A BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, PUMPER COLLIDED WITH A CITY POLICE CAR Sunday afternoon while both were responding to a house fire in East Baltimore.

WBAL

Fortunately, there were no injuries despite the fact that the cruiser was severely damaged.

The fire involved two vacant rowhouses in a derelict neighborhood and damage was contained to the fire buildings.

WBAL

Tv station WBAL has the story and a VIDEO.

DELAWARE STATE POLICE ARE REPORTING that a collision between an ambulance and an auto at 6:15 this morning has killed one person.  Two other victims have been airlifted to Christiana Hospital.

Update, 9:00 am:  The Wilmington News Journal is now reporting that there was a third person injured and was transported by ambulance.

Chuck Snyder / News Journal photo

Update #2, 4:00 pm:  The News Journal is now reporting on the condition of the three EMS personnel.  The driver of the passenger car was killed in the crash.

The ambulance was occupied by two emergency medical technicians from the (Millsboro Fire Company) and by a paramedic from Sussex County Emergency Medical Services.

The paramedic, John Schmitt, was flown to Christiana Hospital in Stanton with serious injuries. He was admitted to the intensive care unit with possible head injuries, according to a news release from Sussex EMS. Schmitt is a 15-year veteran of Sussex EMS.

Technician Frank DeFord also was flown to Christiana with serious injuries. He is still being evaluated, EMS officials said.

Technician Mercedes Berry was taken to Beebe, where she was treated for minor injuries and released.

We were watching with interest the voting results in Pontiac, Michigan, last week because of the “fire dept. referendum” and the voters soundly defeated the attempt by the city to whack the FD and EMS services by a 2 to 1 margin.

Well, Friday the mayor retaliated against the citizens by telling them that he will be chopping the police department by another 28%.  Just 30 months ago the police had 170 officers and this will take them down to 64.  This is typical behavior for a certain breed of politician who is so power-hungry that they openly show such contempt to their “ignorant” constituents who won’t go along with their game.

Pontiac’s city government is structured in a way that prevents the city council from doing anything about this.  They are openly against this move by the mayor, but powerless to stop him.  The council had a recovery plan to meet the budget shortfall without any layoffs in the city government, but the mayor ignored them and is going along with this plan to cause the citizens to suffer because they wouldn’t give him the power to eliminate the ambulance service and chop the FD down to ineffectiveness.  The Detroit News covers it more deeply HERE.

Part of the city council’s relief plan called for auctioning off “all unnecessary vehicles.”  You have to shake your head at that one.  If they’re unnecessary, why did they get them?  And why are they still there?

So why am I railing on about this today?  I just want to remind you that in order to protect your viability as a public safety organization, you have to constantly communicate directly with your citizens.  Inform them, educate them, get to know them.  Let them know what it is we do and what we need to get it done.

Despite their back-slapping, smiling promises of support, the politicians seldom listen to the workers.  They respond primarily to the voters.  That is who they are beholden to.  If you have the voters’ support, then you’ll get some political support.  It takes time to build it, and it takes constant effort to keep it.

But right now we have to take time to check out the equipment.  I’ll go start the coffee.

THE SELANGOR (MALAYSIA) FIRE AND RESCUE DEPARTMENT has recently taken delivery of the first batch of new fire and rescue vehicles to improve their department’s capabilities.

Among the first delivery were 23 new Light Fire Rescue Tenders which will be additions to some stations and replacements for older tenders in some others.

Also, they have recieved a completely outfitted High Performance Pump Module that will be available for special calls anywhere in the state.

Star photo

The department’s director said, “The engine is able to provide high quantities of water and channel the water towards targets as far as two kilometres away. It will be a valuable tool in case of forest fire, high-rise building fire and petroleum-related disasters.”
(Firegeezer notes:  two kilometers is 1.24 miles.  He must be referring to a supply line, not nozzle reach.)

In addition, they received six new motorcycles for their Rapid Intervention Motorcycle Team (RIM) which is normally the first to respond to road accidents and disaster scenes.

