*  FirefighterHourly is offering a serving of commentary today, on the latest rumblings from Charleston and the internet in general HERE.

*  If you’re looking for some new fire links to try out, click on the Public Safety News Net HERE.  It’s a good collection of links sorted by state.  If EMS is your specialty, then you can check their EMS links HERE.

*  STATter911 has an exclusive story about a D.C. firefighter who didn’t know that it’s supposed to be only one to a bunk HERE.

*  Firefighter Spot has some fresh training videos and one of them comes with a survey he would like you to answer HERE.

*  SConFire connects to a story that shows the Charleston FD was cited 15 years ago for the same violations they committed at the Sofa Center fire in June HERE.

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AN AMBULANCE RESPONDING WITH A PATIENT TO THE St. George, Utah, Dixie Regional Medical Center blew a tire and ran off the road into a ravine Thursday.

Three of the four ambulance attendants were injured.  One suffered a broken foot, another a broken shoulder, and the third had assorted cuts and bruises.  The patient had some minor related injuries.

The ambulance is operated by the Colorado City/Hildale Fire Department.  Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, are twin cities that straddle the border and are infamous for being the settlement for a religious cult that openly practices polygamy.

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MORE THAN 100 FIREFIGHTERS GATHERED IN RANDOLPH, VERMONT, Saturday morning for a 2-hour town hall-style meeting with U. S. Fire Administrator Greg Cade.

The meeting was organized by U. S. Senator Bernie Sanders to provide a direct dialogue between the USFA and Vermont’s firefighters.

During the very productive session that was organized in a Q & A format,  the attendees learned something about how the federal government works.  The Rutland Herald reports:

Gordon Smith, chief of the Johnson Volunteer Fire Department, told Cade he was perplexed none of (the grant) money came his way in the wake of a fire that destroyed the local fire station, totaled two trucks and sidelined the rest of the fleet for several months nearly four years ago.

Smith said he has been applying for a $275,000 grant to pay for a new fire engine since a month after the February 2004 only to be turned down on a regular basis.

Smith said he was stumped by a federal finding the department in Johnson hadn’t adequately demonstrated a “need” and frustrated by a time-consuming grant application process that hasn’t provided the assistance he’d hoped.

“It’s hard for one to imagine if a department loses all their vehicles they aren’t in ‘need,’” Senator Sanders said, bristling at the suggestion that Smith’s applications might not have survived the computer screening process that is used to narrow the field of funding requests.

“We want common sense to prevail,” he said. “If a fire department doesn’t have any equipment it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to know they have a ‘need.’”

Yep, that’s the feds for you.  But overall the meeting was very productive and it is worth your time to read the entire report from the Rutland Herald HERE.

WHEN PROVINCETOWN, MASSACHUSETTS, VOLUNTEER FIRE CAPTAIN LARRY FLORES had a turn of bad breaks early this year, he asked the fire chief if he could stay at the station for a while until he “got back on his feet.”

Fire Chief Michel Trovato relented at first and told Flores he could stay there for a short time.  But after three months and no indication that Flores was trying to find other accomodations, the chief told him to move out.  Another month went by, so the chief sent Flores a letter threatening police action to remove him if he didn’t leave immediately.  Flores then left.

But now the Town Board of Selectmen is in a dither because under state conflict of interest law, “paid and volunteer town officials are barred from using their official positions to secure for themselves or others unwarranted privileges of substantial value.”  They are upset because they just learned that someone was living in the station without paying rent. 

It’s obviously a different world up there.  Almost every other volunteer department are more than happy to provide for “live-ins” as long as they actively participate and respond on calls.

Read the full story in the Cape Cod Times HERE.
Scroll down that same page and check out the Reader’s Comments for some interesting background on this situation.
Provincetown Fire Dept. WEBSITE.

 
Click HERE to visit RocklandUSA radio page

You’re going to be seeing that banner a lot in the next two days.  If you’ve ever clicked on the “About Us” link at the top of the right sidebar (over there - -> ), you know that one of the Geezer Guys runs a couple of internet radio stations, RocklandUSA.  Craig Luecke - “Backdraft” - will be doing a two-hour radio call-in show tomorrow afternoon to promote the Firestorm 2007 project.

While those ovewhelming wildfires in Southern California were tearing through the region, the San Diego Fire Department was working “all hands” for several days.  In fact, they’re still tied up with the remaining fires.

