Critical Advice on Fire Prevention This Winter

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. Well, with us as the new fire commissioner, Lillian bonsignor, and she’s been with the FDN wife for a long time through I guess that she was the chief of the Medical Emergency Services and that’s a division of that. And all the past fire commissioners said nothing but great things about your commissioner.

0:25 Speaker 2 Yeah, that was pretty nice. You know, I’ve had the unique opportunity to know them all, so it was great to hear.

0:33 Speaker 1 Now give us you are the new commissioner. You must be. You’re the first woman commissioner.

0:41 Speaker 2 No, no, not the first woman. That was Laura Kavanaugh.

0:45 Speaker 1 Oh yes, oh yes, how could I forget? You’re absolutely right? So you’re the second woman commissioner.

0:53 Speaker 2 Yes, I’m the second woman.

0:55 Speaker 1 And now you are a thirty one year veteran of the department. And tell us about the most exciting give us your vision. Were you there at nine to eleven?

1:10 Speaker 2 I was, So I’ll tell you quickly that I came into this service when I was twenty two years old. I was very young. It was nineteen ninety one. It was even before we merged with the Fire Department. I was part of EMS, so I was an EMT and I’ve worked my way through the EMS side of the house,

1:30 through all the ranks. I was a nine to eleven responder. I was also an instructor, and I spent some time being the chief of EMS training for EMS, which was a wonderful job. As soon as I spent a few years there, and then I was offered the position of Chief of MS Operations and I took that job in

1:56 twenty nineteen, and very shortly after that, COVID came through our city, so it was a busy time for us at THEMS. And after that, I retired in twenty twenty two after spending thirty one years in the FDNY uniform and serving the city of New York. I retired for about three years, and then I was offered this position,

2:18 this incredible position of the Fire Commissioner of the greatest fire department in the world.

2:25 Speaker 1 Well, and a lot of people are very proud of you. And I talked to commission in Nigro, who I knew very well, and he’s very proud of you. And tell us, so right now we have a very cold winter, tell us what advice you would give to all people living eight and a half million, nine million people living in

2:48 the City of New York about precautions they should take or anything like that.

2:55 Speaker 2 Well, that’s a really great question. And we know that winter months are generally pretty busy for fire. We see a lot of fires during the winter months because people get a little creative when it comes to staying warm.

3:08 So I can tell you, I mean, I don’t have to tell you. We’re all living right here, but it has been pretty cold for the last couple of weeks. It’s like the longest cold snap we’ve seen in a long time, and it followed up big snowstorms, so it’s pretty cold outside. There are things I would say that

3:25 people have to stay aware of, Like we want them to have smoke alarms installed, which is extremely important, so that you have a heads up if there is a smoke or fire in your apartment, you’re gonn’t want to know about it pretty quick and get out of there.

3:41 And when you leave, if you have to leave, we want you to close the door behind you. So you know. There’s lots of different things we can ask you to do. But one of the things I’ll say as far as being warm is there are folks out here that use their stove to keep them warm. I would recommend that

3:58 you not do that. And if you have a space heater, make sure there are three feet around all sides and that it’s sitting on a flat surface, and don’t overload your extension cores and your power strips. These are all little things we can do, but things that really make a big difference and can prevent big tragedies.

4:22 Speaker 1 Understood, tell us what in your mind. You probably have some thoughts of something changes you want to make to improve things in the future. I was with Police Commissioner Tish today the other day and she is going to break up the Bronx into two subsidiaries to North and South.

4:50 You have any ideas of doing things with the with the fire department yet.

4:56 Speaker 2 Yeah, I think we have a lot of great stuff in our future. We are going to focus on modernizing our department. We are are one hundred and sixty years old as an department and it’s time to reinvest and try to modernize. And we’re really going to be exploring technology to see how we can be safer and more

5:19 efficient in our operations. And you’ll see us out there a lot doing public education surrounding fire and life safety. Things that you can do to keep yourself, your neighbors, your friends safe. We’ll be talking to the public about what a great opportunity it is for you to come work for the Fire Department. I don’t think a lot

5:40 of people understand that this is a great career and it’s accessible to you. So you’ll see a lot of recruitment type conversations and then, you know, we want to make sure we’re always on the cutting edge of operations, whether it’s emergency medicine or fire suppression.

6:00 Speaker 1 And you must, since you spent so much time in emergency services, you must have ideas about emergency services.

6:09 Speaker 2 Yeah, I have plenty of ideas. You know, there are an incredible group of people who do a very hard job new York City. I don’t know if you know this, but New York City has about one point six million calls for EMS per year, and the Fire Department alone is doing over two million calls collectively, So we’re a

6:29 very busy system. One of the things we’re working on, and we hope happens at some point, is to increase the pay for our EMS members that work for the Fire Department work. We’re very supportive of the salary being increased so that we can continue to recruit the most extraordinary qualified members.

6:55 Speaker 1 I just doid anything else you want to tell all of the American people as well as all New Yorkers.

7:04 Speaker 2 I think I’ll stop with this and I will say that there are heroes all around you all the time. First responders are some of the most incredible people you’ll ever meet. They leave their own families to take care of you and take care of your families because they’re that committed to your safety and well being. Stop and

7:25 say hello, say hi, say thank you. Get to meet them when things are not so terrible. But you know, we are a very busy city, so be selective as to when you need to activate those resources and we’ll be there for you.

7:43 Speaker 1 Well. Commissioner Lillian Bunceiorum, thank you so much for coming on this Sunday morning, and we stand behind you and do a great job for us city.

7:59 Speaker 2 Thank you, and thank you to your listeners. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

8:03 Speaker 1 Thank you so much.