'll touch on one of those sections here in a little bit with community risk reduction . But another sector division is our finance division . So we have a finance director and a whole slew of finance folks that make sure that we're doing everything appropriately financially . The other division is our administrative division and this is a new division , effective of this year , and what that encapsulates is our IT department , our HR .
Speaker 3We have support services within our administrative division and it's kind of like a web where certain sections grow . So our support services does a whole lot . So they have fleet maintenance , so they maintain all of our vehicles , our fire trucks , our apparatus . And then we have building services that when we're building new buildings they go through that whole process and help design and make sure that it goes as we designed it , and then they go through and do general maintenance of all of our facilities .
Speaker 3Within that we have emergency management and accreditation , and that's one thing that we're really proud of is our accreditation . Accreditation , and that's one thing that we're really proud of , is our accreditation . We are an internationally accredited fire department with an ISO or an insurance services office rating of one , which is the best rating that you can get , and although that's a small section , they do a whole lot of work and it's very important work because it really directs us to maintaining best practices within the fire service and being progressive and trying new things to better not only our department but our community . And then , outside of that , the last division that we have is my division , which is the fire marshal's office , and , as I briefly touched on , there's those three sections within our division that we cover and there's a lot of work that's done there as well . Within our compliance inspection folks , they do about 2,000 inspections a year , initial inspections between two people , which is nothing , nothing to scoff at .
Speaker 2That's quite a bit of work .
Speaker 3And then every inspection , or most inspections , generate a re-inspection . So we're in these places , you know , a couple of times a year . And then , as far as new construction goes , everybody sees all the construction going on throughout Arvada and we're touching every single one of those .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think that's good peace of mind for people to know just like we're going to have our inspections manager on soon too from the city side , so it's all aligned , yeah .
Speaker 1What sort of community risk reduction programs or services does Arvada Fire do ? I know there's been some outreach recently about smoke alarms in residences , as well as Dave's Locker . What sort of insight can you provide on those risk reduction programs ?
Speaker 3Yeah , our community risk reduction section falls under our operations division and this is something that we're really proud of . It's really important to mention that , although it's a section within the department , this is really what our department does is community risk reduction , and it starts at , you know , education . We have to go out and educate the public because , as I mentioned earlier , they're not the experts in fire safety and life safety
Safety Day and Fire Sprinklers
Speaker 3and so many things . So we have that information . We want to share that , uh with everybody . Um , part of community risk reduction is what we do in my division with code enforcement . Uh , emergency response is a risk reduction program because I'll be at , that's the last resort , but when we get called to an incident , we want to reduce the harm . From that point on , um , but we do have quite a few programs that we're really proud of and we truly believe that it helps the community . We're in elementary schools on a regular basis providing fire safety education to those kids .
Speaker 3Kids , you had mentioned smoke alarms . We do offer home safety visits and feel free to check our website . You can schedule those with us . You can call into the office , you can call the non-emergent line with our Jeffcom , our dispatch center , and we can always get people out there to check not only the safety within your home , so slips , trips and fall type hazards , potential fire hazards , like the cooking stuff you know , keeping combustibles away from the stovetop . We'll check smoke alarms and can replace them if needed . We do that on a donation basis because we do have to purchase all of those alarms , so any donations of any size are appreciated when we do those . And something that we'll talk about probably in another podcast , is the wildland mitigation which we are starting with those home safety visits , doing the exterior home safety checks to make sure that we can make people more resilient in their homes should there be a wildfire .
Speaker 2Yeah , that kind of defensible space around your home . Yeah , um and um .
Speaker 1I was gonna say we can provide uh links in our show notes to these home visits Uh you mentioned the website and rather than ramble off a URL , we can just link it directly in the show notes , uh , for information on whether it's a non-emergent line or the webpage to get those scheduled . That's a resource that I didn't know about . That I think a lot of our listeners would be curious to learn more about .
Speaker 2Yeah , and then we're going to continue on the education train with our Vow to Safety Day here in a second , but before we do I did want to mention Dave's Locker , because I think that's another one a lot of folks maybe don't know about . Can you explain what that is ?
Speaker 3a little yeah , dave's Locker . This has been a great thing . We've been doing this for probably seven years now seven , eight years . And there's a really interesting backstory that comes with how Dave's Locker came about . We had a lieutenant out of our Station 5 up in the northeast side of town that he had to go and get his hip replaced and through that process , you know he recognized the cost associated with medical equipment . Fortunately , you know , he had it all covered through his insurance but recognized that not everybody's that fortunate , recognize that not everybody's that fortunate . So he proposed this project , this program with the fire department to create Dave's Locker , a loan option for people that need medical equipment that they can come in and borrow it for as long as they need , and started small and has grown .
