The fire, at Scully Welding Supply Corp. in Collingdale, broke out about 12:50 p.m. and quickly went to five alarms.
Image from KYW-TV.
“It looked like hell, like Dante’s Inferno,” said Collingdale fire marshal George Kaiser. “The fire was at least two-stories high.”
The main fire was declared under control around 4:30 p.m., and officials began letting almost all people return to their homes shortly after 7 p.m.
Three Scully employees were injured, including one seriously who was transported to Crozer-Chester Medical Center and was reported tonight in stable condition. Five firefighters were treated for heat related illnesses.
Kaiser, the fire marshal, was working at the storage center he owns adjacent to the Scully plant. He said the blaze ignited his building. The fire destroyed two old Collingdale fire trucks he kept on the premises and storage units rented by 70 customers.
Officials spent hours pouring water on large propane tanks to cool them, Lovejoy said. County Emergency Services Director Ed Truitt said officials also had been concerned about the danger the flames posed to a nearby oxygen supply company.
“If that building were to be breached, that could make life real interesting down there,” he said.
The fire caused heavy damage to Scully Welding Supply and a neighboring business, Kaiser Automotive, Lovejoy said. The cause of the blaze was under investigation by state and local authorities, he said. A call to Scully Welding Supply rang unanswered.
Tammy Scanlon, who lives a few hundred yards across the railroad tracks from Scully’s Propane, heard the explosions go on for about 30 minutes.
Much of the Houston Fire Department spent Monday night on the scene of a 4-alarm fire at the JPMorgan Chase Bank building (formerly the Gulf Building). The location is the 700 block of Main street at Capitol Street in downtown. The fire was reported around 8:00 PM Houston time.
The fire was on the 27th floor. This is now reported to be the older, smaller tower and not the 75-story newer structure that is the tallest building in Texas.
You will hear a couple of crews calling for water starting around 6:20 on this clip. The mayday is reported around 7:00.
Updates: At 9:40 PM, six additional pumpers were dispatched to the scene.
At 10:14 PM, seven additional pumpers and two ladder trucks were requested. News reports indicate the fire is under control.
The fire is confined to the 27th floor of the historic building. Firefighters said it’s primarily offices up there.
Reports of people trapped in an elevator was a false alarm, (Acting Chief Rick) Flanagan said.
At first, there was a problem with the building’s internal water supply – apparently a broken pipe – that HFD is solving by piping water directly into the building.
Five firefighters were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, said assistant chief Jack Williams. Their conditions are not considered life-threatening.
Earlier from KRIV-TV:
An official at the scene reported smoke was billowing from the 27th floor of the building.
A mayday call was sent out after several firefighters got lost in the building, but they all made it out ok.
The JP Morgan Chase Building has been a Houston landmark since the 1920s. It stands 430 feet high and cost and estimated $6 million to build. It was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River until the 1931, when a taller building in Kansas City was erected.
One burned in San Francisco apartment fire: A neighbor’s roof top video of a fire during the noon hour in Haight Ashbury on Monday that injured an occupant of a second-floor apartment.
The STATter911.com family heads to Chicago: I guess it is appropriate that the video above is from San Francisco because that is where our journey began on August 6. Currently Sam, Hillary and Dave are in Dubuque, Iowa, heading out today for four days at Fire Rescue International in Chicago. Along the way we saw some spectacular sights and had many wonderful moments. In the coming weeks I plan to share some fire related photos and videos that I gathered during our journey, like the one on the left when San Francisco Fire Engine Tours & Adventures took us on a tour of the city in a 1955 Mack pumper. Because of the travel, as we warned, the blog postings have been reduced. Thank you for your patience and understanding. I don’t expect to get back into my usual unreliable pattern of posting until next week.
One you should attend in Chicago: If you manage a behavioral health program for a fire department or are a chief officer, peer program manager or EAP professional make sure you get to “Focus Group on New Protocol for Firefighter Behavioral Health – Initiative 13″. Its on Friday from 12:30 to 2:30 in room N230a at McCormick Place. If you need more information contact Dr. JoEllen Kelly at jkelly@everyonegoeshome.com.
New fire chief in Houston: The Houston Chronicle and other new outlets are reporting Terry Garrison will be the new chief of the Houston Fire Department. Retired after a 30-year-career in Phoenix, Chief Garrison more recently has been doing the chief thing in Oceanside, California and the Daisy Mountain Fire District in New River, Arizona. Read more.
