Town Shuts Down Fire Dept. Over YouTube Video

THE TOWN OF ETNA, MAINE, HAS ORDERED THE LOCAL fire department shut down.  You’ve no doubt seen many of those home videos that are proliferating on YouTube where someone mounts a camera on a vehicle and tapes the response.  The chief of the VFD in Etna did that, using his own camera in his own automobile and posted it.

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Ch. 6 images

The Town Manager, and the Board of Selectmen (the governing body of the town) were somehow upset with this.  But no reason was given why they are feeling violated over it.  However, they ordered the chief to remove his six videos from YouTube and he did.  But something is apparently going on in that tiny town that they don’t want outsiders to learn about.  Instead of removing the chief they have shut down the entire department and ordered all the members to turn in all of their equipment as soon as possible.

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The town has arranged with neighboring communities to cover any fires there.

WCSH Portland Channel 6 has the STORY,
and they also have a VIDEO REPORT.

Firegeezer also notes:  Here’s the quote-of-the-day from that report:  Town Manager Evelyn Serval says, “We’ve taken our department and closed it, yes. But we’ve made sure other towns will respond…so I feel like it’s not anything outside of the ordinary.”  That’s just plain loopy, folks.  What’s going on there?