Quick Takes
It isn’t letting up in Flint: More vacant building fires in the troubled Michigan city in the wake of fire and police layoffs that started on Thursday. This one is from last night around 10:00 PM at the corner of Oak and Court. Click here for video of a Sunday afternoon fire and details from WJRT-TV. Two more of the fires from early Sunday morning are here and here. And here is one from Saturday. With the city officials openly speculating that the layoffs and the fires are connected, you can’t help think of the early 1980s when Boston was the “arson capital of the world”. That long, ugly and devastating episode had its origins in a group of fire buffs reacting to the layoffs of hundreds of Massachusetts firefighters and police officers. A little history lesson.
Family told for the second time in two days that man was dead: Relatives of George Waters first heard on Friday that the 70-year-old man was dead. That turned out not to be true. Then they heard the same news on Saturday from the Prince George’s County Hospital Center. This time the news was correct. The Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department has two reviews underway looking at why this happened. Two paramedics are sitting on the sidelines as this is sorted out. It is the second such incident for PGFD this year. Here is the latest story. Here is our initial coverage.
Florida chief says better info from 911 might have shaved minutes off door removal to help dying woman: This is a very interesting story from North Fort Myers. Chief Larry Nisbet of the Bayshore Fire Department believes if his firefighters had the same information they had at the 911 center, the crew wouldn’t have waited to remove the front door and help a dying 72-year-old woman. The director of Lee County’s 911 says no policies need to be changed. Here’s the story.
911 head says human error and CAD issue sent firefighters to the wrong address for a house fire: Check out this story from Perry County, Pennsylvania.
Cops cite firefighter at scene: Not a lot of details of what went wrong at a domestic violence call in Leadville, Colorado leading to a firefighter charged with obstruction. Read what we know.
Listen as firefighters report tornado touchdown: Violent weather yesterday in and around High Point, North Carolina. We have video and pictures along with FireSceneAudio.com‘s radio traffic as things get pretty busy for the 911 center. Here is our coverage.
Jumper from Montgomery County, PA fire: PhillyFireNews.com has a series of pictures from a house fire early Saturday morning in Lansdale. Click here. Read more about the fire.
Raw video, lots of pictures and memories after 5-alarm fire: In Sacramento they are mourning the loss of Iceland, a 70-year-old skating rink. Check it out.
“Useless” firefighter video draws comments: I put this video up to stimulate a little discussion, and it did. A citizen somewhere called the fire department “useless” for laughing off a suggestion they get a cat down from a power pole. The power company ended up handling it. There isn’t anyone arguing the fire department should have done the job, but there are a few making the case that the customer service and PR component might have been better handled (based on the impression of the unknown videographer). Here are the video and the comments.
A lot worse PR than not handling a stuck cat: If the reports are true, the lows of modern firefighter behavior may have hit a new height (does that make any sense?). Check out this story of the “Rat Pack” in Australia and see how two of its members were punished.
Friday was Mid-Atlantic train derailment day: We started with the dangling locomotive that almost went into the drink in Chesapeake, Virginia because the bridge was in the “up” position. Click here. That was followed by a derailment in Maryland. While it was posted in our player, we never got to mention the Howard County incident. Here’s that video. Doug Walton at his Howard County blog has details and close-up pictures of the wreckage in Patapsco Valley State Park near the swinging bridge (I used to love that place as a kid).
How can a geezer be only three-years-old?: That’s a lifetime in blogger years. Bill Schumm just celebrated three years at the helm of Firegeezer.com. Congratulations to Bill. What do you get for the third anniversary? More links, of course. There’s lots to choose from, so just scroll down. The most interesting to me is the fire engine in Croatia that lost a battle with a tram. Click here for that one.
Fire in Virginia Beach: We have an early series of still pictures from an apartment fire with an arts store down below on the oceanfront. Click here. Since our posting, FireRescueTV.com added some video to those pictures. Click here.
Early video in Milford, Massachusetts: Cameras were on the scene as a man came out a third floor apartment window while fire raged down below. The three-alarm fire has lots of video and pictures to document it. Here it is.
Apartment fire in Hobart, Indiana: Report of a number of injuries at this fire on Sunday near Hickey and Liberty.
