HOW MUCH SMOKE DOES A BURNING CAR GENERATE? Shortly after noon on Sunday a car traveling through the LaFontaine tunnel near Montreal, Quebec, caught on fire and had to stop in the right lane of the 3-lane southbound tube.
Naturally, the ventilation system went into emergency operation and effectively directed the smoke and gasses out through the ventilation shaft. Transport Quebec, the operators inexplicably closed only the center and right lanes, but kept the left lane open with a burning auto in there.
Meanwhile, topside a passerby who had a personal video camera must have thought for sure that he was witnessing a disaster-in-action and posted his video on YouTube:
We have been following the sad outcome in DeKalb County (HERE). Dave Statter provides the latest update (HERE).
Meanwhile, a different outcome from a “smoke in the area” call.
Man Gravely Injured in North Hollywood Blaze
On Friday, January 29, 2010 at 11:51 PM, 4 Companies of Los Angeles Firefighters, 3 LAFD Rescue Ambulances, 4 Arson Units, 1 EMS Battalion Captain and 1 Battalion Chief Officer Command Team, a total of 33 Los Angeles Fire Department personnel under the direction of Battalion Chief Gary Clark, responded to a Structure Fire with Civilian Injury at 6548 Fulcher Avenue in North Hollywood.
Sent to investigate a vague report of smoke, a perseverant LAFD Engine Company scoured a neighborhood more than a quarter mile from the reporting location, to find well-entrenched fire within a one-story single family home. The four member LAFD crew summoned additional resources and immediately began attacking the blaze.
Forcing the front door of the smoke charged residence open with effort, firefighters discovered a motionless adult male behind the door, and swiftly moved him to fresh air. Finding no pulse on the breathless man, firefighters immediately provided cardiopulmonary resuscitation before transferring his care to an arriving LAFD Paramedic team.
During ambulance transport, a pair of veteran LAFD Paramedics were able to restore a pulse to the man, who remained in very critical condition with ventilatory assistance needed upon arrival at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.
read the rest of the LAFD PIO incident report (HERE)
Appreciate that this is an “apples and oranges” comparison, LAFD did not have to walk up a hill.
La CORUNA, SPAIN, WAS THE SCENE OF A BRAWL BETWEEN FIREFIGHTERS and the local police during a demonstration this week.
BBC News
About 500 firefighters from Galicia traveled to the provincial capital to march on the government administration center to protest against the local privatization of emegency services. When the protest elevated to throwing large fireworks and nails at the building, the police ordered them to stop.
Instead, the firefighters began throwing the fireworks into the police cordons and the inevitable happened. Anti-riot police then charged the firefighters, beating them back with batons and firing rubber balls.
A German tourist who injured himself while skiing in the Tyrolean Alps this month said he was asked to swipe his bank card before he could be treated, local radio ORF reported Friday.
“During the ambulance ride, the crew started pushing buttons and then they said: ‘Sorry but we have to charge you 230 euros (320 dollars) now,’” said the 45-year-old holidaymaker from Berlin. “They were obviously very embarrassed.”
Austrian emergency services defended the measure, saying it was often difficult to track down payment from foreign tourists once they had returned home.
Most of the ambulances are now equipped with the machine, they say.
Firegeezer has a suggestion for refinement to this practice. Instead of subjecting the ambulance crew to the embarrassment of asking for payment, the emegency dispatch call-taker could be getting all this information over the phone while the victim is waiting for the ambulance. Not only would all that unpleasant stuff be done by the time care began, thus saving time, but it would help time pass more quickly while awaiting the ambulance. And if the patient doesn’t have the resources to pay for the service, then the ambulance could be turned around and sent back to quarters before they even get to the slopes. Better order your Visa/MasterCard decals for the passenger compartment door now.
Another week, and another VFD treasurer gets arrested. It’s a continuous-loop tune that just keeps going, it seems. While it’s true that only a very tiny percentage of the 30,000-plus fire and ambulance companies run into this problem, I am still amazed at how most of the victimized outfits allowed themselves to get into the situation in the first place. So often they leave themselves vulnerable to theft just because they failed to exercise simple precautions.
We reported on one just the other day where the treasurer was literally given an open checkbook. The dept. rules called for two signatures on checks, the president’s and the treasurer’s, but the treasurer was given a rubber stamp with the president’s signature on it, presumably so neither of them would be inconvenienced with having to chase the pres. down for his signature when needed. You could have guessed what was going to happen there before it was even reported. At least this time the VFD had proper insurance coverage that made up the loss. But we have seen other reports recently where the departments had to eat the loss because they had no coverage for theft or embezzlement.
