*  FirefighterHourly objectively looks at the Volusia County, Florida, flag flap HERE.

*  STATter911 has the follow-up story on the Johnson City, New York, asst. chief who decided to show up for work wearing nothing but a necktie the other week HERE.

*  FireRescue1 has a nice story about a retiring fire captain who got to work his final shift with his two FF sons HERE.

*  FirefighterSpot has just added another batch of hot VIDEOS.

*  The VaFireNews statewide apparatus roster is up to 85 counties now.  Only about 15 more to go HERE.

*  SConFire has the story on Charleston’s big tax hike to bring their department into the 1980’s HERE.

THE SCOTTISH AMBULANCE SERVICE TRAINING HEADQUARTERS  at Barony Castle, Peebles, was raided yesterday by the National Health Service (NHS) fraud investigators.  As a result, three high-level staff members have been place on immediate suspension while the investigation continues.

They are facing claims that they have siphoned off hundreds of thousands of Pounds over a period of eight years by running their own private businesses and utilizing Scottish Ambulance employees and vehicles to fulfill illicit contracts.

Their scheme fell apart when one of the SA ambulances was involved in a crash in Ireland.  When the Irish police reported the accident to Scottish Ambulance, the managers were puzzled because they didn’t have any jobs running in Ireland at the time.

The Glasgow Daily Record has the full STORY.
Scottish Ambulance Service WEBSITE.

IN SAULT STE. MARIE, ONTARIO, an ambulance crew was inside the Windsor Park Retirement Residence tending to an emergency call.

While they were inside, Bruce McAllister got inside the ambulance and drove it away.  The police found the ambulance eight minutes later with McAllister sitting in the driver’s seat wearing an ambulance paramedic jacket.

He has been charged with one count of theft over $5,000.00, one count of possession of property obtained by crime and one count of willful mischief-endangering life.

SooNews has the STORY.

THE CAUSE OF THE TRAGIC FIRE AT THE INDIANAPOLIS ZOO on Nov. 10 (Firegeezer report HERE) has been determined.

An armadillo, just doing his thing, most likely pushed some bedding material too close to a heat lamp.

The Indianapolis Star reports:

The Nov. 10 fire in the zoo’s Critter Corner building caused about $120,000 in damage. An insurance company investigator told the zoo the fire probably started when combustible material, likely bedding used by an armadillo, was pushed too close to a heat lamp. The lamp was properly placed 2 feet above the floor. 

Pushing the material into a pile is known as “rooting” and is part of the animal’s natural behavior, the zoo said. However, “the type of activity that would have caused this alignment to occur had not been previously observed over a period of several years.”

 The investigator said that the building’s electrical systems operated correctly before and during the incident, that there were no evident malfunctions of heat lamps or wiring, and that the alarm and fire suppressant systems also operated as programmed.

The full Indy Star STORY.

AN EXPLOSIVE FIRE YESTERDAY AFTERNOON CRIPPLED A MAJOR pipeline that delivers crude oil from Canada to the U. S.

The Enbridge pipeline carrier is actually four lines, two larger and two smaller pipelines laid in proximity to each other.  One of the larger lines was shut down yesterday while workers were repairing a leak when the fire occurred, killing two of the workers.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:

An initial assessment indicates that during repairs, a fitting failed on the 34-inch-diameter Enbridge Energy interstate pipeline south of Clearbrook.  Contrary to early reports, there was no explosion at the site, where Enbridge has a storage terminal.

“Apparently, when the repair was finished and they brought the pressure up by again starting the oil pumping through the line, one of the fittings failed,” said Kristine Chapin of the Minnesota Office of Pipeline Safety.

The pipe had leaked two weeks ago and a temporary repair had been put in place. As workers were removing the temporary repair, oil began leaking and the fumes ignited, said Darren Lemmerman, acting chief engineer with the Minnesota Office of Pipeline Safety.

Now the entire system is shut down while investigations and repairs are made.  The other large line will require some repair and a regulatory inspection before it can start up again.  The two smaller lines, which were several hundred feet away, will only require inspecting are expected to be back online soon.  The line that suffered the explosion and fire will be out of service for quite a while.

The event took place about 3 miles SE from the pipeline’s Clearbrook, Minnesota, terminal.  Early predictions say that the fire could burn for another 2 or 3 days.  The fire has now burned itself out.

This major pipeline imports approx. 10% of the U. S. total consumption of crude oil and the accident will be extremely costly to the economy as the supply is drastically being reduced just as the winter heating season is beginning.

