The chopper video above shows the collapse of a Pacific Coast Highway home in Sunset Beach, California during a fire on Thursday afternoon. News reports indicate the fire started from a grill being used on a deck.
One firefighter slipped and fell on the roof, hit a ledge and was taken to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian with injuries to his rib cage.
The resident suffered smoke inhalation and was hospitalized in unknown condition today.
Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley firefighters joined the Orange County Fire Authority to battle the flames, (Orange County Fire Authority Captain Greg) McKeown said.
The video above was shot early in the fire by a member of a production crew working on a TV pilot a few doors from where the fire broke out. Other members of the crew were on Side A and shot video, some of which is in the story below.
Someone who was insensitive and lacked taste would write a headline for that story that reads "Wife beater makes rescue at fire". But we won't do that at STATter911.com. You will understand the reference after you hear the soundbite from the stuntman who braved the smoke to get a woman out of one of the exposures.
Video above from Don Murtha III from a fire around 1:00 Friday morning at 17 Miller Street in Buffalo, New York. Erie County Fire Wire reports three firefighters were hurt. Read more.
The headline is a quote taken from the video above. It comes from a woman whose family lost its home to a fire on Humboldt Parkway in Buffalo, New York Wednesday afternoon. "They were supposed to save our home" shows that expectations are often high that the fire department is going to come in and save the day.
Much like the deadly fire in Utica on Monday, this is another example of citizens making claims that firefighters didn't do enough. Should reporters have aired or published the allegations made in either of these stories and how should a fire department respond?
In one of these cases I think the news people got it right and in the other, while they really tried to be fair and balanced, they blew it. In both incidents I give the fire department response high marks.
As you probably recall from the Utica story, photojournalist Tim Fisher went the extra step to look beyond the sound bites of distraught family and friends and put the allegations in perspective with a more than six minute story that ran the day after the fire (see the story below).
What Tim Fisher did is not the norm for TV news. Management usually doesn't give the time to reporters and photographers to piece something like that. And six minutes is more than four minutes longer than the usual TV story. Fisher is also a veteran. He's a 63-year-old newsman who previously worked in Minneapolis. His experience gave him the knowledge of how fire departments work and how these stories play out.
The story from Buffalo (at the top of this post) is a much more typical TV news story. It lasts about two minutes and was put together under a much tighter deadline. A husband and wife, after losing their home and all of their possessions, question firefighting tactics. They are upset over how fast water was applied to the fire and make claims about hydrants not being used.
The presentation is actually quite balanced in that it makes sure the response from Buffalo Fire Department officials is not only in the story itself but summarized in the lead-in by both the anchors and the reporter. The Buffalo Fire Department points out they were making an aggressive interior attack when firefighters began receiving electrical shocks. They then switched to a defensive operation. One captain was hospitalized with burns.
But here is where I am critical of this story. There is no there there.
Making sure that all sides impacted by a story are heard is an important part of journalism. Tim Fisher told us, and I agree, that part of the job is to give voice to those who might not otherwise have one and ask the important questions.
The other part of the reporter's job is to investigate those allegations and see if there is merit. A reporter should verify if there is actually validity to the claim. People say a lot of things. That doesn't mean it's true and that all of it should be on television or in the newspaper. A reporter's job is to try and determine what is really relevant to the story. In the Buffalo case I am not sure the reporter did that good of a job.
I say this because the reporter didn't show us a bit of evidence to back up the allegations that there was a delay in applying water or that nearby hydrants weren't used. A cell phone from the couple with a video on it is held up to the TV camera, but it shows us nothing. The WIVB-TV reporter says in the story, "Several hydrants sit adjacent to the dwelling and appeared untouched". What exactly does a "touched" hydrant look like a day after a fire?
Video from another station (below) shows some master streams and a lot of lines. They were getting water from somewhere. If these claims were true, the reporter didn't convince me.
When I worked in TV news I dealt with this same scenario countless times (and I imagine I mishandled it once or twice). Usually it was about what took the fire department so long to get there. I did my best to check out each one. In 95 percent of the cases (a very, very rough estimate by me) there was no evidence to back up the allegations and it never made my story. In the other five percent I aired the claims, but tried to put them in perspective and show other evidence that there was some validity to what the people were saying.
The Utica story would be a tougher call for me. That one is the much harder one to ignore completely in your story. It is a much more significant event with an enormous amount of emotion. Looking at the extensive coverage by WKTV-TV on the day of the fire, I liked that they mentioned the criticism but did not make it the focus of their coverage. The addition of Tim Fisher's story though, put it all in perspective.