Triple fatal fire in the Charleston, SC area: Around 9:00 last night a mother and her young twin boys died in a fire in West Ashley, a Charleston suburb. The St. Andrews Fire Department and Charleston Fire Department responded. SConFire.com is on top of the story.
Honors for Tom Carr: As many of you already know from other sources while Dave was distracted by his intimate relationship with the GPS lady, our friend Tom Carr, chief of the Charleston Fire Department (mentioned above), has been named by Fire Chief as the 2010 Career Fire Chief of the Year. A much deserved honor for a man I first met when he was a lieutenant in Montgomery County, Maryland. While we are at it, congratulations to Timothy S. Wall of the North Farms Volunteer Fire Department in North Wallingford, Connecticut who is the 2010 Volunteer Fire Chief of the Year.
Iron and Steel doesn’t make it to Washington but will come close: This weekend steel from the World Trade Center will be escorted to the Pentagon. You may recall the dispute that surfaced in June after the organizers and the DC Fire & EMS Department did not come to terms for this event (click here). The Arlington County Fire Department, under the leadership of Chief Jim Schwartz, stepped in and will host the event. Click here for the weekend schedule.
A much better view of the CNG bus burning in Maryland: We have now posted almost seven minutes of continuous raw video from Friday’s Metrobus fire in Anne Arundel County. It begins just before the first engine pulls up. Despite offering a better representation of what was there when firefighters arrived, I am not sure it is going to change too many minds in our comments section. What could have been an interesting discussion over the use of master streams in this type of situation has turned into the type of Internet free-for-all that can cause brain damage ( if taken too seriously). I just want to apologize ahead of time in case you stumble upon it. Much more interesting is the updated video.
Chief fired over disposal of stillborn babies: We have reported on fire chiefs being fired for many, many reasons, but this is one we have never heard before. WBRC-TV is reporting that in Odenville, Alabama Chief David Davis claimed he was just following protocol when he flushed twin stillborn babies down the toilet. Mayor Buck Christian fired Davis and the Odenville City Council unanimously approved that decision.
But it’s the news media’s fault in Detroit: Thank goodness for the Geezerman. At least Firegeezer Bill doesn’t leave his readers high and dry while he goes gallivanting across the country. Clearly a man with a much better work ethic than I have, Bill Schumm has been posting some great stories at Firegeezer.com. The most disturbing one comes from Detroit. On August 9 I shared the story about Mayor Dave Bing’s administration’s issues with media ride-alongs and attempts to create a new policy. You may recall in the same posting I also disagreed with a documentary producer’s opinion that the news media is the problem in Detroit (at the same time supporting the producer’s efforts to show us the firefighters of Detroit). Well, the nasty news media is at it again. This time they have the nerve to tell people that 31 of 45 ambulances are broken. A TV station shows some people, like the recently injured Detroit firefighters, who didn’t get to the hospital by ambulance. Here’s Bill’s well written look at this tragedy.
There is much debate in our comments section about the use of master streams during the CNG fueled Metrobus fire in Anne Arundel County, Maryland on Friday morning. We originally posted a short YouTube clip and still pictures provided by Chief Drew Mutch of the Cape St. Claire Volunteer Fire Company. What I missed, that a reader pointed out in our comments section yesterday, is another much longer YouTube video. It begins just before the arrival of the first engine and continuously rolls for almost seven minutes.
Rather than a serious discussion on the merits of master streams when faced with this situation, the comments have devolved, as often is the case on the Internet, into name calling and a debate over who has the bigger nozzle. Because of that I don’t recommend you take the time to read the discussion. Depending on your own mental state, doing so could cause you to either do bodily harm to yourself or sue me for wasting your valuable time.
Unlike some of our comments on this subject, the video is quite interesting and seems to give a more complete picture of the conditions to help you choose sides in this issue.
On Sunday one of our readers alerted us to a tragic series of events in Ontario. Firefighters from Napanee, a town of 16,000, were involved in two separate crashes over the weekened that left 13 people injured and killed the wife of a firefighter. It started on Saturday when five firefighters were returning from the FireFit Championships when their vehicle was involved in a collision near Woodstock.
