Wisconsin firefighters Mike Schmid and Jade Besson join AccuWeather to tell how they conduct firefighting as the season transitions to winter. They offer some fire prevention tips for Thanksgiving.
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00:00A firefighter in Wisconsin wrote to tell us that he and his crew watch our weather updates
00:06daily before beginning their shifts. We want to welcome him in right now.
00:10Yeah, Mike Schmidt and Jade Besson of the Ripon Area Fire District,
00:15thanks so much for being with us.
00:17Thank you for having us.
00:19Hey, before I get into it, you're Green Bay fans, right? You have to be, right?
00:24It's almost a requirement in our state.
00:26Yeah.
00:27These are my people.
00:28They are your people. I love that. You can take Bernie and you guys can bring him.
00:32Bring me with you. I'm not that bad to deal with, although my wife may argue about that.
00:35I often say, I don't care how many Super Bowls your team's won,
00:37they can never say they won the first.
00:39That's exactly right. Or the second, or 13 NFL championships, including the Super Bowls.
00:45Okay, we got that out of the way. Go ahead.
00:47Phew, so glad we did it. All right,
00:49tell us a little bit more about Ripon, Wisconsin and the work you guys do.
00:53Certainly. So Ripon, Wisconsin, the way I like to discuss,
00:56the way I like to say it is, we're close enough to everything.
01:00We're equidistant from Wisconsin's three major cities, Madison, Milwaukee, and Green Bay.
01:05And we're also fairly close to the Fox Cities, Oshkosh, Appleton.
01:10So we're kind of on our own though, as far as being in the semi-rural part of the state.
01:16And tell us, how do you use AccuWeather and in what ways does it help in your planning?
01:22Oh, absolutely. So when we're getting ready for our day, sometimes the guys,
01:27they'll work overnight shifts. They could be up all night. So we always start off with a cup of
01:31coffee. And it's hard to find something that everybody agrees on in a firehouse. You have
01:36a lot of different personalities. One thing that we can all agree on is the weather. And we would
01:41just leave it on pretty much the whole shift. You guys are the first ones to see us go out on the
01:45call and the first ones to welcome us back when we get back safe.
01:48I got the chills. That's amazing. All right. What challenges does Wisconsin's winter weather
01:54bring you and your teams?
01:56Oh, certainly. So Wisconsin's got some of the coldest winters around and the way things have
02:00been going, things will freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw. That really leads to very icy conditions
02:05on the road. So we see a higher call volume typically in our wintertime. We see more car
02:10accidents, more structure fires, as people are burning more fireplaces, whether it's gas or wood.
02:17And as people are inside more, typically we say when the weather gets cold, you're more
02:21likely to get a call.
02:23All right. Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Do you have any holiday fire safety tips?
02:29Biggest tips that I can recommend is be checking your smoke detectors,
02:33be checking your carbon monoxide alarms. Please do not deep fry a frozen turkey.
02:39Make sure your chimneys are getting inspected. And
02:42one big thing I can suggest is watch AccuWeather to see what the road conditions are like.
02:46All right. Before you go, we have a present for you. No, I'm not going to put on a cheese head,
02:54but we have a special forecast just for the department. All right, take it away.
02:59Oh, the pressure's on now. You guys are describing how you're in that perfect
03:02sweet spot. We labeled it on the map there for you, south of the Oshkosh area. Now,
03:08unfortunately, I did have to pick it for the worst weather today. No shame towards you guys,
03:12but that thick cloud coverage outside, temperatures into the 30s, AccuWeather
03:16real field temperature is lower than that. Temperatures start to fall Thursday and Friday
03:22with highs only in the 20s, lows in the teens. And this is the special one here as Miami
03:29takes on Green Bay. It'll be dry, but it's going to be the coldest game there this year.
03:34Go Green Bay.
03:34Yeah, you know, I know about you guys. I'm worried. Our defense, I'm afraid we're going
03:38to go back to the Joe Barry era, that we're going to let them go up and down the field.
03:43The only thing that gives me some solace is that Tula, I can never say his name,
03:49the Miami quarterbacks never won a cold game. And guys, this is the coldest air mass of the
03:53season upcoming for you guys. And I'm sure you'll be watching the game, correct?
03:57Oh, absolutely.
03:59And you know what I'm going to say as always, go Packo.
04:03Go Packo.
04:04Go Packo.
04:05Mike Schmidt and Jane Vesson of the Ripon Area Fire District. We appreciate all your
04:09service and what you do to keep the community safe. And thanks so much for joining us on
04:12AccuWeather Early.
04:14Thank you so much.
04:15You guys have a fantastic Thanksgiving.