What I was particularly impressed with in both stories is that the fire departments didn't run from these allegations. They addressed them head-on and did so with a great deal of sensitivity and compassion toward the victims. Plus, they made sure their response was part of the original story and not a day or more later. Just like Tim Fisher's story, you don't often see that.
The raw chopper video above appears to show a rather rapid knock on this house fire in Ypsilanti, Michigan yesterday afternoon. But firefighters found the body of an 81-year-old woman inside the home. News reports indicate the cause of the fire was accidental. One firefighter was treated for exhaustion.
A fire today at 5615 Virginia Avenue in South St. Lous. The evacuation order comes at :30 into the clip. At about 3:15 a saw seems to get away from one firefighter working on the roof.
Above and below are the latest two stories about the woes of the Detroit Fire Department from WJBK-TV. As usual they provide lessons on what not to do when dealing with the news media.
The first story (above) is another Charlie LeDuff special trying to determine, once again, where the money has gone that was supposed to be used to repair the city's fire stations. LeDuff say this includes a paid for, but never installed, sprinkler system at a firehouse that burned.
Interim Commissioner Fred Wheeler, who has been the subject of a number of LeDuff's stories, agreed to meet with the reporter. But the commissioner said no cameras. Wheeler also seemed to be avoiding the cameras in the story below about a City Council hearing Wednesday that had the commissioner on the hot seat.
Unfortunately, the fire commissioner just continues to make bad stories much worse by constantly giving the impression he is running from the press and has something to hide. The reporters, whether you like them or not, are asking legitimate questions of a public official. That's their job. Your job is to be accountable.
If you have a defensible position, defend it and provide the supporting facts. If mistakes were made, get it all out in the open and explain how you are dealing with it and making sure it doesn't happen again. In either case, don't run, don't hide.
In addition, the city may think it is real smart by charging a high processing fee to the TV station for documents requested by FOIA. Instead, Detroit should be dumping all of these documents in LeDuff's lap and finally getting this issue over and done with.
Charlie LeDuff was on the fire station repair story as a print reporter well before he took his act to TV. Isn't it obvious that just because LeDuff can't get his hands on all of the documents it is not going to stop him from doing the story?
As paperwork is leaked to Charlie bit by bit, new stories will pop up, continuing to shine a light on an issue that should now be part of the city's history and not continue to be a part of its future.
This is an area without hydrants and the initial alarm included both tankers from Barrington plus mutual aid from Long Grove with Tanker 55 in addition to all Barrington companies and a Lake Zurich engine. Upon arrival, firefighters encountered heavy fire in the house that sits on a hill with one-story in front and two-stories in the rear. They immediately upgraded to a Box Alarm which brought help from Carpentersville, Hoffman Estates, East Dundee, Cary, Rolling Meadows, Wauconda, Palatine, and the Palatine Rural Fire Department. Flynn Creek is a narrow, one-lane road which barely accommodated the tankers and a handful of other apparatus. As the fire progressed, a 2nd alarm was struck which brought tankers from South Elgin, Bartlett, and Nunda in addition to another truck and two more engines. Most of the 2nd alarm companies were not put to work.
The tanker shuttle brought roughly 42,000 gallons of water to the fire from 8 tankers. There were no injuries reported.
Glenn Usdin's FireTruckBlog.com has the latest on a pair of fire engine wrecks. Click here for details on a Kansas rig that met a Mustang carrying high school students. And click here for more on the two engines that hit head-on in Missouri.
You may have seen by now the video of Sunday's crash landing of a helicopter at a skateboard competition on Lookout Mountain near Golden, Colorado. It is included in the news story above. What you may not have seen is the raw video of the people escaping the crash and the quick arrival of EMS (already on the scene for the event). That is in the video below. It ends as a member of the EMS crew chases the videographer away. You can read more about the incident here.
The video above is quite interesting and well worth the six minutes it takes to watch it. It is WKTV-TV photojournalist Tim Fisher's thoughts about a fire Monday in Utica, New York that took the lives of a mother and three young children. It occurred around 9:30 in the morning. Some family and neighbors were critical of the fire department's actions.
Rather than give you my view of this video, I am interested in yours first. Below is a pre-arrival picture taken by a neighbor and clips from Monday's coverage by WKTV-TV.
This is the third fire for the Faroese factory trawler Athena and apparently its final one. The fire in the 8000 ton ship is at the Faroe Islands port of Runavik where the vessel was undergoing repairs from another fire (its second). The description with the YouTube video says it is carrying 18 tons of ammonia (while under repair?). Evacuations have forced as many as 1500 of the town's residents out of their homes. Ice News (News from the Nordics) reports the following:
There were only three people aboard the ship when it caught fire and all escaped safely. On the other hand, it is believed the ship is now totally beyond repair and with tall flames and regular explosions preventing fire crews from getting near, it is feared the fire could rage for days before Athena finally sinks. It is not yet known how the fire started.