Concerned family members, along with Napanee Mayor Gordon Schermerhorn and Napanee fire chief Ian Shetler, chartered a bus to bring the firefighters home. Town councillor Bill Pierson joined Shetler on the trip while the mayor stayed behind.
The bus travelled to London to pick up the four firefighters who were released from hospital. The fifth, Kevin Duncan, with his wife now beside him, remained in hospital overnight with a neck injury and was unable to return with the group. The rest, which included Pierson, Shetler and firefighters David Goodfellow, Daniel Matthieu, Al Hatton and Joe Reid, hopped on the bus early Sunday morning ready for the five hour trip home.
About an hour later, the bus crashed into the guardrail on Highway 401 near Woodstock, jumped over it, and landed on its side on the grass around 6 a.m.
Darlene Goodfellow of Napanee was pronounced dead at the scene. Her husband, David, is a volunteer fireman with the Napanee Fire Department and suffered minor injuries. The couple have three children aged 13-19.
“She’s a woman that everybody would like the first time they met her,” Schermerhorn said.
The 12 others on the bus do not have life-threatening injuries, provincial police said.
“I’m not sure how we’re going to get them home, maybe by train, I don’t know,” Schermerhorn said.
When the alarm sounded and fire Chief Erik Pettaway arrived at 31 Norfolk Ave., he knew the fire was big. He also knew the building. The neighborhood native recently did a pre-plan of the complex, which takes up a block.
He gave the order for firefighters to back up and stay out of the building. Pettaway called out nine alarms, the maximum response in Boston, and units throughout the city and region rushed to the scene.
Minutes later, a section of a building collapsed near where fire trucks and firefighters would have been standing had the chief not given the order to back off.
“Chief Pettaway made the decision to pull the trucks back, and after the trucks were pulled back it collapsed. He probably saved a lot of injuries to firefighters, and that’s how well-trained these firefighters are,’’ said Mayor Thomas M. Menino, at the scene. “They made some real good calls early in the evening.’’
“What I tried to do was establish a collapse zone,’’ Pettaway said at the scene. “My concern is no one gets hurt. I wanted to make sure my men are OK.’’
A fire Monday evening in Rockland County, New York. One police officer was treated for exhaustion while evacuating the building at the Blueberry Hills apartments in Monsey. According to LoHud.com, “Rockland Deputy Fire Coordinator John Kryger said that a lack of nearby fire hydrants prevented officials from effectively fighting the fire early on.” Click here to read more about the fire.
This is from an incident Saturday two blocks east of The White House. The video above is from someone staying in the W Hotel who began rolling before the arrival of the fire department as cops blocked off the 1400 block of F Street, NW.
Still frame from Vito Maggiolo video showing Treasury Department in the background.
Some of the fire video in the story below is from DC Fire & EMS photographer Vito Maggiolo who also sent along the still image.
Fire from an underground electrical transformer forced the evacuation of two hotels near the White House on Saturday night.
No injuries were reported. Pete Piringer of DC Fire and EMS said the fire, at 14th and F Streets, began at 7:45 p.m. and was under control in about an hour. Flames shot 20 to 30 feet high and dark smoke could be seen for miles, Piringer said.
The W hotel and historic Willard were evacuated. Several streets were closed and power was lost in the area.
The fire spread underground and shot through several manholes and grates in the area. More than 125 firefighters responded to the scene.
Image from WJRT-TV interview with Jeremy Turner in April.
WJRT-TV is reporting that 31-year-old Jeremy Turner, a rookie firefighter in Flint Michigan was badly burned at a house fire around 5:30 this morning. Turner, who has second and third degree burns, was one of the firefighters recently brought back to the department following layoffs. The TV station had interviewed Turner in April.
This morning’s fire was at Wolcott Street and 8th Avenue. This is the second fire at the home and the home had been shot up with bullet casings found around the home. The first fire was aroud midnight.
Turner was among the firefighters responding to the second fire. He was at the front door with a hose when the floor beneath him gave way, causing him to drop into the basement, which was engulfed in flames.
“He was ‘Am I going to live? Am I going to be able to fight fire again?’ And it just breaks you up,” (Battalion Chief Theresa) Root said. “An excellent firefighter.”
His wife, who’s eight months pregnant, is by his bedside right now.
Root says it really hit her hard when Turner held up his arms up, and it was clear that he was badly burned.