The Star-Tribune STORY.

Whenever new technology or methods are brought into the mainstream culture, there are always some delays and skepticism before these new ways are fully accepted.

But I should say almost always.  In the case of the massive transfer to the electronic era this hasn’t been so.  Our entire populace has dived in and accepted this new way of record-keeping and information transfer in a way that has completely transformed the way we live and do business.

It wasn’t that many years ago that when you would present your credit card to the cashier of a retail store, everything would come to a halt while the cashier pulled out this Reader’s Digest-sized book with 50,000 suspended credit card numbers in it.  Then she’d desperately thumb through the book comparing your card number with the “hot sheet” before the sale could be completed.

But now, with the combination of high-speed, reliable computers and efficient wireless and cable telephone connections, such transactions are accurately and safely completed in the fraction of a second.  We are reminded of this benefit every time we purchase gasoline with the plastic card.  Or use that life-saving device known as the ATM.  You just punch a few numbers into a little keyboard, dutifully face the wall for a few seconds, and then money comes out of a little slot for you to take and keep on spending.

Even though I now take advantage of this new technology and have automatic payment plans with my utility bills and debit card use for the stores,  I still write the occasional check.  But now I am running low on checks and need to order a fresh supply.  Later this morning I will log onto the printer’s webpage, enter a few basic figures, and about 3 minutes later I will be finished.  Within 12 hours my box of new checks will be printed, packaged and in the mail where I will get them in 2 or 3 days.  Ain’t that slick?

Ok, time to get the equipment checked out.  I’ve got to get the coffee started.  We don’t have a computer that does that yet.

WHEN I WAS A KID, WE THOUGHT IT WAS REALLY DARING to put a penny on the train tracks.

But we’re in a more sophisticated era now.  These innovative Norwegian youngsters have taken train tricks to a new level.  I guess these kids were born with carpentry in their blood.

LAST WEEK A PHOENIX TV STATION ran a sensational story about a “female impersonater” who had bought a fire engine and tried to run fire calls with it in the little Northern Arizona town of Seligman.  Firegeezer picked it up and posted it on Nov. 21 HERE.

“Donna”

What tipped them off was the sex-identity twist to the story and that is the direction the brief article took.  But it didn’t take long for us to find out that the full tale of Donna and his magic fire truck runs much deeper than that.  His irrational behavior has been going on for several years, causing a constant problem for the citizens and the Seligman Fire Department.

Firegeezer has begun an in-depth investigation into the record of this rogue fire department and its unusual members.  Not only have we found an amazing number of weird happenings, but also a persistent pattern of fraudulent behavior.  To tell the full story of this strange activity will take several days and perhaps weeks.

Starting today, we will be begin a regular series reporting on the surreal story of the Bridge Canyon Volunteer Fire Department.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

The front line of the BCVFD

Our story begins 10 years ago in Seligman, Arizona, when an ex-con arrived in town.  Frederick Renan Cross III was unknown by any of the 500 residents except for one.  And he was certainly unrecognizable because he was dressed in women’s clothing, had makeup on, and had plucked his eyebrows.

He went straight to an old 5th-wheel camping trailer that was permanently parked as a residence and occupied by Charles Clark.  This new mystery-woman began moving around town and telling everybody that her name was Donna Clark.  And for the next ten years, nobody knew that Donna was really a man.  Nor did they know that Donna had a string of aliases.

Even the Yavapai County sheriff isn’t sure how many aliases Frederick Cross has used, but we have learned of eight so far:

• Donna Clark

• Donna White

• Donna Dorathy (sic) Clark

• Donna R. Clark

• M. Mann

• Michelle Denise

• Donna Fredericks

• Meg Young, attorney

• Don Clark

Tomorrow we will continue with the next installment of our series that will be posted as The Daily Donna.  We will begin by saying a little about the historic western town of Seligman and tell you about its real fire department, the Seligman Fire Department, and cover the beginnings of the BCVFD.

photos courtesy National Corvette Museum 

THE NATIONAL CORVETTE MUSEUM IN BOWLING GREEN, KENTUCKY, is starting a major expansion project.

Last week earth-movers began the site work for a $9 million, 47,000-sq. ft. addition to the existing museum located near the General Motors assembly plant where the Corvettes are produced.

Wendell Strode, director of the museum, said bids for the work should be awarded in February, with the work beginning in March, weather permitting. Strode hopes the project is complete in early summer 2009 so that the finishing touches, including new grass growing, can be ready for the museum’s 15th anniversary on Labor Day that year.