Another glaring shortfall that we see sometimes is the lack of a proper and periodic audit of the finances. How many times – and I know you’ve seen this – has the “annual audit” been nothing more than appointing 2 or 3 members to meet and see if the checkbook balance seems to be correct? Just about always the audit committee has no training at all on proper auditing procedures or how to spot discrepancies. I recall one story that we posted a few months ago where the treasurer worked for an accounting firm, but the owner of the accountancy caught the fraud himself because he knew how to spot problems and properly checked up on his accounts after his employees.
Another flag that you can watch for is having a treasurer for several consecutive years. This is a problem largely because so few people are willing to assume the demanding duties of the position that when you get somebody who likes to do it, you tend to let them stay there for as long as they want the job. It’s hard to avoid that situation, but it can be remedied with the aforementioned audit if it is properly done.
Again, almost everybody who takes this responsibility are fine and trustworthy people who are truly above suspicion. But you must plan for the unknown coming along in the future and have your safeguards in place.
Always have a cash/performance bond on all of your company officers, not just the treasurer. They don’t cost much at all and are a necessity of good business practices.
Every year without fail, have a professional audit performed by a firm that has no connections to your department.
Have safeguards in place where there is oversight on every check or cash transaction that is carried out.
And preferably, have a limit on how long anyone can serve as treasurer without interruption.
That’s all basic stuff and you already know that. But just the same, take a look at your own department and make sure they’re not slipping or putting one of these aside. It’s so easy to become careless.
Same thing with equipment check….let’s not get careless there either. I will go and – carefully – make a fresh pot of coffee before I check on how the Sunday breakfast is coming along. See you back in the day room.
A TRUCK DRIVER IN LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS, passed out while driving his flatbed truck through town Friday morning, leaving the road and piloting his truck right through the side of a duplex house.
Boston Globe
Eric Gremm, 59, told police that he was eating a serving of Wendy’s chili when his truck hit a speed bump causing him to gulp a bite of chili “down the wrong windpipe” which in turn led him to pass out. His truck then swerved off the road and went into the house. Gremm had minor injuries as did a resident of the dwelling.
After securing all safety hazards, the truck is being left in its new parking spot until Monday when a structural engineer will be able to assist in the removal. The building’s stability is in doubt currently. The police say that Gremm might be charged with “eating while driving.”
The Lowell Sun reported the STORY via the Daily News.
Fox News posted this raw video taken from their helicopter:
YESTERDAY (FRIDAY) MARKED THE 54th anniversary of the deadly fire at the old Arundel Park bingo hall in Brooklyn Park, Maryland. The blaze on January 29, 1956, killed 11 people and injured several hundred more, and is believed to be the worst disaster in a public place in Maryland history.
Joe Ross, a local author and retired firefighter who published a book on the fire in 2008, will give a one-hour presentation about the fire on February 11, followed by a book signing at the Pascal Senior Center in Glen Burnie. The program begins at 12:30 p.m. The senior center is located at 125 Dorsey Road.
The Arundel Burning website – CLICK HERE – has more information on the fire including a computer-generated graphic of the bingo hall and the FD operations, and a rare 16 mm. film showing the huge parlor in full blaze.
You can read an excellent 16-page story on the fire also written by Joe Ross in a .pdf document HERE.
Hat tip to George Crosby for the info. and links.
Contemporary photo of the Brooklyn Park VFD
Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
THEY DON’T CARRY LIFE NETS ANYMORE, so when you need one, you drive it there. Early Friday morning in Buena, New Jersey, the first unit on the scene of a house fire was the ambulance. They found a man trapped at a 2nd-story window calling for help, so the driver backed the ambulance up to the building under the window and told him to jump. WPVI-TV Philadelphia tells what happened HERE.
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A NEW JERSEY AMBULANCE THAT WAS legally declared a “lemon” and directly led to the legislature expanding the Lemon Law to include emergency vehicles, went out in style the other day. While sitting parked in the ambulance bay, it burst into fire and was self-immolated. STATter911 has good coverage and a video of this grand exit HERE.
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HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A BEDBUG-SNIFFING DOG? I haven’t either. But Fire Engineering has a story about a Connecticut firehouse that was infested with them and the trained doggy sniffed them out HERE.
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BAD SAMARITAN: Steve M. sent us the link to this video taken by a surveillance camera in Turkey showing a vehicle crashing into a pedestrian bridge. Watch as the bridge comes down, you will see a person brought down with it. Immediately all traffic stops and people rush over to help. All except one clown who drives his red car over the wreckage and rubble so that he won’t be delayed for his very important something. CLICK HERE.
