There was another fire in Flint, Michigan. It happened yesterday evening at Avenue A and East Taylor Street. In the last 10 days there have been close to 50 fires in the city.
As we previously mentioned, mutual aid companies, feeling the pressure of the increased responses at a time when Flint is providing less, are reconsidering their agreements with the city. Click here and here to read those stories.
After a fire broke out Friday evening, police announced there is a suspect in custody, but they don’t believe that man is responsible for the arson spree.
Flint police are confirming they have one man in custody, and they are calling him an arson suspect. He was arrested shortly after the flames broke out.
The flames were first spotted around 7 p.m. at an abandoned home near the intersection of Avenue A and East Taylor Street.
Another view of last night’s fire.
Flint Public Safety Director Alvern Lock says at this point the man is suspected in Friday night’s fires.
They do not believe he is responsible for the recent string of arsons.
The flames were so intense that thick black smoke could be seen for miles across the city.
“This fire is completely unrelated to the other fires that have happened,” Lock said.
Investigators say the fire was intentionally set. They said it likely started in a vacant house before spreading to another vacant home, and then to Lott’s house.
Firefighters hosed down a nearby home as the flames started to spread.
Mutual aid was called in to assist Flint fire, which used every available firefighter. Police arrested a suspect not to far from the scene.
5th alarm in New Jersey: A fire in an industrial building just before 6:00 PM on Saturday at 1275 Bloomfield Avenue in Fairfield. There are four more parts to this video. Click here. Details can be found here. More video is here.
The information flow in your Nation’s Capital: We have two stories for you this morning with connections to the DC Fire & EMS Department and how the District of Columbia government communicates with reporters and, in turn, the public. Both cases seem to follow the same pattern: a reporter uncovers something that on the surface doesn’t seem right; the fire chief or his spokesman provides very limited answers, shedding little light on what actually happened; more information is uncovered by reporters; the initial action is reversed; and in the end the department never fully answers what this was all about.
A Steve Skipton photo from a four-alarm fire in Burlington, New Jersey Sunday afternoon that damaged seven homes. Click the image for more pictures and details from PhillyFireNews.com.
In one of these cases, the aborted donation of a fire truck and ambulance to a resort town in the Dominican Republic, it took ten months before reports from two DC City Council committees provided some transparency. The council determined policies were ignored, but no laws broken. The DC Fire & EMS Department, which appears to have had a secondary role in all of this, continues to refer all questions to Attorney General Peter Nickles. According to the Washington Examiner, Nickles believes the investigation was a “waste of time and a waste of government resources in what became a very political series of actions”. Despite this case now seeming to be closed, Chief Dennis Rubin still faces a little scrutiny by at least two reporters who have compared emails released in the reports with his sworn testimony at a council hearing last April. Click here for that story.
Then there is the story of the Sarasota County, Florida fire chief who remained an employee of the DC Fire & EMS Department while in his new job. In this one, there is no council investigation shedding light on the issue and there is still no indication anyone in the DC government is willing to explain why this arrangement was made, other than to allow Kenneth Ellerbe to be eligible to take home a more favorable retirement package. Through sources, we learned that Ellerbe, who was a deputy chief, resigned from his DC position on January 15. A department spokesman then confirmed that information on Friday. Click here for the latest.
No delay on information here - a battalion chief & two captains are among those fired in Georgia: Pretty quick action in DeKalb County. A report issued in a botched response to what ultimately became a fatal fire and four firefighters were let go. All of this happened within about five days of the fire. Click here for the latest.
Chaplain who is friends with fired top PGFD official quits: Alvin Graham didn’t like some of the policy issues he was dealing with involving the chaplain corps even before Lt. Col. Victor Stagnaro received his walking papers a week ago. But it is clear Stagnaro’s firing was involved in Graham’s decision making process. It was Stagnaro who recruited Graham for the volunteer post nine-years-ago and the men are close friends. On Friday, Chaplain Graham turned in his car and other Prince George’s County property. Here are the details.
Firefighter detained in Haiti: Drew Culberth is a Topeka firefighter who went to Haiti on a different kind of rescue mission. Culberth and nine members of his church are now being held over issues surrounding the group’s efforts to bring 33 children back to the United States. Here’s the story.
Fireground audio from mayday at deadly Brooklyn fire: Five residents died at a fire early Saturday in Bensonhurst. Thirteen firefighters were hurt, including one who became entangled in a collapsing stairwell. Click here for our coverage.
Tulsa firefighters vote to stop job layoffs: Concessions that include a more than five-percent pay cut and furlough days were agreed to by Tulsa firefighters in an effort to prevent 147 from losing their jobs. Here’s the latest.
Racist graffiti, threats, profanity and a noose hanging in a locker; claims of harassment and a culture of accepted sexism, evidenced in part by a topless female firefighter posing in panties on a widely distributed calendar.