She says Turner’s family has said he was born to be a firefighter.
The BBC says the fire broke out on the third floor of the Ebor Mills building in Haworth Saturday night. West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue reports about 100 firefighters were involved in the operation. Fifteen homes were close to the mill were evacuated because of the fire.
An incident involving underage drinking by one of its members at a conference in June is coming back to haunt a Washington State fire department at what may be the worst possible time. Word that 20-year-old volunteer firefighter Tim Nelson was terminated, along with other disciplinary actions, including demotions for a battalion chief, a lieutenant and an office employee, comes just before next Tuesday’s election where there will be a decision on a tax levy that funds EMS for the fire district.
If the levy fails half the paid workforce of the department could be laid off. This all stems from a June 11 incident during an annual training conference at a Wenatchee hotel.
It is clear from a reputation management standpoint that the best way to have handled this one is for the top officials to have known about it immediately and acted quickly to get the information out and behind them. Even without the election looming, delay in dealing with this in a public and straightforward way erodes trust.
Chief Tom Lique, aware that some in the public think the department keeps information from public view, is trying to use the fact that they are releasing the details just before the election as something positive. he told The Bellingham Herald, “I’m hoping the timeline here, as uncomfortable as it is, demonstrates that just because of the levy, I’m not trying to stonewall or hide this information.”
Now that sounds good but later in the article reporter Christian Hill writes that Chief Lique refuses to release the internal report on the incident. The actions don’t appear to support the chief’s words.
Tom Lique, chief of Fire District No. 16, had the support of most fire commissioners Friday as he terminated 20-year-old volunteer firefighter Tim Nelson for his part in the episode at a Wenatchee hotel in June.
Lique also disciplined to varying degrees a battalion chief, a volunteer lieutenant and an office employee for not putting a stop to the young man’s drinking and for not disclosing the incident to fire district management.
The fate of the fifth employee who attended the gathering, also a battalion chief, remains undecided.
On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to renew the tax levy that funds its emergency medical response.
Greg Glassie, a union officer representing the two career officers, said they will weigh their options provided by the labor contract. He declined further comment until they can review the information.
“We are all very distressed about the timing with the upcoming levy,” he said.
Glassie said he hopes voters will see the discipline in action and recognize “it’s not a broken organization that needs to be cut in half by a crippling failure of the levy”
Lique said he began hearing rumors after the conference and directed, with the authorization of fire commissioners, that the district’s attorney begin a formal investigation.
Lique declined to release the 15-page investigative report to The News Tribune Friday. But according to his account of the findings:
Nelson got drunk, and the others reportedly didn’t act to stop him or remove him. Nelson later passed out or fell asleep in the shower of the hotel room with the water running and flooded the bathroom.
Lique said Friday their behavior violated the district’s code of conduct and represented a breach of the community’s trust.
“They need to be held responsible for that,” he said before the meeting.
As soon as we got back into cell phone/Internet from one of our stops in California we learn from many of regular readers of this morning’s collapse in Detroit that left 6 firefighters injured.
The latest from WDIV-TV on the injured has some grim news from the Detroit Fire Department:
Detroit Fire Commissioner James Mack said three were in critical condition and three were in fair condition, with one firefighter having been paralyzed from the waist down and another needing to be intubated.
Picture on left from Bill Eisner, The Detroit News. On the right is the before picture from Google Maps StreetView. Click the image to tour the neighborhood.
When a wall collapsed on Detroit firefighter Gerald (Razzy) Rutkowski as he fought a blaze on the city’s east side this morning, his older brother Tom was one of the people who dug him out from under the pile of bricks.
He then rode with him in the Detroit Fire Department squad car that raced him to St. John Hospital for treatment, as he bled profusely from his head.
Gerald Rutkowski, 46, is one of six firefighters seriously injured this morning, while battling a fire this morning that has devastated a retail building on East Jefferson on Detroit’s east side across from the Golightly Career and Technical School near Drexel
“I thought he was done,” Tom Rutkowski, 53, said, adding that his kid brother, a 26-year veteran of the DFD, apparently had broken his hip, pelvis and left foot.
Four firefighters are at St. John Hospital — three in critical but stable condition and one in intensive care – according to Jeffrey Pegg, a firefighter with Ladder 28 on the city’s west side and secretary of the Detroit Firefighters Association Local 344. Another two firefighters being treated at Detroit Receiving Hospital are “pretty seriously injured,” he said.
