(a) Police authority at fires.
(1) The Chief and assistants or officers in command at any fire are hereby vested with full and complete police authority at fires. Any officer of the Department may cause the arrest of any person failing to give the right-of-way to the Fire Department in responding to a fire.
(2) The Fire Chief may prescribe certain limits in the vicinity of any fire within which no persons, excepting firefighters and police officers, and those admitted by order of any officer of the Department, shall be permitted to come.
(3) The Chief shall have the power to cause the removal of any property whenever it shall become necessary for the preservation of such property from fire or to prevent the spreading of fire, or to protect the adjoining property, and during the progress of any fire he or she shall have the power to cause the removal of all wires or other facilities and the turning off of all electricity or other services where the same impedes the work of the Department during the progress of a fire.
(b) Fire inspection duties.
(1) The Fire Chief, or his or her designee, shall be the Fire Inspector of the village, and shall have the power to appoint one or more Deputy Fire Inspectors, and shall perform all duties required of the Fire Inspectors by the laws of the state and rules of the Department of Industry, Labor, and Human Relations, particularly Wis. Stats. § 101.14.
(2) a. While acting as Fire Inspector, pursuant to Wis. Stats. § 101.14(2), the Fire Chief, or any officer of the Fire Department designated by the Fire Chief, shall have the right and authority to enter any building or upon any premises in the village at all reasonable hours for the purpose of making inspections or investigations which, under the provisions of this code of ordinances, he or she may deem necessary.
b. Should the Fire Inspector find that any provisions of this code relating to fire hazards and prevention of fires are being violated, or that a fire hazard exists which should be eliminated, it shall be his or her duty to give such directions for the abatement of such conditions as he or she shall deem necessary and, if such directions be not complied with, to report such noncompliance to the Village Board for further action.
(3) a. The Chief of the Fire Department is required, by himself or herself, or by officers or members of the Fire Department designated by him or her as Fire Inspectors, to inspect all buildings, premises, and public thoroughfares, except the interiors of private dwellings, for the purpose of ascertaining and causing to be corrected any conditions liable to cause fire, or any violations of any law or ordinance relating to the fire hazard or to the prevention of fires.
b. Such inspections shall be made at least once in six months in all of the territory served by the Fire Department, and not less than once in three months in such territory as the Village Board has designated or thereafter designates as within the village or as a congested district subject to conflagration, and oftener as the Chief of the Fire Department orders. Each six-month period shall begin on January 1 and July 1, and each three-month period on January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1 of each year.
(4) Written reports of inspections shall be made and kept on file in the office of the Chief of the Fire Department in the manner and form required by the Department of Industry, Labor, and Human Relations. A copy of such reports shall be filed with the Fire Chief.
(Prior Code, § 5-2-2)
Statutory reference:
Similar provisions, see Wis. Stats. § 101.14(2)