It seems the firefighter protest in Belgium was a bit kinder and gentler than the one in Spain. I guess it is hard to get angry in the middle of a foam fight. Photo from the Daily Mail.
Cop mixes up pepper spray and fire extinguisher containers - plus much more from Firegeezer: Bill takes a look at the awful story from Portland, Oregon as a police officer tries to snuff out the flames of a man who set himself on fire. Click here. (I saw this story and was certain I used it in Quick Takes on Thursday or Friday, but I can’t find it. Now which one’s the geezer?)
Fire truck hit by flying object, Part 1: In this case it was a bullet as a St. Louis crew returned from the repair shop. Here’s the story.
Fire truck hit by flying object, Part 2: In this case it was shrapnel from dozens of exploding acetylene and propane tanks at a Flint, Michigan auto salvage business. We have video, pictures and details. Click here.
And more explosions from another Michigan auto salvage firm: The Flint fire was on Saturday. In Detroit, 24-hours earlier, there was a similar fire at an auto salvage and parts business. It went to three-alarms. Click here for fireground audio, video and pictures.
We have a winner! The very first entry into our top stories contest for 2009 correctly guessed the top story of the year. Even though the rest of that person’s top five weren’t on target, it gave me hope for you people and this contest. Once again, Statter was wrong.
Many of you were blinded by our extensive coverage of PGFD and one man in particular, who at last look was still in the Prince George’s County Detention Center. You will have to scroll way done to number 14 to find his picture on this page. Other entries, including one from a person who should know better, focused way too much on our coverage of the District of Columbia Fire & EMS Department. Only one DC story made the list (but it was a big one at number two). In fact, only eight of the top 20 were local stories from the Washington, DC area. Remember that for next year’s contest. We are global in scope here at STATter911.com (yeah, right!).
To get a winner we had to go deep down to someone who guessed two of the top five. While he had the two top stories in reverse order, author and fire service veteran from Baltimore County Chris Hawley was the only entrant to get more than one out of five. The good news is the two Baltimore boys should have lots to talk about when this one buys lunch.
Our rankings are based on the number of pageviews between January 1 and December 31, 2009 according to Google Analytics. If a story had multiple postings we only counted the top one for our list.
The interesting thing is that the bottom two stories and the 21st story were just nine clicks apart. Their rankings kept changing up until the closing hours of 2009. In the end, a somewhat odd, but newer story from Montgomery County, Maryland moved up, knocking off one of my personal favorites from earlier in the year. Number 21 is the story of Alexandria Fire Department (VA) veteran Doug Townshend who, while off duty, rescued his brother Mike from a burning home. Click here for that story.
Click the Popeye cartoon to see what used to pass for a year-end review at STATter911.com.
By the way, I did this type of year end review, rather than the more humorous (at least I thought so) version of the two previous years, because I thought it would be easier to manage. I am writing this at 4:00 AM on New Years Day, so now I am not so sure. If you miss the old one, here it is (I am sure most of it is still true today anyway).
Obviously isn’t just us taking a look back at 2009 and ahead to 2010. Other fire service sites beat us to the punch. Paul Peluso at Firehouse.com says 2009 was the year of the video (look below for proof). FireRescue1.com has a host of characters writing lots of words under its year in review banner. Billy Goldfeder has a message for the new year at FirefighterCloseCalls.com. Paul Combs has a great thought in his December cartoon at FireEngineering.com. I am sure Bill Schumm will have something to help bring in the new year Firegeezer style and so will many others who share the FireEMSBlogs.com site with this rag. .
And Rhett Fleitz at The Fire Critic, who is a great inspiration and supporter to all of us who blog, has a contest that is better than mine. Rhett is looking for the Fire/EMS Blog of the Year 2009 (now you know why I said those nice things about him). Rhett’s is better because he is promoting it as the contest with the prize where you don’t have to sit across the lunch table from Dave Statter.
Thank you to all who entered our contest. Thank you to all who read and comment each day. Thank you to all who link to STATter911.com and carry our stories. Most important, a happy and safe 2010 to all of you and especially those out there protecting us each and every day.
So, drum roll please! We present our 20 most popular stories from 2009:
This was the story that dominated 2009 on STATter911.com. Not only did the posting on May 30 (our fourth posting on the topic) bring in 43 percent more pageviews than our number two story for the year, three other stories on the confrontation would have taken places two, three, and four. When you add up the clicks for the almost 20 stories we posted on this topic they account for about five-percent of the overall traffic on the blog for 2009.
There have been more than 700 comments (actually a lot more than that, but many we couldn’t publish). A couple of comments still arrive each week.
I think the reason for the high numbers, besides being a hot topic, is that we apparently reached way beyond our normal fire and EMS service audience on this story. It helps that the YouTube video above, which has more than two million views, has our link in its description.