The firefighters were initially at the site on Jefferson near Drexel around 5:30 a.m., but left shortly before 7 a.m., believing they’d extinguished the blaze, Pegg said. However, they returned to the retail building around 7 a.m., because the fire had rekindled.
Squad 2’s Lt. Robert Tucker, who said the injured firefighters had “a long road ahead of them,” explained that the decision to leave the scene after the first blaze didn’t indicate a miscalculation. They’d been under the impression that the fire was out and something else happened to restart the fire
A brick façade collapsed on the firefighters around 7:20 a.m., Pegg said.
After the blaze started in the commercial strip, firefighters worked to prevent it from spreading to the vacant apartment building next door, according to Tom Rutkowski.
Several of them were pulling boards off the windows of the building, which may have been undergoing renovation, and then suddenly, several stories worth of exterior bricks rained down on the six firefighters.
“I heard five big booms. It sounded like an explosion,” said John Mason who lives near Fairfax County’s new Crosspointe fire station where a dangerous mistake could have been deadly.
“We don’t like that this happened, especially to us, but thankfully, nobody was seriously injured,” said Dan Schmidt, a spokesperson for the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department.
Ironically, the accident happened during a routine safety check at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday. Schmidt says a firefighter on the ladder truck was raising and moving the ladder when it hit the 230,000 volt transmission line above.
The firefighter who was on the truck jumped off and another one who was standing nearby was hit by flying debris from a concrete barrier that exploded. They were both transported to a hospital with minor injuries.
“Carelessness. They’re usually very professional. That’s not the kind of mistake you’d expect from them, ” said Richard Magee of Alexandria. He was one of more than 31,000 power customers of Dominion Virginia that lost power because of the incident.
Virginia Dominion officials say they restored power to all of those customers by 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Officials said the contact between the ladder truck and the power line caused a small fire in an electrical panel inside the fire station.
Metro officials told 9NEWS NOW the outage affected the King Street, Van Dorn, and Springfield Metro stations, where power has since been restored.
A third firefighter was taken to the hospital to check for possible hearing loss after the explosion. Both the Fairfax County Fire Department and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating.
Union in Dayton says fire is an example of why citizens are at risk: Controversy after a fire destroyed three homes and damaged two others over the weekend. The chief says show him the overtime money where he can fully staff his department. You can read and watch more here. Similarly, Firegeezer has been following the situation in Philly over whether rotating closures or another policy impacted a fatal fire. Click here and here.
Where’s Dave?: You may have noticed fewer posts than normal. I am on a three week vacation with the Mrs. STATter911.com and STATter911.com Jr, driving from San Francisco to Chicago, seeing family and the sights along the way. We plan to be in Chicago in time for Fire Rescue International. I will be posting as time and Internet connection allow. I am hoping to show some fire and EMS sights along the way.
Houston’s Jane Draycott, at center of controversy, arrested for shoplifting: We have covered the story of Jane Draycott for quite a while now. Draycott is the Houston firefighter who says she was discriminated against. Draycott reported finding racially and sexually charged graffiti inside the women’s quarters at her firehouse. How her case was handled brought the resignation of one fire chief. Now Draycott has been arrested on a shoplifting charge. Draycott is accused of taking a DVD player, a bag of ice and other items from a Wal-Mart. Read the story.
More from Houston – problems found in recruit death investigation: NIOSH has issued its findings in the death of Cohnway Johnson after a 4.4 mile run. The Houston Chronicle writes, “A 26-year-old Houston firefighter trainee who collapsed and later died of heat stroke after a 4.4-mile run in April 2009 probably would have survived if department trainers had provided water during the run or an ice water immersion facility to lower his body temperature, a federal safety investigation concluded.” Firefighter Nation has the article and the report.
Fire chief and two others charged in training death: The fire chief in Ontario’s Village of Point Edward and two other town employees are facing 11 charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act after the death of 51-yea-old Gary Kendall. Volunteer Firefighter Kendall died in January after becoming trapped under ice during a water training exercise. Here are more details.
Lieutenant says department ”thrives on favoritism, nepotism, false records or no records at all”: I should say former lieutenant. Harry Lamb resigned from the Weare Fire Department in New Hampshire as he called the department an embarrassment in front of a public meeting. Click here for the story.
