(Radio Iowa) – The fire chief of a central Iowa town hopes a solution is getting closer that would stop deadly fires involving people who use oxygen.

Nevada Fire Chief Ray Reynolds. (Nevada FD photo)

Nevada fire chief Ray Reynolds says he started pushing for thermal fuses on oxygen devices after oxygen fires there that killed two people and left two others badly burned.

“Kind of got looking at this, and when we did the math, we figured out that Medicare paid one-point-two million dollars to keep those two people alive, and they could have purchased 239,000 thermal fuses that would have wiped out about ten percent of our country’s oxygen fires,” he says.

Reynolds now leads the national Home Oxygen Therapy (H.O.T.) working group that’s trying to cut the number of oxygen fires. He says the thermal fuses are inexpensive and keep the oxygen from feeding the fire and making it worse. “We just think for $4.45 cents stopping the secondary fires of clothing, couches and you know, different fuel loads that are inside homes, it might give us an opportunity to avoid some of these disasters,” Reynolds says. Reynolds says a majority of oxygen fires are started by people who smoke while using oxygen, and there’s some who say installing the fuses just encourages smoking. But he says it’s not as simple as telling someone not to smoke.

“I tell anybody, if you think you and I are going to change any smoking behavior over a four-dollar engineered solution, we’re sadly mistaken because addiction and nicotine goes way beyond what we’re doing,” he says. Reynolds says he knows from experience that people would like to stop smoking after they get sick, but struggle with it. “I’ve had a lot of people that I’ve gone in their homes to put thermal fuses in, and they’re embarrassed. They’re embarrassed they smoke. There’s social stigma to smoking. We are seeing a 50 percent reduction in smoking, but yet the same number of fires, if not more. So that tells me that we’re smoking even more unsafe,” he says.

Reynolds says another issue is the oxygen machines are a certified medical device and it takes federal approval to add the thermal fuses. “One of the things we realize is that this is going to have to be a policy decision of our country. And so we’ve actually met with the senior administrators of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in April in Washington, D.C, and we presented a case on implementing mandatory thermal fuses for all people on oxygen,” he says. Reynolds says the meeting went well and their case is under consideration.

Reynolds says it could be a big change. “We think it’ll reduce our U.S. fire deaths by 15 percent. It’ll certainly save Medicare about $500 million that they’re currently spending on burn care,” Reynolds says. “And we’re seeing some state success. Iowa was the first state to reimburse thermal fuse installation on the Medicaid side, which is the state side of Medicare.”

The state of Washington also pays for the thermal fuses and the Department of Veterans Affairs requires their use. Reynolds says he is optimistic the issue will eventually be addressed on the federal level.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Cass County Deputy Auditor Sheri Karns today (Wednesday), released an updated list of candidates who have filed to run for county offices in Cass County, as well as the Public Measures that will be on the ballot for all Cass County residents, and one Public Measure for patron of the CAM Community School District.

County Office candidates (I= Incumbent, R= Republican, D= Democrat)

Supervisor – District 1

Stephen S. Green (I); R – from Atlantic

Supervisor – District 4

Steve Baier (I); R – Griswold

Supervisor – District 5

Bernard Pettinger (I); R – Anita

Phyllis Stakey (D) – Massena

County Auditor

Kathy Somers (I); R – Atlantic

County Sheriff (vote for 1)

John Westering (R) – Atlantic

Non-Party Political Organization (NPPO)

Cass County Ag Extension Council (Vote for 4)

Marcy J. Dorsey (R) – Atlantic

Soil & Water Conservation District (Vote for 3)

Terry Langan (R) – Griswold

Hospital Board (Vote for 3)

Leanne Pellet (I) (R) – Atlantic

Linda L. Pelzer (I) (R) – Griswold

Ned Brown (I) (R) – Atlantic

Union Township Trustee

Delmar South (R) – Cumberland

PUBLIC MEASURE A: EMS FUNDING via Local Option Income Surtax & Assessed property valuation tax

Shall the Cass County Board of Supervisors, upon recommendation by the Cass County EMS Advisory Council, for the purpose of funding emergency medical services in Cass County, including, but not limited to, ambulance service, personnel, and equipment, be authorized, for a period of 15 years, to 1) levy and impose a local option income surtax of one percent upon the state individual income tax of each individual taxpaper who is a resident of Cass County on December 31 for each calendar year commencing with the calendar year 2025, and 2) levy and impose an ad valorem tax not exceeding seventy-five cents per one thousand dollars of assessed valuation on all taxable property within Cass County commencing with the levy of property taxes for collection in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026?

PUBLIC MEASURE B: CAM CSD General Obligation Bond issuance

Shall the Board of Directors of the CAM Community School District in the Counties of Adair, Adams, Audubon, and Cass, State of Iowa, be authorized to contract indebtedness and issue General Obligation Bonds in an amount not to exceed $22,500,000 to provide funds to construct, furnish and equip a classroom addition to the High School building; to remodel, repair, improve, furnish and equip exterior and interior portions of the existing High School building, including mechanical, electrical, and fire systems improvements, secure entry improvements, and technology and security improvements; and improve the site?

Due to recent legislation and House File 718 public notice is required for any question of issuing bonds or other indebtedness.  The Cass County Auditor’s office will be sending out these notices on Public Measure B to all registered voters in the CAM School District.  The notice will have the full text of the public measure and will be sent out in October (10-20 days before the election).

Both Public Measures need 60% to pass.

(Radio Iowa) – The University of Iowa’s sexual assault support service will close in a month and a half and the Iowa City-based Domestic Violence Intervention Program says its new sexual assault support division be fully operational. The services changing hands caused an initial outcry as U-I Vice President of Student Life Sarah Hansen says news of the change was leaked before plans were ready to be announced.

“When that announcement came out, and like the telling of the staff, was not handled the way that we would have wanted that to happen,” she says. Hansen says details are nearing completion and D-V-I-P has secured federal victim services funding. She says the university plans to directly fund D-V-I-P at a similar level to what it gave to the original provider.

“From the University we’re funding two campus advocate positions. We’ve also, on campus added a prevention position to the sexual assault prevention team, so there’s three positions there now,” Hansen says.

The Rape Victim Advocacy Program’s final day of operation is September 30.

(Radio Iowa) – Temporary housing for flood victims is now available on the Clay County fairgrounds in Spencer. Kevin Robinson, the deputy city manager in Spencer, says R-Vs have been set up in the camping area of the fairgrounds. “There’s one complete row of trailers in there right now — RV trailers,” Robinson says, “and then once all of those fill up, there’s room to put another row to the east of that.”

In mid-July, federal officials approved Iowa’s request for FEMA’s Temporary Housing Program, which can provide assistance to residents in Iowa counties that have been declared presidential disaster areas. Some of those property owners may be waiting to see if their home might be part of a buy-out program. FEMA provides 75 percent of the money to buy homes and businesses in floodplain areas — and the state and city must provide the rest.

“The city will go through a process of determining which areas make sense to acquire from a maintenance standpoint, from an adjacency standpoint to the river,” Robinson says. “There’s lots of different variables.” The program has been used in several other Iowa cities in the past 30 years. Officials in Cedar Rapids approved the first batch of 28 property buyouts 18 months after flooding in 2008 wrecked many areas of Cedar Rapids. Ultimately 14-hundred properties in Cedar Rapids that were flooded in 2008 were voluntarily sold, cleared and cannot be redeveloped.