As much grief as I get for carrying too many negative stories on the blog, the only reason the world knew about this one is because I was trying to do a good deed and post some positive news. On Wednesday, October 7 there were two sprinkler demonstrations scheduled in the National Capital region. One at Gallaudet University and the other at the University of Maryland (at MFRI). My goal was to get to both of them, but the Maryland one was the priority because of the release of a study about Prince George’s County’s mandatory residential sprinkler law. I never made it to DC and no one said anything to me about a problem during that demonstration.
As I was about to leave work the following evening I was feeling guilty the DC sprinkler video didn’t get any play in my story the day before (there had been a photographer on the scene from LNS, the local news service run by my station and two others in Washington). I pulled the video up with the intention of editing something for the blog and possibly WUSA9.com. Of course, as I watched the video, I immediately realized there was a little bit more to this demonstration.
This entry had 128 comments. More comments came in after Chief Dennis Rubin, when talking about what he saw, used the term “comedy act”.
Firefighter Will Gregory exits the home with his PPE on fire. Photo by Brian Haney, The Daily Record.
This was a late entry for the year. It came about because FirefighterCloseCalls.com first put out the story of the close call based on the newspaper article by Brian Haney at The Daily Record in Dunn, NC. Figuring that there might be more than one photo, I called Mr. Haney and he told me he had shot 210 images from that fire. Brian sent a bunch to STATter911.com and gave us permission to use the photos.
Until a day or two ago, this was in the number three spot for the year. In my heart I wish it was number one. I was blogging away on the Friday afternoon that Ladder 26 wrecked trying to keep up with the developments from Boston. Later in the evening when we learned that Lt. Kevin Kelley was the firefighter killed, it didn’t take long to find his appearances from Firehouse USA on the web. How can you not smile when you watch these?
While I get a lot of stories and videos from your tips, this is one I found all by myself. Going through fire related YouTube videos on a Sunday evening I happened upon this clip. I usually don’t run controlled burning type training exercises, but this one looked different. After picking my jaw off the floor upon seeing the unusual PPV via the leaf blower, I decided this was one worthy of a wider audience.
You have to admit this one was different. The 160-foot Spirit of Washington squeezed the 72-foot John H. Glenn Jr., putting a big gash in the Glenn’s hull and sidelining the boat for many months. The collision also crushed a small FBI boat at an adjacent dock.
This is a rather simple story of a rescue in that it was popular despite there being no video of the event. Firefighters saving the day when it looks like that might be impossible.
Here’s how WZZM-TV’s Lambrini Lukidis described the story:
Kelysse LaBelle is full of energy today. But when fireman Scott Campau rescued her from the bottom of Fisherman’s Landing in Muskegon last week, Kelysse was purple, her eyes were gray and lifeless.
“The stroller was actually sitting up-right on its wheels on the bottom of the lake and she was unconscious,” said Campau.
“She wasn’t breathing, no heart rate,” said Battalion Chief Ken Chudy who lead the team on the call. “She was lifeless when we pulled her out of the water,” said Fireman Kevin McMillan also assisted by firemen Chad Horn and Scott Hemmeslbach.
Eight Prince George’s County firefighters were hurt when an explosion occurred while they were investigating a natural has leak at a shopping center in Forestville.
Truly one of the great stories of the year. John and Joel Rechlitz received national attention for their off-duty rescue of a young boy from a burning car. Their efforts didn’t stop after the rescue. The firefighters remained close to D.J. Harper and his family. Click here.
In December, 2008 Continental Flight 1404 ran off a runway and burst into flames at Denver International Airport. This was the audio as the airport tower controllers directed firefighters to the scene.
The fireground audio provided by Erie County Fire wire was very difficult to listen to as these two men responded to a call for help inside the burning building on Genesee Street.
Layoffs and budget cuts were THE story of 2009. We saw a lot of stories like this one, but for some reason the Flint fire got more attention than the others.
What more can I say about this frequent subject of STATter911.com stories. In the interview Jerry Engle told us all about an arson ring involving firefighters. Later in the year Engle and another former volunteer from Riverdale were both charged with the fire Jerry told us about. If you haven’t read enough about him, click here for our Jerry archive.
A touching tribute to firefighters who were lost 50-years earlier. The incident is believed to be the first time the term BLEVE was used to describe the rupture and rocketing of a flammable liquid container during a fire.
It took teamwork and a lot of guts as a dispatcher and engine company worked to save a woman trapped in an apartment fire started thanks to a neighbor’s meth lab. Video shows Chad Meyer from Engine 26 basically walking through fire to bring out Nikki Cain.
This entry from Montgomery County had to be one of the more unusual stories of the year. A firefighter’s date spent the night at the firehouse and got lost on the way to the bathroom.
What this means is that, even though Kyle Wilson died in a house fire in April, 2007 and the report was released nine-months later, firefighters are still interested in learning from this tragic situation. Enough people searched, found and apparently read that entry in 2009 to make it part of our top 20.
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