Three members of one family died in a house fire early this morning in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The video above was shot by pumpfirehd on YouTube. Here is an excerpt from the details posted with the video on the website makinthehit.com:
Chief 110 took the command and transmitted the second alarm on arrival with multiple add'l EMS being added. Crews on first and second alarm worked through heavy fire and smoke conditions to search the home for the trapped victims. During operations the EVAC tones were alerted as crews started to make entry to the second floor from ground ladder. The second floor flashed as crews exited the the fire floor onto ladders
The fire was discovered around 12:30 a.m. in the home on the first block of South Line Road in Stevens. Someone inside the home called 911, but by the time firefighters arrived, the home was engulfed. At least eight fire companies responded.
The blaze killed Melvin Rissler, 83, his wife Patty Rissler, 54, and their 24-year-old daughter Rachel Rissler.
Another of the couple's daughters, Heather, 17, was injured when she leaped from a second-floor window of the family home in Stevens.
East Cocalico Township Police Officer Brian Dilliplaine, who was trying to catch the girl as she jumped, and a firefighter, whose identity was not available early today, also were injured as they responded to the fire, said Stevens Fire Company spokesman Delvin Martin.
The 17-year-old girl and the two emergency workers were treated and released from Ephrata Community Hospital after the fire, Martin said.
A tragic situation around midnight in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Three civilians were killed and two firefighters were injured when an ambulance and another vehicle collided. It happened in the 5600 block of Marlboro Pike in District Heights.
PGFD Chief Spokesman Mark Brady says the two firefighters were sent to the trauma center due to the mechanism of their injuries.
Here’s the official release from Brady at 2:20 AM-
Just after midnight, Thursday, a Prince Georges County ambulance and a civilian vehicle were involved in a crash in the 5600 block of Marlboro Pike in District Heights. The crash resulted in 3 civilian fatalities and two Firefighter/Medics being transported to a Trauma Center.
Photo by PGFD's Mark Brady
Ambulance 826 had just departed the Fire/EMS Station and was traveling west on Marlboro Pike en route to a overdose call on Tanow Place. Initial reports indicate that a GMC Suburban SUV was travelling east-bound in the west-bound lanes at a high rate of speed. The ambulance, with emergency lights on and siren sounding, had to swerve to avoid a head-up collision. The SUV side-swiped the ambulance and then hit a brick wall and utlity pole before coming to rest on it’s roof about 120 feet from where it first struck the ambulance.
The three occupants of the SUV, adult males, were pronounced deceased on the scene. Two Firefighter/Medics were transported to a Trauma Center for evaluation but did not appear to have suffered any injuries.
The ambulance sustained major damage from the crash in which the entire right side of the patient compartment was torn off.
The Prince George’s County Police Department Accident Reconstruction Team are conducting the investigation.
Billy Goldfeder at Firefighter Close Calls adds that the Suburban appeared to be traveling at around 100 MPH.
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.
Three family members, including a young girl, died in a house fire here this morning, officials said.
District Chief John Novak of the Toms River Fire Department said he and Chief Gary Dye of Toms River Fire Company One arrived at 32 Pine Hill Road shortly after a 6:36 a.m. 911 call reported the blaze in the two-story single family home there.
Novak said when a neighbor told them three people might still be inside the burning house, a Toms River police officer forced open the front door and found the first victim, a man, near the entrance. He was dead, Novak said.
Novak said he and Dye could go no further until engines with hoses arrived. When they did, firefighters from Toms River, East Dover and Pleasant Plains fire departments knocked down the blaze and began searching the house, he said.
“Because the stairs had burned away, access was compromised,” said Novak.
But firefighters were able to enter the house with a ladder raised to a bedroom window. Novak said when they searched the second floor, they found the bodies of two females: a child under a bed and an adult in a bathroom. The victims are believed to be immediate family, he said.
A call for a Medevac helicopter requested to fly out possible burn victims was canceled when rescuers determined all three victims were dead, Novak said. Officials are not releasing the victims’ names until next of kin can be notified, he said.
FiresceneAudio.com has posted the fireground audio from a house fire at 3:30 this morning in Detroit where three people died. The home is located at Dexter Avenue and Columbus Street.
Photo by John T. Greilick / The Detroit News
Two men in their 60s who were brothers were found on the first floor. A woman was discovered dead on the second floor of the home.
Investigators say electricity had been cut and that power was being run into the home illegally.
Preliminarily investigators suspect a space heater caused the fire.
Both of the men who died required canes to assist in their walking.
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