Below is a still frame of the blast that occurs around 4:20 in the video above.
The Morning Journal has details on a fire Wednesday in Monroeville, Ohio. Here's an excerpt:
A storage building holding 13 classic cars caught fire about 2 p.m. yesterday, causing at least $250,000 in damage, according to the Huron River Joint Fire Department.
The roof collapsed into the building and firefighters had to get an excavator to dig in and extinguish hot spots and burning tires, Beck said. He estimated the 1 1/2-story building was about 50 feet long by 90 feet wide, and the damage cost likely would be more than the preliminary estimate of $250,000.
The Tribune reports one firefighter suffered exhaustion and another a knee injury in this field and house fire Monday evening in Greeley, Colorado. In the video above by Aaron S. Cathcart, one firefighter on the line falls at about the 2:00 point and is taken away by ambulance. The fire was at 83rd Avenue and 10th Street.
About seven fire engines were at the scene, both from Greeley and from Windsor, providing mutual aid.
When the firefighters arrived, the fire had spread from a silage pit toward the house. Firefighters checked the house to make certain no one was home, but because of the winds, they weren’t able to stop the fire from moving to the house.
“In many cases, the wind was blowing so hard, it just dispersed the water, so it wasn’t extinguishing any of the fire,” (Greeley FD spokesman Dale) Lyman said.
The unused shaft was hidden by sheetrock at a Virginia Mason Medical parking garage in Seattle. It was there in case additional elevators were ever needed. A woman in her sixties, driving a Subaru Forester, found that shaft Monday afternoon when she failed to back out of a handicapped space on P3 and went forward instead. Suddenly she was on P4 and presented a challange for the Seattle Fire Department to free her and eventually her vehicle from the shaft. A fire department spokesperson says the woman was not hurt.
Was it the wetdown or the wet firehouse that caused the problem in Sea Bright, New Jersey?: We have a follow-up to the story from last Thursday about the fight that broke out between Sea Bright FD firefighters following the department's wetdown last October. At Thursday's trial it came out that there is video from a surveillance camera that shows the two brothers squaring off against another firefighter. This occurred in the bar area of the firehouse. Read more.
The green line rules the weekend: Until I read Chief Glenn Gaines' Firefighting Operations in Garden Apartments and Townhouses I thought you used garden hoses for garden apartments. But on Saturday and Sunday garden hoses ruled the day in Whitehall, Pennsylvania, stealing a a pair of house fires from the first arriving engine. As you will read in my thoughts posted with the videos from Bill Rohrer of newsworking.org, I think it's about time we have some rules of engagement for the green lines. So, I am will be writing Firefighting Operations with Garden Hoses. My very first book. Click here and here to learn about some of the important issues I will be addressing.
Downsizing in South Carolina: Glenn Usdin's FireTruckBlog.com has the story of Beaufort, SC going to all purpose vehicles to handle EMS runs rather than sending a fire truck. Here are the details.
Wheel chocks detain drunk man behind the wheel: In Santa Fe, New Mexico firefighters are being praised for making sure a driver police say was quite drunk didn't speed away from cops. A combination of chocks and a bar saved the day. Watch the video.
Vehicle fire video worth watching: Three separate fireballs from a vehicle fire in Florida. Click here for the video.
Do you want cream with that?: Two-years-ago when the Grand View coffee shop in Vassalboro, Maine burned down, both Firegeezer.com and STATter911.com covered it. Bill and Dave each had an interest in this story because we know news when we see it. This is a topless coffee shop. That doesn't mean they don't have lids for their to-go cups. Personally, while I think Bill's original article was good, I really brought the coverage to a new level. Unfortunately that level was even below Bill's. Now it appears the Grand View coffee shop has once again fallen on hard times. And, to my knowledge, the only fire service website to keep abreast of all of the developments has been Firegeezer.com. While I tried to titillate and went for the really cheap laughs, Bill never lost focus and kept his eyes on this one over the long haul. It's what we have learned to expect from Bill. With Bill on the case you can be sure there will be no cover-up at the Grand View topless coffee shop. Click here for the Geezer's coverage.
On-call firefighters hard to find during the day along the South Coast of Massachusetts: SouthCoastToday.com has a detailed and interesting look at fire chiefs concerned about the lack of on-call firefighters available during the day. Read the story.
The sound of silence: The fire siren in Monsey, New York has been silenced. The Monsey Board of Fire Commissioners made that decision based on citizen complaints. Here's the story.
