Slideshow from WUSA9.com

Read PGFD press release on four house fires

The storm that hit the Washington, DC area yesterday kept fire departments busy. Roads were clogged with abandoned cars during what WTOP Radio reporter Bob Marbourg called an “unprecedented” evening rush hour Wednesday. Emergency crews were having difficulty not just with the snow and ice, but getting around the traffic and stalled vehicles. Wires down and power failures added to the work load for fire and EMS. In addition, there were a number of fires in homes without electricity.

The Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department had four such house fires between 10:30 last night and 5:30 this morning. In one, a fire at a Glenn Dale home, firefighters rescued a woman from a second floor window. 

The video on this page is from a house fire in College Park. Here are details from a press release by PGFD’s Chief Spokesman Mark Brady:

At about 5:30 am, firefighters from the College Park area were alerted to a house fire in the 5000 block of Pierce Avenue.  Fire/EMS units arrived quickly to find a 1-story single family home with fire showing from the basement.  An interior attack by firefighters on the fire was in progress when a partial collapse of the first floor occurred.  Personnel immediately evacuated the structure and were accounted for and deemed OK by incident commanders.  An exterior attack continued on the fire which had now extended up to the first floor.  The family was alerted to the basement fire by a working smoke alarm.  All occupants escaped the home safely prior to the fire departments arrival.  The cause of the fire is attributed to a fireplace in the basement,  This home was without power due to the winter storm on Wednesday.  Fire loss is estimated at $140,000. 

A look back – raw video from 1992 riots  in Los Angeles: This is 10-minutes of about 50-minutes dumped onto LiveLeak on Monday. This one starts as firefighters arrive on the scene of a well involved commercial building fire with another one burning down the street. This is actually Part 4 of five parts . Here are the rest (haven’t been able to find Part 1):  Part 2, Part 3, Part 5.

UPDATE on Maryland firefighter who wound up on car hood at fire scene: Last night in Bethesda, Maryland the driver of the first arriving engine at a working apartment fire ended up in the hospital with serious injuries. The firefighter was hand stretching a supply line across the street when an she struck by a car. We have new details about the firefighter and what happened.  Click here.

Oklahoma City police name suspect in shootings and arson that left Moonlite Bunny Ranch prostitute and three others dead. Click the image for the update on the murder of Brooke Phillips of HBO's "Cathouse".

Leaf blower video vanishes and then returns: Not a surprise. I didn’t expect it to last as long as it did once people started seeing and reacting to the clip of the live burn with  a camper, some interior firefighting and a leaf blower for PPV. Now thebravestonline.com has the a copy. Click here.

Where one man can make a difference: In Eddington, Maine they are crediting the fire department’s live-in program for saving the day at a recent fire. Check out the story.

Also in Maine - accused arsonist has two connections to the fire: One he is a paid, on-call firefighter and two he works at the warehouse that was torched. Firegeezer has the story from Presque Isle. 

Indulge me for a moment: A friend of mine celebrated a milestone yesterday. But he is more than just a friend. If you drive a car in the Washington area, he and his colleagues are public utilities. They are radio traffic reporters (I am biased, I used to be one). To me, Bob Marbourg, celebrating 30-years at WTOP Radio, is a master at his craft. By the way, when he learns of a wreck or other incident, he always reminds drivers to watch out for the emergency vehicles that may be responding. One thing you should know is that Bob will absolutely hate what I have written. That’s because it is mostly about him and not a detailed discussion of traffic, transportation and the motorists who must deal with the daily commute. To that Bob, I say tough! Click here for my thoughts and the video that was added to the post last night.

Fire in Denver: This is from last Wednesday during a fire in a multi-family dwelling at 14th and York.

More on Bob Marbourg from WTOP’s Adam Tuss

Thirty-years-ago today Bob Marbourg opened a microphone at WTOP Radio and hasn’t stopped talking since. He talks about the topic he knows best and is most passionate about: traffic.