Speaker 3And you know we used to be open one day a week . Now we're open Monday through Friday , 10 am to 2 pm and anybody can come in , whether it's a walker or a cane or any medical adjunct that you would need given your condition . You can come in and do that . We also do take donations , that we also do take donations . We have been inundated with donations to a point where we have to then donate it to other programs because our space is limited , but the amount of people , I think that , outside of the 19,000 calls that we run , this is probably one of the biggest things that we do and there's so many people in and out of Dave's locker on a on a daily basis .
Speaker 2Yeah , I can imagine , like the burden of you know , maybe all of a sudden needing some type of assistive um device to get around is just challenging enough , let alone the cost of all that . So what a like relief and service to help Um , very cool . We'll also link to that and it's .
Speaker 3We'll also link to that page and it's important for me to mention that this is primarily run by volunteers .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 3So it's overseen by the fire department , but we do have a great volunteer staff that come in and they're the ones working in there day in and day out Very cool .
Speaker 1Yeah , it looks like it's located over there by the Arvada Aquatic Center , kind of Wadsworth and 80th .
Speaker 3Yeah , 80th and Allison , it's at our headquarters building .
Speaker 2Yeah , behind the butchery .
Speaker 3Right , I think most people know the butchery yeah .
Speaker 2So then we were talking education , a big piece of what you do , and so Arvada Safety Day is coming up here end of the month , september 27th . So what is that ? Community event ?
Speaker 3Yeah , safety day is is something that we really enjoy doing . It's once a year . We have a , a , a safety fair for anything and everything . Um , it's all ages . So bring your family , you're . You're going to learn , uh , things about wildfire mitigation . You'll learn pedestrian safety . You can learn hands-only CPR . We've got so many activities for the kids to do . They can see helicopter . We usually have one of the Flight for Life , one of those companies . Come in and they'll land a helicopter and show people . We also have a residential fire sprinkler demonstration that we do . So we set up two burn cells to mirror what a living room would look like and we set them both on fire . One has residential sprinklers in it and one doesn't , and we show the difference and what the benefit of those sprinklers are in protecting your home in the event of a fire . Again , this is all run by the fire department , but a lot of volunteers and external agencies come in and assist with that . It's a really fun day . It is September 27th and we look forward to everybody coming out .
Speaker 2Yeah , we'll put info in our show notes on how to get all the details .
Speaker 1I'm curious about these residential sprinklers . How many homes have these Like ? I don't feel like . Is that a new thing ? I don't know .
Speaker 3It's not new . It's been around for about 15 years now , but it's something that we're discussing here , you know , not only in the city of Arvada , but Wheat Ridge and other jurisdictions on whether you mandate that within the code . Currently it is not mandated . Yeah Uh . So there's a handful of residential sprinkler systems out there , um , but not as as many as those jurisdictions that have required it across them .
Speaker 1Imagine it's something easier to build new than it would be to retrofit a house .
Speaker 3Yeah , retrofitting it gets challenging and we're looking at , you know , new construction going forward , hopefully getting them in there .
Speaker 1And then , as we wrap up , we like to provide the opportunity to our guests to , you know , talk about anything we didn't mention or didn't ask you yet , or even clear up some misconceptions about the work you do . You've shared a lot of information about your role , as well as the entire department , but is there anything else that we didn't ask you about , stephen , that you wanted to talk about ?
Speaker 3Yeah , you know I have a few other programs that we run through risk reduction that are really important for the community to know because they can get involved with us at all ages . We have a senior safety camp that we run annually . Unfortunately that one's full this year but again , we run it every year and this is providing targeted education to older folks within the community . On the other end of that spectrum we have a youth fire academy . We had to cancel it this year because our training center was under a remodel , but we'll be bringing it back next year .
Speaker 3But we do bring in younger kids to come in and see kind of a day in the life of a firefighter , and that's over the course of about a week and that middle range . We do a Citizens Fire Academy . It's usually over four or five dates that we bring in any community member that wants to come in and we show them all aspects of the fire department and what it is that we do and why we do it . But to answer another part of your question , we want everybody to know that we're here in the best interest of everybody and although on my side of things , you know , those people enforcing the code seem to get a bad rap sometimes . But you know we're really out there to educate people and make sure that everybody's safe and sometimes it can be challenging but we're here to work with everybody and make sure that everybody's safe and that we can be prosperous in our employment and come into any business within the city of Arvada and know that you're going to be safe .