And during the time that they were out trying to save other people’s houses, the fires moved in and took the homes of several of the firefighters.  Three of the FF’s lost everything and two others suffered major destruction.

Craig is busy this weekend lining up his guests, including several of the San Diego firefighters and he will also be interviewing some of your favorite fire bloggers.  It is a listener call-in show, so you will be able to phone in while it’s being broadcast and participate.  If you are unable to listen while the show is live, then you can catch it later on his podcast page or even download it.

The entire focus will be on raising funds to help out the San Diego firefighters, the ones doing all the work out there.  I’ll be posting updates on Firegeezer during the day as all of this comes together.

But first, let’s get the equipment checked out.  I’ll see you at the coffee table.

SURE, YOU THINK YOU KNOW HOW TO COOK.  All the people at the firehouse say that your grub is great and they finish it off.  But chances are they’ve never experienced the succulent excitement of truly manly-style cooking.

Help revive this nearly-lost art of the proper preparation of real, honest to goodness MEAT.

Crazy Einar visits Arthur’s Hall of Viking Manliness and tells you how to do your meat up the right way HERE.

FOLLOWING THE DEADLY FIRE IN THE FORMER Deutsche Bank building and the revelation that building inspections hadn’t been done by the Fire Department, Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta immediately sought out convenient scapegoats. 

Even though everybody in the field had been told that the FD was to stay out of the building, he relieved three officers of their commands, Eng. 10 Captain Peter Bosco, his Battalion Chief and their District Chief, and transferred them to HQ.  Scoppetta claimed that these three lower-level officers were responsible for the department’s lack of a fire plan for the tower and its failure to inspect the building.

Earlier this month on Oct. 10 Firegeezer published HERE a memo from the officer of Ladder 10 requesting the department establish a pre-plan.  This memo was written 32 months before the fire and the pre-plan was magically produced just hours after the fire.

Now documents have been uncovered that show a disturbing gap in the regulatory framework in place at ground zero governing the construction and deconstruction of WTC contaminated buildings. FDNY has no jurisdiction to enforce the building codes and fire codes at ground zero. By its own rules, FDNY is barred from issuing summons and violations against any of the ground zero buildings including the Deutsche Bank building which sits on what is called the South Site.  The buildings at ground zero are either owned by Port Authority of NY & NJ or by New York State.  Such buildings are exempt from FDNY jurisdiction.

These documents are reproduced below.  Click on the icon to read the documents described.  (click a second time to enlarge them.)

1.  Excerpt from FDNY Fire Prevention Manual, Chap. 4 that states that:  a) the FD has no official jurisdiction in state-owned facilities;  b) any inspections requested are “courtesy inspections” to give recommendations only;  c) uniformed personnel shall NOT issue Notices of Violations or summonses.

2.  Page 1 of the minutes of a Dept. of Bldgs. joint agency meeting following the May accident when the pipe fell off the D-B bldg. and went through the roof of firehouse 10.  It shows that there were 12 FDNY officials in attendance and also states that the demolition project is under the jurisdiction of the Dept. of Buildings.

3.  A June, ‘06 memo summarizing and inspection by the Dept. of Environmental Protection wherein Don Adler of the John Galt Corp. stated that the building isn’t subject to any regulations, so it could not possibly fail any standards.

4.  A press release from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (LMDC) which affirms that the D-B building is owned by a state agency.

5.  Pages 1 and 2 of a July, ‘04 LMDC 14-page Request For Proposals wherein it states that the LMDC is a subsidiary of the New York State Urban Development Corp., a political subdivision of the State of New York.

It is evident that nobody in the department can be held accountable for not inspecting the D-B building because the department itself has no authority to require it.  Firegeezer believes that these three field officers, whose integrity has never been questioned, are being used as a shield to hide the culpability of somebody in the FD administration.

So, come Monday morning we can expect to see them restored to their original assignments, right?  Sure.

To read the past postings on Firegeezer about the D-B building fire, type in “deutsche” in the search engine box on the right sidebar.

A PRELIMINARY HEARING OPENED YESTERDAY in Carmel, California, on double-murder charges against the next-door neighbor of a couple that were shot.