First, let me make my bias clear in what I am about to write. I am a big Bob Marbourg fan and a friend of 31-years. Bob spends each afternoon on the radio with my wife, Hillary Howard.

Bob Marbourg from WTOP.com.

Having been a radio traffic reporter in Washington, DC, and worked with Bob in two different jobs, I have a great deal of respect for the people who call traffic reporting their profession. This town is lucky to have very good people on the radio who are committed to this vital and often overlooked part of broadcasting. Some of them, like Bob, are my friends. We all, including Bob, owe a great deal of debt to the people who went down this path before us, like the late Walt Starling and Captain Dan Rosensen.

But to me, Bob is unique. He is truly one of the rare people you meet in your life who is a master at their craft.

Much like a rookie firefighter learning his response area, Bob, a New York native and Vietnam vet, conducted his own street drills from his first days coming to Washington in the 1970s. Obviously, Bob’s first due is a little larger than the average firefighter’s. He hasn’t stopped this discovery of the highways, landmarks, traffic signals, road construction projects and potholes. It continues each and every day of his life.

When Bob moved from an airplane to a studio with scanners, computers, phones and maps, he adapted with more hard work. Bob visited the locations of traffic cameras, making sure he was clear where they were positioned and what they see. But there has long been more than just an intense work ethic involved with Bob.

All of us who have to travel the clogged roads in and around the Nation’s Capital (number two in traffic congestion in the country), owe Bob a big thank you. He, following in the foot steps of Walt and Dan, is an advocate for the motorist.

When he sees traffic problems being ignored, Bob is not shy about bringing it to the attention of those in charge. Sometimes he is forced to do it via the microphone in front of him. Other times it is a quiet buttonholing of a traffic agency head or police chief.

There are two important areas where I believe Bob has had great impact and little recognition for his efforts. From his earliest days, Bob would be all over construction crews that didn’t clear out of the roadway for the rush hour or stop work as a get-away holiday weekend approached. It is has been common practice for a while now that road construction contracts prohibit these practices and bring penalties to contractors for such violations. Bob has helped keep everyone honest on this front.

The second area is regionalization. The late Rich Adams helped push fire and EMS in the Washington area to do a better job of talking and working with each other through his TV editorials on Channel 9. Part of this was spurred by the response to the Air Florida crash at the 14th Street Bridge on January 13, 1982. Much as our friend Rich deserves credit for stronger mutual aid, Bob’s similar work on the traffic and transportation front is also due recognition. This is because Bob has long had one of the best overall views of how the various pieces fit together and often recognized the problems before anyone else.

One of the first things you will notice if you watch Bob work is that there is little, if anything, he writes down. It is all in his head. He knows it that well. 

Besides working with and competing with Bob at various times, I have listened to him regularly for all of these years. I only recall once or twice that I was able to catch him saying the wrong name of a road or something similar. When you think of the amount of material he puts out, that is an amazing record. We all wish we could be that accurate.

As anyone who knows Bob or listens to his reports on the radio will tell you, he is all business when that microphone is on. Because of this, it has, at times, rubbed some people he has worked with, and for, the wrong way (he is lucky to have current management that truly values the treasure they have on the air each weekday).  Bob is this way because he feels it’s his job to quickly transmit important information, using concise language, to people who have to make snap decisions about which way to go. He doesn’t want to disappoint a driver by delaying that information when they need it the most.

Bob has always been this way. It started even before he took over the reporting duties at WTOP from Steve Thompson, who had been seriously injured when the traffic reporting plane ended up in someone’s back yard in Vienna on November 15, 1979.

What were unusual traffic tie ups when when I first worked with Bob, are now the norm (even outside of rush hour). To me, that means it is even more important to have experience like Bob’s to interpret the various information that comes into the traffic center. 

As always, traffic conditions can change very quickly. This makes traffic reporting more of an art than a science. If that’s the case, Bob Marbourg is our Rembrandt.