Star photo

Later this year they will add new Fire Rescue Tenders for five new fire stations and nine mini-fire trucks for some volunteer stations.

You can read more in the Malaysia Star HERE.

ON APRIL 16, 2007, PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VIRGINIA, FIRE TECH. I KYLE WILSON perished in a pre-dawn house fire.

In a commendable effort to determine why this happened and what needs to be done to prevent future events such as this, the County commissioned an independent panel of top-quality fire officers to investigate and report their findings.

This report was released yesterday (Saturday) and is a model of how this type of inquiry should be done.

Dave Statter at STATter911 has posted an excellent summary of the report along with links to the associated .pdf documents and video presentations which are part of the report.

I urge you to take the time to read it, but be prepared for some graphic disclosures.  Click HERE.

A DARTMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA, FIRM THAT ADVERTISES that it provides “Total Fire-Protection Systems” had a fire earlier this week that totally destroyed one of its buildings.

Halifax Daily News

The metal warehouse building was undergoing some renovations when a workman who was melting ice off a foundation plate with a torch accidentally started a fire.

Just as the Halifax Regional Fire units arrived the roof collapsed and a little later some propane tanks started blowing.

Life Safety Systems is a fire protection, maintenance and contracting company.

The Halifax Daily News has the full STORY.

DURING WORLD WAR II, POLISH SOLDIERS SERVING THE ALLIED FORCES were stationed in Iran where they found a bear cub.  Adopting it as a pet and naming him Voytek, they raised it and as it got bigger and stronger they trained it to carry heavy mortar rounds.

That wasn’t the only thing he learned.  He could smoke cigarettes and loved to drink beer.

Imperial War Museum photo

When their regiment was shipped out to Italy for the invasion, the only way they could bring their bear along was to “enlist” it.  So they gave him a name, a rank and a serial number and took him along.  He served well at the Battle of Monte Cassino, delivering his ammuntion under fire.

After the invasion, the Polish troops were billeted at an army base in Scotland where they remained until war’s end.  When the Poles were demobilized, Voytek was transferred to the Edinburgh Zoo where he remained until his death in 1963.

Now there is a grass-roots campaign in Edinburgh to build a memorial to the beer-drinking freedom fighter to keep the memory of his accomplishments in the war effort alive.

The Daily Mail has the full STORY.  Be sure to read it.

A PEKIN, ILLINOIS, CAB DRIVER was killed in a collision with an ambulance early Saturday morning.

WEEK Ch. 25 photo

48-yr.-0ld Mary Heath was driving her taxi and an AMT ambulance  was behind her driving non-emergency with 3 EMT’s onboard and no patient.

Early reports say that Heath pulled off to the side of the road for an unknown reason, and then as the ambulance was beginning to pass, she pulled back onto the roadway without warning and was struck by the ambulance.

After being transported to the hospital by another unit, she was pronounced dead about an hour later.  The three medics were treated for minor injuries and released.  Police investigation is continuing.

The Peoria Journal Star has the STORY.

A NOONTIME HOUSE FIRE IN QUEENS, NYC, Friday injured seven firefighters and 3 residents.  The fire had to be upgraded to a 2-alarm response because of problems with the first alarm response units.

The initial response should have been 2 engines, 2 trucks for the house.  However, the 1st-due truck had gone out of service earlier that morning because an electrical short had started a fire in it.  The 2nd-due truck was on another fire when the alarm came in.

The 3rd-due truck was dispatched, but it was a distance away, and for reasons unknown the dispatchers never sent a 2nd truck on the call.  Also, the 2nd-due engine’s crew was doing building inspections and were delayed several minutes in their response.

That left the first-in engine all alone for a while on a working basement fire that had extended to the upper floors.  Six FF’s suffered minor burns but a seventh, Lt. Michael Schmidt, had to be rescued by the others.  He suffered extensive burns to his hands in the blaze and will require skin grafts and rehabilitation, according to officials.

The New York Post has the STORY.