Haunted (fire)house: In Bangor, California they are in the process of replacing Station 55 and everyone, including the firefighters, seems to be worried about what the ghost will say or do. The firefighters aren’t shy about going public with details such as the ghost sitting on one firefighter’s chest. Read it if you dare.
Charges indicate firefighter referred to workplace shootings in Connecticut as he made threats: In Syracuse, New York Firefighter Douglas Martin seems to have a number of issues facing him. Syracuse.com reports on Martin is accused of having a run in at the credit union on Friday where the Connecticut reference was made. On Thursday he is accused of pulling up next to a deputy chief in traffic and threatening him for giving Martin a three-day suspension. This followed a 44-day suspension that Martin says stemmed from a racially motivated incident with another firefighter. Martin also is dealing with a recent stalking charge. Read the story.
According to the date flashed on this video this is apparently a July, 1995 fire in Chicago. The description says it started in a storage rooom at an electrical supply store and warehouse. It wasn’t long before two fire trucks became the exposures along the front of the building.
This apartment building in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side was vacant and under renovation when the fire broke out Monday morning. The fire was reported around 10:00 AM at West Iowa Street and North Leclaire Avenue. News reports indicate besides the roof collapse there was a partial collapse of the rear wall.
Someone who was up fairly close shooting video at the July 24 fire at a petrochemical plant at Kharg Island in Iran was rolling when a large explosion occurred. You hear the blast more than see it because the photographer and most everyone else around him is running for their lives. Four people died in this incident. Click here to read more.
Fire in Utica, New York: One person is unaccounted for following an apartment building fire Friday night on Blandina Street. What was left of the building was demolished on Saturday morning. Click here for more.
One amazing older flashover video that you must see: If you have never seen the video from Spain where light smoke at an apartment building suddenly turns to flames throughout the structure, trapping two firefighters in the process, you will want to check it out. You won’t need subtitles for this foreign film. There is a lot going on in this video, including a couple of citizens who grab a ladder to help the firefighters. It is one compelling video. Click here.
Well it’s not as if my name showed up on the Mayflower Madam’s list: But I did make the Sunday paper in Charleston, South Carolina for being on another list. The Routley diaries have been released. More than two-thousand emails from the team that investigated the Sofa Super Store fire were obtained by reporter Glenn Smith after the Post & Courier filed a FOIA request. Since one of the emails discussed in the article was from or to me, I will refrain, for the moment, on giving you my assessment of this interesting situation that has developed. Click here and you can first digest this stuff yourself without influence from a clearly biased participant like me. But I will say that Glenn’s judgment is questionable if he thinks this rag is “influential”.
Newspaper looks at the issue of race in the Boston Fire Department: A study by Boston.com contends that many firehouse are “starkly and increasingly segragated”. Check here for the story.
FDNY staffing reduction: The union says the city has the formula wrong, but New York officials are ready to reduce the staffing at 60 engine companies from five to four. They are allowed to do so when the use of medical leave goes above 7.5%. Firefighter Close Calls has that story.
Big fire & big problem in British Columbia: Toxic runoff from a large fire Friday night in Kelowna has a creek and some back yards shut down. We have details and lots of video.
Also in B.C.: Just west of Kelowna a firefighting tanker aircraft crashed while fighting a wildland fire in Fraser Canyon. The crew of two is dead and the crash sparked another fire. Firegeezer has the story.
Funerals: This weekend I talked to some friends who went north and others who went south to attend the funerals of four firefighters killed last week. Click here and here to view coverage of the funerals of Lt. Steven Velasquez and Firefighter Michael Baik in Bridgeport Connecticut.
In Rocky Mount, Virginia Rhett Fleitz and his VAFireNews continues to lead the coverage of the deaths of Chief Posey Dillon and Firefighter Danny Altice. Here’s the main page. You can see the pictures Rhett and Drew Abel took here and here.
Four children rescued in the other Charleston: In West Virginia, news reports indicate one firefighter found three children and another found the fourth during a house fire early Sunday morning. Read the story.
Post lay-off proposal by union in San Jose: In an effort to get the jobs back for dozens of firefighters let go in recent days, the union in San Jose has offered new concessions to the city. This article indicates it may not be enough.