House fire in North Bellmore, New York: Fire reported at 2:15 Sunday morning. Click here to read more.
On Thursday, we told you about the fight between firefighters from the Sea Bright Fire Department in New Jersey that occurred inside the firehouse last October 9 that has now gone to trial. The battle pitted two brother firefighters, Peter and Steven Lang, against another firefighter, Justin Hughes. It happened after the wetdown celebration and water fight pictured in the video above.
At Thursday's hearing, a different video was featured. It reportedly shows the firefighters going at it. It comes from a department surveillance camera mounted inside the firehouse bar.
According to an article by Dustin Racioppa at redbankgreen.com, the video first shows Steven Lang and Hughes getting into a shoving match at the bar at 8:41 PM. But municipal prosecutor Mike Halfacre said things calmed down when someone else broke up the fight.
Reporter Racioppa says volunteer firefighter Aaron Rock testified that Lang left the building after telling Hughes that they should go outside and handle this. Here's more from Racioppa's article:
That’s when Lang’s brother, Peter, 33, approached Hughes and said something to the effect of, “If you have a problem with my brother, you have a problem with me,” Rock told the court.
“At that point he lunged at Justin,” said Rock, who is also a patrolman in Monmouth Beach police.
Which is what the video showed. Steven Lang had by then — at 8:43 p.m. — re-entered the bar and joined in what Halfacre called a “scrum” in a corner of the lounge, and “Steven Lang came into view and the two Lang brothers essentially have Hughes surrounded.”
Steven Lang then put Hughes in a headlock, which is when Rock tried to break up the fight. Another firefighter, Patrick “P.J.” Covert, broke Steven Lang away from Hughes, and almost simultaneously Peter Lang took Hughes down to the ground, and said, “Did you have enough or do you want me to choke you out?” Covert said.
Hughes went for medical help that night. According to the article, the injuries have kept Hughes from firefighting since that night. A report filed with police the next day resulted in the simple assault charges against the Lang brothers that brought this trial. Steven Lang then filed harassment and disorderly conduct charges against Hughes.
The trial has been continued until June 16. Fire department promotions for both of the Lang brothers have been held up because of the court case.This leaves the ranks of assistant chief and second lieutenant unfilled in the Sea Bright Fire Department.
Two days in a row someone has put out a house fire for firefighters in Whitehall, Pennsylvania before the first engine arrived. Yesterday it was a neighbor (click here). Today, newsworking.org's Bill Rohrer tells us is it's an assistant chief who arrived on the scene first and knocked down the garage fire with a green line in one hand and a radio in the other.
The never ending debate on STATter911.com (and elsewhere) seems to be where the first line should go on a fire in an attached garage. Should the garden hose have gone through the front door to the doorway to the garage or hit the fire from the outside garage door?
Clearly, these two fires show someone needs to write an SOP for green line use so the public and firefighters arriving without apparatus know what is expected of them. While you are at it, make sure that we have guidelines for using coolers (click here) and snow blowers (click here) to put out fires. In addition, someone needs to come up with standards to make sure the green lines (here's another one), coolers and snow blowers meet minimum standards for firefighting.
What's wrong with these people? Can you believe this fire was put out with a hose line through the picture window of the living room? On top of that, their choice of a line was pitiful. Undersized to say the least and the wrong color. Real fireman don't carry a hose that is green.
I don't care if it was a couple of neighbors who dealt with this house fire before the first engine arrived. If they are going to do the job of firefighters they better do it right or not at all. I hope someone gave them a good talking to and some training.
Thanks to Bill Rohrer at newsworking.org for pointing out this travesty. Click here to read more from Bill. Personally, I'm outraged.
Below is helmet-cam of the second line to the fire. The one that goes through the front door.
I remember running a call for a man unconscious at a traffic signal. When we arrived on the scene, sure enough the guy was passed out at the wheel, with his foot on the brake, on a highway with a slight downward slope. Only the luck of the drunk kept his car in place until I reached in, put the transmission in park and grabbed the keys out of the ignition.
But Santa Fe, New Mexico firefighters did much better than that. Faced with a somewhat more difficult situation Wednesday night they reached into their tool bag and prevented a police chase and possible harm to others. A combination of fire engine strength wheel chocks and a little forcible entry on a window kept a man police are describing as highly intoxicated from speeding off as the first cop arrived. Watch the video above.
The man behind the camera must be psychic. Seconds after saying this vehicle might explode, a large fire ball erupted, followed by a second and third blast. Watch where the moving police car is when the first one occurs. The fire is described as being in Opa Locka, Florida with no date given.
