Charleston Update: Memorial Service. Assistant Chief Thought it was Under Control. Fireground Radio Transmissions.
Click here to look at the program for the “Charleston Fire Department Memorial Service” at the North Charleston Coliseum.
About 20 minutes after the service in Charleston ended I had a phone conversation with D.C. Fire & EMS Chief Dennis Rubin. Chief Rubin said, for him, it was the procession of caskets from the Charleston Coliseum that illustrated the enormity of this tragedy. With a firefighter dying in the line of duty about every 78 hours, Rubin said he has been to his share of funerals. But to see 9 flag draped caskets was overwhelming.
Rubin said he, IAFF Local 36 President Dan Dugan, and the almost 100 firefighters on hand from D.C., had about five minutes with Charleston Fire Chief Rusty Thomas. Rubin said Chief Thomas was touched by the $45,000 check for the families of the fallen firefighters. The money came from an anonymous donor in Washington.
Incident commander says, “I had all the confidence in the world that we had it under control.”
Assistant Chief Larry Garvin on charleston.net:
Certain that the fire could be contained with teams now on the inside and the outside, Garvin left the showroom when he heard a dispatcher say a store employee was trapped in the warehouse. To get to him, Garvin took off on a 100-yard trip around the back of the building.
“We did everything that we were trained to do. All the safety procedures were followed. I never would have told any of those firefighters to go in there if I thought they were in danger.”
911 calls and fireground radio transmissions have been released.
Details from charleston.net and WCBD-TV.
Union official angry.
The president of the South Carolina Professional Firefighters Association says he is angry and sad. Michael Parrotta is speaking out about the loss of 9 firefighters in Charleston. Below is an excerpt from the article on charleston.net.
Michael A. Parrotta, president of the South Carolina Professional Firefighters Association, said firefighters should not have been in the building unless they were actively searching for civilians based on reliable information.
“To lose nine lives in this fire is totally unacceptable,” he said. “It’s a needless, needless tragedy. I’m angry and I’m sad.”
Parrotta said he understands that families are still in the early stage of grieving, but he said he feels an obligation to ask on behalf of rank-and-file firefighters whether procedures were followed on the scene. “People feel it’s in poor taste to ask these questions so soon. We can’t forget this. We have to find out what happened.”
Bill Schumm at firegeezer.com alerted me that Parrotta made similar comments to Fox News Channel earlier in the week.
Thursday’s briefing from ATF at the fire scene via WCSC-TV
More pre-collapse pictures, like the one above, from zen-grafix.com.
My friend Susan Nicol Kyle with firehouse.com rushed from the MSFA Convention in Ocean City, Maryland to Charleston and has a one-on-one interview with Fire Chief Rusty Thomas.
Talking with Barry McConaghey of firefightingnews.com today, he points me to a story he added to his site on Wednesday . A fire in California in a somewhat similar building as the one in Charleston. But there was a big difference.
EARLY PICTURES, VIDEO AND TIMELINE:
A man named John Pundt has captured some of the earliest moments of the tragic Charleston fire. That’s his picture above. It appears to be taken in the minutes between the violent flashover and the collapse.
Pundt also has video from his cell phone. All of it is from the front of the building. It shows the conditions going from light smoke, to dark smoke to heavy fire. It ends before the collapse occurs. Pundt’s video and pictures were filed with charleston.net.
There is also the account of Jonathan Tyrrell III on charleston.net. He was the man rescued by firefighters in the moments before the flashover and collapse. The video we first alerted you to on Tuesday, taken by Howard Armstrong, apparently shows the efforts the firefighters made to get to Tyrrell. The first shot of the video shows a firefighter with an axe trying to get through a roll-up door. A hose line is apparently being used to keep the area cool. According to the article, the firefighters eventually created a hole large enough for Tyrrell to crawl through to safety.
A TV interview with Tyrrell can be found here.
Besides the Pundt and Armstrong material, this AP photo by Alexander Fox is among the first pictures taken as Charleston firefighters arrived at the Sofa Super Store Monday night.
LINKS TO MORE STORIES:
Wednesday interview with Charleston Fire Chief Rusty Thomas.
Raw video of Wednesday’s press conference with coroner.
WCBD-TV talks with sole survivor of Engine 16.
Some early video and still pictures from WCIV-TV.
More on the Howard Armstrong video here.
A noon press conference by ATF can be found here.
Latest information from the City of Charleston.
LOCAL INFORMATION & STORIES:
Locally, an anonymous donor in Washington has provided 45 thousand dollars in the name of D.C. Fire & EMS to be given to the families of the fallen firefighters in Charleston. Chief Dennis Rubin is planning to take the check with him on Friday as he heads to Charleston for the memorial service. A press release says that nearly 100 D.C. Fire & EMS members are expected to be at the service. This includes the DC Fire & EMS Honor Guard and Emerald Society Pipe and Drum Band.
Of course there are a lot more local firefighters heading south for the memorial service. Mike Mohler and Joel Kobersteen from IAFF Local 2068 said a contingent of Fairfax County, Fairfax City and New Hampshire firefighters were traveling overnight, leaving from the Massey Building.
Pete Piringer from Montgomery County says the Department’s Honor Guard left Wednesday night with a group from Baltimore.
Interviews with Hal Bruno and Cathy Hedrick of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.
Safety Stand Down with Fairfax County Fire & Rescue Department.
Our interview with Chief Greg Cade a few hours before Charleston fire.