THE LAWRENCE, MASSACHUSETTS, FIRE CHIEF, PETER TAKVORIAN, delivered  a public show of gratitude to the neighboring fire departments that sent mutual aid assistance last Monday.  The notable major fire devastated a city block and destroyed 14 buildings.

Chief Takvorian (Boston Globe)

“Without this mutual aid responding, we could have been talking about blocks going up - not just one block - and there would have been loss of life,” he said.

“They had to go out in single digit temperatures with gusty winds that made for a wind chill factor below zero. This was no cake walk. They came in and had to work under difficult conditions. If it was just Lawrence trying to deal with the fire alone, we would have been lost. The people of this city should be grateful,” the chief said.

He also pointed out that if the mayor is allowed to go through with his threat to shut down two of the city’s six firehouses, the mutual aid pact would be voided and they would be on their own if this happens again.  The fire and police departments are both shorthanded already because of hiring freezes.

The Eagle-Tribune has the full STORY.
The Boston Globe has a related story that summarizes Lawrence’s history as an “arson capital” HERE.

FOR THE THIRD TIME IN LESS THAN 18 MONTHS, a scrapyard in Toronto, Ontario, was the scene of a major fire incident.

CTV photo

Saturday morning a crane operator was puncturing propane tanks that were supposedly empty.  When he got to the one that wasn’t, it triggered an explosion that rocked the entire neighborhood.  Shattering windows and cracking walls, the blast damaged 8 to 12 buildings and set several nearby autos on fire. 

The crane operator escaped with just
cuts to his face and hands.  (Toronto Star)

This past August there was a multi-alarm fire at the premises and exactly one year to the day before that they hosted a massive 5-alarm fire.

Ongoing problems at the yard over the years led to the neighborhood maintaining a website (HERE) devoted to their problems.  Prior to yesteday they had documented nine fires on the site since 2000.

CTV Toronto has the full story and a VIDEO REPORT.

This has been “digital delight” week with lots of news about electronic toys and serious digital advances.  There’s no denying that our entire commercial and cultural structures are undergoing a profound shift. 

If somebody’s looking for a good idea to capitalize on, I’d suggest designing and marketing little carrier bags that hold battery chargers.  Every other month it seems like I acquire another one for something or other.  Not only do they get spread all around the house, but I tend to lose track of which one charges what.  It’s time for these electronic folks to adopt a universal charger that would work on anything that contains a rechargable battery.

As I mentioned the other day, there is a virtual tidal wave of internet providers shifting to wireless access.  Some of the cellular phone companies are already doing this, of course, but they’re still kind of limited.  But watching what’s going on, you can see that they are making rapid progress overall.  You’ll see that progress speed up if Google goes through with their expected entry into the wireless access market.  They have a record of getting some of the smartest digital designers in the world working for them and they are innovative to the point where they can determine the direction of progress.

That’s why I think that they will spend whatever it takes to win one of those 700 MHz bands in the auction.  In the long term it will be more than worth the investment.  It’ll be vital to them.  Speaking of that auction, yesterday the fourth round of bidding was completed and a total of $3.7 billion has been bid on the spectrums so far.  (I dropped out once it passed $3.2 B.)  The auction action resumes on Monday and will likely continue for another two months.

High-altitude Wi-Fi moved forward this week, too.  Southwest Airlines announced that they’ll be testing satellite internet access on four of their planes, joining Alaska Airlines in the experiment.  A Los Angeles-based outfit called Row 44 is providing the hardware that delivers a 30 MbPS connection into the cabin.  American Airlines is fine-tuning a ground-to-air delivery system with a company called Aircell.  Let’s just hope that they deliver some electrical outlets into the cabin, too.

What with seemingly half our activities centered around video monitors these days, some people wonder if we’ll become to “soft” from all the lack of physical exercise.  Don’t worry about it.  They’ve already got DVD monitors that mount on your treadmill.

Ok, shut off the Blackberry and let’s get the equipment checked out.  I’ll go start the digital coffee maker.