A MENTALLY-DISTURBED MAN FROM OUT-OF-TOWN immolated himself on the sidewalk in Portland, Oregon, Wednesday. The 26-yr.-old man from Kansas walked up to a furrier’s shop and set himself on fire while screaming something in the direction of the store entrance.
A police officer was sitting in her cruiser at a stop light when she witnessed the event unfolding shortly after 11 am. She then drove her car over to the site and opened the trunk to get out the fire extinguisher. Unfortunately, the portable extinguishers that Portland PD use are the same size, shape and color as their large pepper-spray cannisters used for crowd control. Whereupon she pulled out the wrong can and began spraying the poor man with the pepper spray.
The man who set himself afire, 26-year-old Daniel Shaull of Dodge City, Kan., died at a hospital later Wednesday. His father, Warren, said his son had psychiatric problems and was living on the streets. Shaull recently boarded a bus to Oregon, where he had never been, and arrived in Portland about five days ago, his father said. He said Shaull was suicidal when he left.
“I had a feeling something was going to tragically happen,” Warren Shaull said. “He was mentally ill. He was tired of living.”
The officer, who has been on the job for fewer than 10 years, did not know she had used pepper spray until she got back to central precinct, (Police Chief) Sizer said. Another officer found the empty can later at the scene.
“It was a mistake that she was unaware of, and a mistake that she’s heartsick about,” Sizer said.
Firegeezer is wondering if it is normal for Portland police to toss empty fire extinguishers on the sidewalk and leave? Or am I missing something that didn’t make it into the published story?
A burned shoe remains on a sidewalk in downtown Portland Wednesday after a man set himself on fire.
AND STILL ANOTHER VFD TREASURER has been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Vicki Ann Messier, 35, used to be the treasurer of the Rawlinsville Fire Company until an audit disclosed that most of the department’s money was gone and unaccounted for. This past Wednesday the State Police arrested and charged her with embezzling $168,884 from the department.
Vivki Ann Messier
(Rawlinsville Fire Company photo)
Most of the money was stolen between 2005 and 2009 when the officers first discovered that not only had their bills not been paid, but the checking account was depleted. The Lancaster Intelligencer Journal reports:
Fire company officials first learned there was a problem in July when they tried to buy equipment, food and fuel from local businesses but were told the fire company had past-due balances, fire company President Charles Grimasuckas said. The fire company did an internal investigation, then notified state police about the lost funds at the end of July.
Messier had presented fictitious financial reports to the volunteer fire company’s board at monthly meetings and kept false ledgers for years without being detected, Grimasuckas said.
Instead of sending out approved checks to vendors, Messier shelved them and made out checks to herself, police said.
WHP-TV image
The fire company’s insurance carrier will pay for the loss and they have also instituted new safeguards to better protect their accounts. About five active members have left the department out of disgust with what happened.
Read the full story in the Intelligencer Journal HERE.
WHP-TV Ch. 21 has this video report (includes views of RFC apparatus):
Ok, I fibbed…. I didn’t do the NHL overview last night, but I’m going to go with it now. With just a couple of weeks to go until the lengthy break for the Olympics, here are my views on how the Eastern and Western conferences are shaping up. For those of you who aren’t fully aware of how the teams earn their way into the playoff rounds, I’ll tell you that there are two conferences, the Eastern and the Western, that have 15 teams in each. These 15 teams are sub-divided into three 5-team divisions of teams that are geographically associated. Eight teams will advance to the playoffs, the winners of each division earn the top three seeds, then the next five-highest winning teams fill out the elimination rounds.
Starting with the Western Conference, San Jose and Chicago are competing for first-place, only one point apart and trading position back and forth. If one of them stumbles, like taking a simple 3- or 4-game losing streak, then the other can run with it. San Jose has been a strong team for several years now and it is no surprise that they are on top where they have been finishing regularly. But the surprise to the outside world is the high-flying Chicago Blackhawks. The fans in Chicago aren’t surprised because they have been watching the careful construction of a successful team by the owners and their plans are paying off with a solid winning team. But for most of us, it comes as a surprise because Chicago has had a run of many years of floundering and poor results.
Another surprise is the Phoenix Coyotes. A perennial bottom-dweller who started this season like they were going to settle in there again. But after some turmoil of getting new ownership – after the season had already started – they have hired themselves a good coach and they are winning regularly, sitting now in 4th place. On the other hand, the struggles of the Detroit Red Wings have everybody wondering what is going on with the team that was in the Stanley Cup finals last year. They have been passed by and will undoubtedly have a house-cleaning after this season. The Wings are sitting in 8th place, holding the final playoff spot by only one point.