Salinas Californian photo

Carmel Valley Fire Captain Eric Ulwelling, who along with a deputy sheriff was the first to arrive at the Grimeses’ house after the shooting, said he saw (the accused) standing motionless at the scene with a “vacant stare.”

When he saw Elizabeth Grimes near the boulder, Ulwelling said she was curled on the ground. When he asked who shot her, Elizabeth Grimes told him Kenney did.

The Monterey Herald has the full STORY.

YESTERDAY WE POSTED THE STORY (HERE) about Greenville’s new fire engine painted in the East Carolina University’s colors of purple and gold.

Since then, we have learned that the Town of Chapel Hill, also in North Carolina, has painted its entire fleet of fire apparatus in the colors of its primary resident, the University of North Carolina.  Everything is done in “Carolina Blue and White.”

Check out the FD’s WEBSITE to see them all.

Do you know of any other fire departments that have done this?  Tell us about it and we’ll put their pictures up too. 

Update:  It has been pointed out that College Park, Maryland, FD shares the colors of its neighbor, the University of Maryland ……. red, white and gold.  Sheeesh… c’mon, guys.  You can do better than that.

YESTERDAY THERE WERE 3,091 PRISON INMATES on the fire lines cutting, chopping, clearing along with the career firefighters.  The California Department of Corrections prison inmate firefighter program has been in existence since the 1940’s and provides a ready workforce for other natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding.  They are easily identified by their orange jumpsuits with CDC PRISONER written on their back.

In order to qualify for the program, they must be physically fit, have no history of violent crime and have four to 36 months remaining on their sentences.  The inmates earn $1 an hour plus two days credit for each day on the fire lines.  For many the greater prize is the prospect of an early release parole and glowing references from correctional authorities.  Certain inmates — murderers, rapists, child molesters and convicted gang members — are barred from serving in the program. Arsonists are also forbidden from joining.

Female Inmates Are Also Used In The Program
Reuters photos

After leaving prison, many of them return to a productive life by going to work for CalFire, the firefighting force of the state Forestry Department.

THE TOWNHOUSE FIRE IN FREDERICK COUNTY, MARYLAND, late Thursday night that left two occupants dead has been ruled an arson by the State Fire Marshall’s office.  The Frederick County Sheriff has also opened a homicide investigation in the case.

Bill Green/Frederick News-Post photo

The woman who was found early yesterday morning in the rubble had been killed prior to the fire and the second body has not yet been identified.  She had filed for divorce from her husband on October 3 and his whereabouts is not known.

WBAL Ch. 11 has the latest STORY.

After Thursday’s disclosure of the letter from the newly-departed president of American LaFrance, some people were wondering if the company is about to go out of business.  The letter was sent out to the suppliers because most of them had stopped delivery on parts to the factory due to lack of payments for them.

But we have received some further information about the company and it appears that they should be able to pull through this ok.  The cash flow problem largely stemmed from their forced move into the new plant after being sold by Daimler-Benz.  D-B wanted to keep the existing plant to assemble SUV’s and gave ALF one year to get out.  This gave cause to an accelerated, and costly, construction schedule for the new plant which had to be brought on line within months.

The new owners, Partriarch Partners, are a venture-capital company that really specializes in buying businesses that are shaky and turning them around to be sold later at a profit.  Supposedly Patriarch has a $5.5 billion capital assets base and are fully able to weather this financial problem with ALF.

Of course, they may later choose to bail out.  But right now it’s unlikely considering the large investment they just made for this new, modern factory.  I expect they’ll do everything possible to get LaFrance back into full operation and start turning a profit again.  Let’s all hope so because ALF is too important to our fire apparatus culture and history to go away.

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The topic for this past Thursday’s Lineup  was the success that a VFD in Nebraska had in a recruiting program.  In the commentary I had the names of the FD’s a little mixed up.  The department that did the recruiting is the La Vista Fire Department.  The weekend training session was held at the neighboring Bellvue FD’s training facility.

La Vista’s Fire Chief, Rich Uhl wrote in to get me on the right track there and he also answered the question that I posed about how they recruited the new applicants in the first place.  Click on over to that article (HERE) and read his response in the Comments section to find out how they did it.  I like to see that kind of innovative thinking and positive action going on.  What kind of recruiting programs are you trying out?

La Vista Rescue Pumper 632

All right, it’s time to get the equipment checked out.  I’m ready for some coffee.