Raw video from a mulit-alarm fire on Tuesday morning at a bus company building in Ridgefield, New Jersey. According to northjersey.com a welder working on a bus set the bus on fire which spread to the building. Read more.
Twenty-years-ago this evening I had one of the more interesting and educational moments of my life. I was in the middle of a riot in Washington, D.C. While I was far from thrilled it was happening, or that rocks and bottles were flying by my head, it was still fascinating. Fascinating because I was there before it started and had a front row seat as it developed. It was clear to me it grew out of misinformation, rumor and the inability to communicate. There are some lessons from this episode that are important not only to law enforcement, but for anyone in government or business who deals with the public.
The scene was the Mt. Pleasant community in Northwest Washington. A neighborhood with a large Hispanic population adjacent to Adams Morgan where a Cinco de Mayo celebration had been held that Sunday evening. Some of the celebrating had spilled over to Mt. Pleasant. Rookie DC Police Officer Angela Jewell had a confrontation in a small park with Daniel Enrique Gomez. Gomez, who later admitted he was drunk, had come from El Salvador two years earlier. While Officer Jewell tried to arrest Gomez, he broke free. The officer said Gomez then came at her with a large knife. She shot him.
I arrived on the scene with photographer Greg Guise as Gomez was loaded into a DCFD ambulance. A crowd had gathered and there was a great deal of tension.
We soon learned that many of the people believed the man had been shot while he was handcuffed. While there was no official word from DC Police, Greg and I were very quickly able to determine, from talking off-the-record with some cops and on-the-record with witnesses from the community, that the crowd was misinformed. The video above, shot by Greg and Mike Flynn, shows how this soon developed into a situation where police had lost control and were on the defensive. Before long, it was a riot.
A young girl who had seen the shooting up close, and did some translating for us, helped me understand what had really happened. The crowd was operating on information from people who ran up to the scene immediately after the shooting. They heard the gun shot and by the time they got to the wounded man he was, in fact, on the ground in handcuffs. They spread the word and the anger soon grew.
What those witnesses missed, that the girl and some others had seen, was crucial to understanding the truth of the situation. They told me Officer Jewell had gotten one side of the handcuffs on when the man broke free. When he came toward the officer and was shot, the handcuffs were dangling from one wrist. The other arm was free. It was only after the man was wounded and on the ground that officers followed standard operating procedure and properly handcuffed him. That's when the other "witnesses" arrived and told anyone who would listen that a handcuffed man had been shot.
That we saw, there was only one Spanish speaking officer on the scene in the early stages of this incident. It was never clear to me if he was trying to explain the misunderstanding that had developed. Either way it was too little and too late.
Some of the government generated reports that followed cited a lack of trust of the police by many in the Spanish speaking community. There were also many news reports of a poor relationship between community leaders and the police and the District of Columbia government in general. That's an important lesson for anyone trying to communicate during a crisis situation. You are going to be much more effective in getting your message across if you already have a good working relationship with key stakeholders such as those community leaders.
I have mentioned building reputation equity many times on this forum and in talks that I give. If you already have standing with the people you serve, and they know on a daily basis you communicate openly and honestly, they are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt when times are tough and others are tearing you down.
None of this is meant to excuse lawbreakers and those who attack police officers and other first responders. But many times, your jobs can be made easier by communicating effectively on a daily basis. If you wait until it hits the fan, it may be too late.
Some other notes from the Mt. Pleasant riots: I have been in many, many situations where people play to the camera. News crews see it all of the time in demonstrations. And there is no doubt in my mind there are occasions when the presence of TV cameras can incite a crowd. It is something I always tried to be conscious of when I did my work as a TV reporter.
I can tell you, without question in my mind, during the first night of rioting in Mt. Pleasant, it was as if the few TV cameras on the scene were invisible. We were all but ignored. The anger and focus was solely directed at the police and I am confident the outcome would have been the same whether we were there or not.
But there was a second night of rioting and I have long believed TV played a somewhat significant role. My impression was the live evening TV coverage on Monday from the riot area, which had been quiet during the day, attracted people from all over the city. Many appeared to be there to take advantage of an already tense situation.
The first confrontations that evening happened in front of the live TV cameras on Mt. Pleasant Street and quickly spread to adjoining streets and neighborhoods. Many of the people I talked to weren't from the area and confirmed they came because they saw it on TV.
Short of not covering the story or not covering it live, I am not sure how TV news could have lessened its influence on what happened Monday.
ModestoNews.org was on the scene of a house fire on Tuesday at 2608 Dale Road in Ceres, California. The fire started in a shed and spread to the home. News reports indicate two other homes were damaged by flying embers. Read more here.
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