“A major point of concern exists around the types of materials being stored in the building, including a welding supply, irrigation supply and agricultural supply warehouse. A volatile mix of explosive materials combined with fertilizers and pesticides have burnt, hence the need for the evacuation and ongoing concern regarding water contamination due to firefighting water than has runoff from the scene.”
The only reported injury is to a firefighter who suffered smoke inhalation. He has been treated and released.
The glow in the sky and the numerous explosions brought out the crowds. The blasts did not deter some of the onlookers. In the video below police try to move the people away from the burning building. Wonder how they feel now that they know they were likely standing in toxic waste.
There were two large apartment fires in Delta, British Columbia this week. The video above is from 9:00 PM Friday at senior citizens’ housing in the 4800 block of Evergreen Lane. Sixty-six people were left homeless af the fire ran the roof of a large building. The fire chief says there were no sprinklers or fire stops in the attic.
The video below is from a fire Tuesday in Delta that destroyed or damaged the homes of 80 people at Nordel Way and Scott Road. CTV reports it took 12-hours to handle this fire. On the video you will see that firefighters helped a number of people down ladders.
This fire was reported around 5:00 PM on Tuesday. It occurred in an import/export warehouse that store scented candles. An auto parts business is next door. Click to read more from KTLA-TV.
Early video from car crash and gas pump fire: This is from Tampa, Florida yesterday. A driver of a Ford Expedition lost control, hit the white Lincoln and then slammed into the pumps. Click here for Part 1 of the video. Read more from TBO.com.
Firefighter says helping out at crash scene on sick day cost him his job: An interesting story from Georgetown, South Carolina where a firefighter says he was forced to resign after helping at a crash involving his neighbor during a day the firefighter called in sick. Click here for the story and the comments.
And who says the good old days are gone?: Whether they are true or not, the allegations sound like something from a few decades ago. In Woodbridge, New Jersey town officials claim members of the Avenel-Colonia First Aid Squad had nude dancing and prostitues at parties inside the squad’s building. The allegations are the latest headline in an ongoing battle between Woodbridge and the EMS crew. The squad is going to court claiming it is being defamed by a public smear campaign. Read the story.
Firefighter laughing and taking video while pit bull is shot brings scrutiny but no discipline: In St. Lucie County, Florida firefighters responding to a dog bite call watched as a Fort Pierce cop shot a pit bull. One firefighter caught the action on his cell phone camera. It was also the reaction of the firefighters that made news. Check it out.
Funerals tomorrow in Virginia: Click here and here for funeral details and the latest on the crash Monday that killed Rocky Mount Chief Posey Dillon and Firefighter (and former chief) Danny Altice.
Clark County, Nevada officials fire back at union’s six-week ad campaign: The budget cutting and shut down of Clark County’s heavy rescue squad and hazardous materials unit has been a hot topic. Now county officials have come up with a point-by-point response to the union’s ad campaign. Read the Clark County document. Here’s the Las Vegas Review Journal article.
Outer Banks fire department under scrutiny: Having spent many days and nights on the Outer Banks of North Carolina covering hurricanes I was drawn to Firegeezer Bill Schumm’s story about the dispute in Southern Shores where citizens are dealing with a substantial tax increase to fund the volunteer fire department. The town pays the freight, including the chief’s $70,000 salary, but has little say or insight in how the money is spent. Bill is all over this story with interesting video. Click here.
Rocky Mount (VA) Chief Posey Dillon, who is also the town’s vice-mayor, and Firefighter Willam D.Altice, known as Danny, were killed this afternoon when their fire engine overturned on the way to a reported structure fire. Dillon, who had been chief for two decades, was pronounced dead at the hospital. Police say he was driving the rig. Altice was dead at the scene. Here are excerpts from news coverage.
The fire engine, with its emergency lights and siren on, was heading to a report of a person trapped in a house fire in the Franklin County community of Union Hall, with just Dillon and Altice aboard. With Dillon at the wheel, the engine, eastbound on Old Franklin Turnpike, swerved when a silver Ford Escape drove into the street from School Board Road, said Sgt. Rob Carpentieri, a state police spokesman.
The truck, loaded with 1,000 gallons of water, was struck on the driver’s side by the SUV, flipped from the shifting weight of the water and landed on a Ford Mustang convertible on its third roll, said state police Sgt. Michael Bailey. The Mustang driver, Carolyn Puckett, 47, of Bassett didn’t appear hurt, police said.