Speaker 1Yeah absolutely Sounds like lots of opportunities to get involved , no matter what age you are , so appreciate you sharing those , and we can add those to the show notes as well . Yeah , we love it . Yeah Well , thank you so much , stephen , for joining us . Really appreciate it , absolutely , yeah we love it .
Speaker 2Yeah Well , thank you so much
Emergency Preparedness Tips
Speaker 2, stephen , for joining us . Really appreciate it Absolutely , thank you , thank you . Okay . So as a teaser for our next episode , we have our city emergency manager , brian Wilkerson , with us , and the theme of September being Emergency Preparedness Month . He's going to be on for more details in our next episode , but we wanted to have him on now to do just some quick tips at the beginning of the month of how you can prepare for an emergency . So , hi , brian , thanks for doing this with us . So first question what is the number one thing people can do to prepare for an emergency is sign up for emergency alerts . How does somebody do that ?
Speaker 4One of the critical elements is that lookout alert system , which is the system for Jefferson County . You can go to lookoutalertco and sign up there . When you go in and actually sign up , you'll create a profile . You can decide what kinds of alerts you want weather alerts , emergency alerts , et cetera . But , just as importantly , you can put any information you have about your needs . So if you would need help in an evacuation or something of that nature , that's really how one we're going to communicate with everybody about what you need to do in emergency . It's also how we know who needs help from an assistance perspective in something like an evacuation .
Speaker 2Awesome . And then next is that folks should prepare kind of a go bag if they need to get out quickly what should be in a go bag .
Speaker 4Sure , and there's some good resources on the Arvada Fire website called the Ready Set Go program .
Speaker 4But just to give you an overview , key documents is important , so copies of IDs , passports , birth certificates , things of that nature , any kind of identity documentation . The second category is really key supplies that you would need , so short-term food , medications that you would need , anything that you would use daily Think about being gone from your home for maybe three days and what you would need in order to be able to do that . So that would be a second category . The third would be any key work documents or tools or things of that nature that you need to take with you . And the fourth one , which a lot of people forget , is comfort items , especially if you have children who might be in an evacuation situation , so game consoles or books or things to help entertain them , because obviously , if you get into an emergency situation , it's stressful and unfortunately there's often a lot of waiting around , and so it's important to have some of those things in your go bag as well to just help ease the anxiety that can come with that .
Speaker 2Yeah , and I've heard like change of clothes type stuff too , right Change ?
Speaker 4of clothes and that's kind of part of that supply . You know , and thinking about what you're going to need for a few days change of clothes . You know the basics in that respect , but if you , if you really think about I , have to be out of my house for three days and what would I need to do , that that's really going to help guide you in terms of what you need to put in that go bag .
Speaker 2Nice . And then third is have a plan , what should be in a family's emergency plan ?
Speaker 4Your family emergency plan is really important . There's a few key elements to that . A big thing is is don't assume that your cell service is going to work , because in an emergency , the cell phone networks get very congested and so you can't assume that you're just going to be able to call or text everybody in your family . So making sure that you have contact info for both your immediate family as well as your extended family as part of that plan . A second component is contact info from your key providers , your doctors , any kind of folks that you rely on for any sort of care , health care , etc .
Speaker 4A third component which is really important is meetup places , and you want to have meetup places for different kinds of scenarios . So if there's some kind of emergency within your neighborhood , what's a meetup place outside the neighborhood ? If you have family that lives all around town , where's the right meetup point ? You need to have some options in case the emergency happens to affect the area that you are planning on meeting up in . That meetup spot is in case you can't communicate with each other . Everybody knows that after a certain amount of time , we're going to meet here and we're going to get the family together so that we know that everybody is safe , and so it's a really important part of that emergency plan .
Speaker 2Great Thanks , brian . Thank you Thanks .
Speaker 4Brian , thank you .
Listener Questions Answered
Speaker 2And , as a reminder , we love to hear from our listeners . You can stay in touch with us by texting us at the link of the top of each episode or email us at podcast at Arvadaorg , and we actually have a few listener questions right now that we want to clear up , and so , as a reminder , we did get one text . If you text us , we don't have any way to see your contact information . It is private . So if you wanted to put contact information in there , you could , so that we can get back to you directly . Otherwise , we just have to answer you on our show . And so we got one question from someone who said they live in a floodplain along Ralston Creek and they have a concrete pan that runs through their yard and through the neighborhood , and they were curious about if they can rip it out . They didn't really like it , and so I got a little bit of information from our floodplain manager , melanie Walter , and she said that if a concrete pan is in a private yard , it's likely for a local drainage issue and it's really not part of the city's larger drainage system across the city but that tearing it out could still probably have some negative implications for , potentially , your home or your neighbors , and so she couldn't be certain about this specific question . But we'd encourage the listener , if they hear this , to reach out with Ask Arvada . That's arvadacogov slash askarvada . We'll link to it in the show notes , and she's always happy to come out and evaluate a property for flood risk and talk with you directly about any issues you might have .