Architect’s drawing of new expansion area

The new area will include a library-archives, an expanded gift store and a conference center with a seating capacity of 400. The center also can be used to display 50 additional cars. 

It also will add a dedicated area for inspection, display and pickup of special-delivery Corvettes people order from the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant.

About 17,000 square feet of the existing museum will be renovated and 275 parking spaces will be added.

The 5 generations of Corvette

The National Corvette Museum WEBSITE.

THE FOOD PACKING WAREHOUSE IN WARWICKSHIRE, England, where four FF’s died under a collapsed roof, is still being searched and investigated. 

(Firegeezer archived stories including video reports HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.)

ITN photo

At a news conference this morning, the police superintendant in charge said that they will be searching the destroyed building possibly as late as the end of January.  When one of the journalists asked him if the Fire Brigade could possibly be facing criminal charges,  Det Supt Ken Lawrence made the bizarre statement that: “It is possible. We are exploring every single possibility and ruling nothing out.”  He added: “I still don’t know what started it. I am erring on the side of caution, treating it as if it was arson, but clearly I would add that I am open-minded about that.”

BBC News is reporting on this unusual press conference HERE.

Although it has been nearly four weeks since the fire, the dates for the funerals of the four firefighters who perished have just now been set.  The first one, for John Averis, will be held this Friday.

Firegeezer asks:  Just what is this lunkhead thinking?  Is he actually considering holding fire officers criminally responsible for consequences resulting from their decisions during an ongoing fire?

Personally, I don’t think the public would allow such a prosecution to proceed.  But it makes you wonder what kind of mindset is in the police bureaucracy to even consider such a ridiculous course of action.  The result would be a virtual cessation of all fire protection activities.

Flashback video from Nov. 4

 Update:  Patient dies.  Scroll down.

JUST AFTER 3:30 am THIS MORNING IN COLCHESTER, VERMONT, and ambulance traveling on I-89 with a patient onboard lost control on the snowy highway and rolled over.

WCAX Ch. 3 has the early report:

“The ambulance was traveling southbound from New York enroute to Fletcher Allen, hit some slush between two lanes of the highway, slid out of control and rolled over. Came to a controlled rest in the ditch,” said Trooper Phillip Wagner.

A driver and a medic were also on board at the time of the crash. The patient and medic were taken to the hospital to be treated for unknown injuries. Their conditions are not known. The driver was not hurt.

Police say speed and road conditions were a factor.

Update, 11:30 am:  The Burlington Free Press is now reporting that the patient in the ambulance has died from injuries that she sustained from the accident.  They tell:

State police say they are investigating the accident that happened at about 3:15 a.m. A Seaway Valley Ambulance transporting Mary Catanzarite, 80, of Massena, was traveling south on I-89 toward Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, when it slid off the slush and snow-covered highway and overturned.

Police said Catanzarite and EMT Michael Guthrie, 39, of Massena, were injured and taken to Fletcher Allen, where Catanzarite died of undisclosed injuries. Guthrie was listed in serious condition this morning, hospital officials said.

The ambulance driver, Jimmie Scott, 41, also of Massena, was not injured, police said.

Vermont trooper inspects the Seaway Valley
ambulance involved in a fatal rollover this  morning.
WCAX photo

The Seaway Valley Ambulance company is a privately-owned EMS provider operating in Massena, New York.

One of the Associated Press stories yesterday was covering some background on the most recent Malibu fire and this paragraph caught my eye:

Saturday’s fire was west of the areas of Malibu that burned in October. Despite the constant threat of wildfires and other natural hazards, residents seem to love living here. A sense of community, quietness compared to Los Angeles and proximity to nature are all cited by locals.

There’s that phrase again….proximity to nature.  Last month LightRock wrote about this when he mentioned Stephen Pyne’s research on this phenomena.  There is this current trend where people think that they will be happier if they are amongst the mighty forests where the lovable Disney animals frolic.  On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t get into this now.

*  *  *  *  *

Lineup will be short and quick today.  We have a lot to get done.  We’ll be starting our series on Donna’s Magic Fire Truck today.  You might remember him….we reported on “Donna” last Wednesday (HERE) when he was arrested once again for perpetrating crimes in Arizona while pretending to be the fire chief of a make-believe fire department.

This series will run for several days and it looks to be surprising and in some cases unbelievable.  So stay tuned, folks.

Now let’s get the equipment checked out.  I’ll take care of the coffee.