"Pre-Planning" It's another way the Jim Thorpe Fire Department conducts fire safety and prevention in the community.

In 1934, a man by the name of Eddy Maury was the last firefighter to die in the town while fighting a fire.Reportedly, he lost his life when he fell down an elevator shaft in the then-named American Hotel.In 1833 Cornelius Connor built the White Swan Hotel to accommodate the thousands of Mauch Chunk visitors to the town during its era as a booming coal transportation hub.Connor rebuilt the hotel after it burned to the ground during the Great Fire which consumed many of the town's buildings in 1849.The new structure was renamed the New American Hotel, which today is known as The Inn at Jim Thorpe.Members of the Jim Thorpe Fire Department conducted a pre-plan survey of The Inn at Jim Thorpe on Broadway in the town's downtown section.Accompanied by the Inn's General Manager and partner David Drury, they toured the entire structure to develop a pre-plan as a way for senior members of the fire department to understand critical points of a building, access points to the building, locations of hazardous materials, building construction type, water sources, mutual aid planning, and many other things.It is the goal of the Jim Thorpe Volunteer Fire Department Pre-Planning Committee to make firefighters better prepared to fight major fires in commercial buildings in the community.Pre-plans are documents put together by the fire department at as a means to gather relative emergency data about a building in order to create a primary and secondary response plan.The Pre-Planning Committee is led under the direction of Captain Jack Miller and was formed from members of the three stations that protect the community.They are the Diligent from the "heights" section, the Phoenix from the "downtown", and the Fairview from the East side of Jim Thorpe.The idea of Pre-Planning is for firefighters to gain access inside commercial properties to familiarize them with the layout of the building, knowing how and when the building was built, its construction type, and what type of special hazards are present inside the building,This gives them the knowledge of the location of the water, natural gas, and electrical panels for quick shut off in case of an emergency.By letting them do so, it will help prevent property damage (for example quick shut off of running water) and may be able to save the lives of their employees, and customers in the event of an emergency.This is not a fire inspection. Fire Inspections are handled by the Department of Labor and Industry and it is not in the fire department's scope of practice to perform a fire inspection.Pre-plans provide a means for the community and fire department to grow their relationship for the safety of the public and the business's employees and property.The firefighters ask that any commercial property owner interested in this program to please contact Captain Miller at 610-704-5809 and let them conduct a pre-plan survey of their building.