Speaker 2And then another question we got was about the Ralston Creek Trail crossing at Ward Road and why there isn't an underpass at that particular crossing when there are quite a few others .
Speaker 2And so we talked with some folks in the engineering department and they're actually in the early stages of planning a bridge replacement there , because obviously the road goes over the creek there even though there isn't a pedestrian bridge or a pedestrian underpass , and so as a part of that work , they are going to look into the feasibility of adding an underpass as part of the design . And so while cost is obviously going to be one of the hurdles to that , there are some other types of hurdles that could make this not really a feasible option , and so utility conflicts underground are a big one . If you have to move utilities to create an underpass , that can be highly cost intensive and resource intensive as well as it's a creek , and so the floodplain , the flood carrying capacity of the bridge there , any kind of slope or types of grading conflicts that might be in that area , as well as the footprint of creating an underpass , would probably have some right-of-way acquisition that would be needed . So all of that could lead to additional resources and costs that could make it difficult to put an underpass . But they're going to look into it Early , early stages of design .
Speaker 2But if that's not feasible , they will do some improvements of the current at-grade is what that's called crossing across the road there , and so several , probably years out of planning and design . But that's that .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's over by Danny Kendrick . Park East , which is construction on that playground , actually is underway . So great question . We love hearing questions from our listeners and we did have one final one to address , and that's about bathrooms and parks and why all our parks don't have bathrooms . And so there's several reasons , as we mentioned in our park and rec episode , like , we built out a lot of our parks during the seventies so that we could try and get a park within a 10 minute walk of every resident , and so it would be pretty cost prohibitive to both add all those parks and then have all the infrastructure that goes along with bathrooms , and all those parks probably wouldn't get nearly as many if you had to spend all that money to get the infrastructure for the bathrooms . And so another reason is these neighborhood parks really aren't designed to be like a community or regional park and they're more for you know folks to just walk to . If you have to go to the bathroom , you can walk back to your house , and so many of our regional and community parks do have restrooms . And actually we have a new webpage that shows our inventory of all our parks and what amenities are at each of these parks , and we can link to that in the show notes and among the amenities included on that is , which ones have restrooms , which ones have portable toilets , either year round or seasonal . So appreciate the question and we'll roll right into our news and events segment .
Speaker 1Our Movies Around Town series continues actually into October . Friday , october 3rd , at Michael Northey Park , the Arvada Festivals Commission will be hosting a free showing of Beetlejuice . Beetlejuice , it's the sequel to the original movie from 1988 . And this is a rescheduled date from July when that original event was postponed due to weather . We got live music by Tony Medina starting at 6 pm , with the movie beginning approximately at 7.15 . And then , coming up before that , on September 13th , we have our second annual Swing for Community Charity Softball Tournament . That's over at Youth Memorial Complex from noon to 7 pm . This event is a fundraiser hosted by the Arvada Vitality Alliance . As a fundraiser hosted by the Arvada Vitality Alliance , you can come cheer on teams from Arvada Police , arvada Fire , apex Park and Recreation District , city of Arvada Parks , engineering , water , wastewater Streets . We'll have a whole bunch of teams competing there , all for a good cause , and don't miss the headline match , arvada Police versus Arvada Fire . You can enjoy food , drinks and a special guest will be Dinger , the mascot from the Rockies , will be on hand . So for more information , to get your tickets , visit arvadovitalityorg .
Speaker 1As we mentioned a few times , the Arvada Fire Safety Day is Saturday , september 27th , from 10 am to 2 pm at the newly remodeled training center . It's a family-friendly event and a free event , so lots to offer there . We can link to that in your show notes as well . Thanks once again to our guest today , stephen Parker from Arvada Fire . Be sure to catch our next episode . It's part two of our Emergency Preparedness Month series featuring Arvada Fire Wildland Mitigation Specialist Chris Warren , as well as the city's emergency manager , brian Wilkerson , and they'll be talking about Arvada's community wildfire protection plan . Today's podcast was edited and produced by Arvada Media Services , and a fun fact for the episode is on June 10th 1907 , the Arvada town board approved the purchase of Arvada's first fire engine , which arrived by rail from New York City four months later , and efforts to organize a volunteer fire company came shortly thereafter .
Speaker 2Whoa .