“The fire truck driver overcorrected and it appears the weight of the load shifted,” Carpentieri said.
Other fire companies subdued the blaze and found the person safely away from the fire, Bailey said.
Rocky Mount’s truck, a 1989 Pierce engine with a 1,000-gallon water tank, can be “top-heavy” in emergency maneuvers, Russell said. Its tank contains baffles to keep the sloshing water from throwing the fire engine off balance, he said.
Dillon was driving the fire truck, which was on its way to a house fire in the Penhook area of Franklin County. Altice was riding in the passenger seat. They were the only people in the truck. Neither Dillon nor Alitce was wearing a seat belt.
The driver of the SUV, Terry Valentine, was taken to Franklin Memorial Hospital with injuries described as non life-treatening.
The driver of the Ford Mustang, Carolyn Puckett, was not hurt in the crash.
Dillon had served on town council for 24 years, including 10 years as vice mayor, and was re-elected vice mayor by council earlier this month. He had been fire chief for 20 years.
Altice joined the fire department in 1963 and served as chief from 1977 to 1984. He was presented a lifetime achievement award by town council in 2008.
The Connecticut medical examiner’s office says a Bridgeport firefighter died of smoke inhalation battling a fire over the weekend, while further study is needed on a second firefighter who died in the same incident.
The medical examiner’s office said 49-year-old Michel Baik died of smoke inhalation. The office also said he had coronary artery disease that contributed to his death.
An autopsy was also done on 40-year-old Steven Velasquez but that will require more study into the cause of death.
“He had one of those safe careers,” said Assistant Fire Chief Manuel Firpi. “He was a computer tech, but since he was young he wanted to be a firefighter. When he got his badge he was so excited, he was holding it up, showing it to his kids. He was just so proud of getting it.”
Baik, one of two who died in a house fire on Elmwood Avenue Saturday, was the department’s oldest rookie. To his comrades, he was “Bake,” “Rookie” and “Furball.”
“The man was covered in hair — he looked like he was wearing a wool blanket all the time,” said Firpi. “But no one had more enthusiasm or passion for the job than Mitch.”
Firefighter Autumn Waggoner said Baik was always excited to come to work. “You could set the clock by him; he was always here at 3 o’clock on the dot,” she said. “Mitch was a sweet teddy bear of a guy, all hairy and huggable but a firefighter through and through.”
Security guard as firefighter didn’t work out so good: In Utica, New York Saturday night firefighters arriving at a State of New York State office building for an automatic alarm were waved off by the security guard who said it was just another malfunctioning alarm. There had been several in the last week. The firefighters were heading back to the station when they were redispatched for a fire in the computer room that did significant damage. Read more from UticaOD.com.
Backdraft in Tempe, Arizona?: Fire officials say the firefighters were very lucky the injuries to three firefighters were minor during a fire in a 1940s house Sunday morning. Some are describing it as a backdraft that blew a firefighter out a door, split a block header, broke casement windows, and damaged the front door. Here’s more.
Firefighter wins residency battle: A hearing officer agrees that Michael Ortiz is following the rules that he live in Lynn, Massachusetts. But Ortiz has other issues to deal with in efforts to keep his job. Read the details.
Firehouse Expo: It was great seeing lots of people in Baltimore. If you scroll through Firegeezer, The Fire Critic and Fire Daily you will see some of the antics in Booth 738. You can also hear some of them on Firefighter Netcast. FossilMedic Mike Ward also writes about the controversy over the damage done a year earlier at the city’s Hilton Hotel adjacent to the Convention Center. Also, thanks to our good friend Mike Legeros for his usual wonderful pictures (like the one to the right).
Helping firefighters cope: At Firehouse Expo on Friday, as part of my work at the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, I sat in on the briefing by Kansas City, Missouri’s Richard Gist on the new ways to help firefighters deal with potentially traumatic events. If you have the opportunity to see this at Fire Rescue International or elsewhere, do so. It is a lot less clinical than you would imagine and further makes the case that one size doesn’t fit all. Dr. Gist, with the help of Vickie Taylor of Prince William County, Virginia, lays out a fairly direct and uncomplicated plan for fire departments to move in this direction. Glenn Smith writes about it in Charleston’s Post & Courier.
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