AP
Over in the Eastern Conference the competition seem to be more widely spread out between two groups, those that are fighting for the top slots and a large group who are knotted up in the middle with eight teams that are only two points apart competing for the last three playoff positions. That is the race to watch from here on out. If you have the chance to catch any of them on tv, you will see some good games whenever any of these teams play each other. CLICK HERE to see the NHL official conference standings chart that is updated every morning, and you will see some surprises there, too.
More than just a couple, in fact. The Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers jump right off the page as you’re looking, and then way down in 12th place are the Boston Bruins who have really been struggling this month, losing nine of their last ten games. And yet they can leap up to 6th place with just one more win than the six teams just ahead of them. The Boston fans have got to be tearing their hair out this week with that long losing streak going on. You think the trade offers are buzzing up there?
Up at the top of the Eastern Conf. the Buffalo Sabres have been very tenacious all season long and are almost shoo-ins for the playoffs despite their lack of headling-making play. The New Jersey Devils are camped in 2nd place which is no surprise. They are probably the most consistent team for solid play in the entire league, always on top year in and year out. Right now, the leading team in the East is the Washington Capitals who are riding a runaway freight by winning their 9th-consecutive game last night. While they are six points ahead of the Devils – and 23 points ahead of the 8th-place team – their 78 points leaves them still one point behind San Jose for the league’s bragging rights of best finish.
If you want to see how your local team is doing, click HERE to see the conference standings and click HERE to check out the divisional standings. When I look at those, I look at two columns to get an idea on how a team is doing for the season. I watch the regulation-loss totals (not including the overtime, OTL, losses) because I believe that is good indicator. And I check out the Away record. You almost have to maintain a 50% win record in the away games to remain successful.
While we’re on the ice, let’s take a look at the Top Ten Goals from last week:
Ok, it’s getting late. Let’s get this equipment checked out. We definitely need some more coffee, so I’ll get that started. See you back in the day room.
A FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS, AMBULANCE was responding to an emergency call Tuesday afternoon when it traveled through an intersection against the red light. An automobile on the cross street struck the ambulance, causing it to run off the road and into a driveway where it struck two parked cars.
WPRI-TV image
Three eyewitnesses and the driver of the car involved all say that the ambulance had its flashing lights on, but the siren was not sounding. WPRI-TV has this video report on the crash:
THURSDAY WAS NOT A GOOD DAY for the 1st-responders of New Britain, Connecticut. In the span of only eight minutes they crashed a fire engine, a police car, and an ambulance in three separate accidents.
The troubles began earlier in the morning when a swift winter storm moved across the region leaving a heavy and slick snowfall that disrupted the morning rush hour and led to a lot of dispatches for traffic accidents.
The city’s woes began at 9:48 am when a fire engine that was just leaving an accident scene collided with a road-sanding truck. One minute later, at another accident scene, a police cruiser was rear-ended while the officer was sitting inside. Capping off the hat-trick with a solid triple, at 9:56 an ambulance had a head-on collision with an automobile.
Fortunately, all the injuries incurred were relatively minor. The city has not yet said how much damage the emergency vehicles had. Read the complete report in the New Britain HeraldHERE.
A NEW YORK ARTIST IS VISITING DETROIT, MICHIGAN, THIS WEEK with the purpose of creating an imaginative street sculpture using an abandoned house, a fire hydrant, and a fire hose.
WJBK image
His ultmate aim is to direct public attention to his proposed project to salvage building materials instead of just tearing them down and discarding them. Gregory Holm explains all about it in this video report from WJBK-TV:
Yesterday we brought you a brief story about a freak accident that happened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Tuesday. A fire engine that was responding on a call made a left turn on a city street and the force of it apparently pitched a pre-connect out of its hose tray onto the street. I am only speculating on how it happened from how the local newspaper described the incident, but whatever caused the hose to fly out, it is certain that it struck a pedestrian standing in the median strip while the engine went by. The 82-yr.-old woman was seriously injured and required surgery, but the trauma was too much and she died yesterday morning.
WCVB-TV has this video review of the incident:
It was truly a tragic accident and I have no doubt that the firefighters assigned to that engine are extremely upset over it. But it was just that … an accident. What caused it will be the theme on the investigation that has already begun, but I hope that the city officials who will be leading this don’t use it to dredge up a scapegoat to direct any blame for it. We all know that packing a hoseline is a team activity that involves a minimum of two people and usually three or four. Any mistake of that magnitude is caught immediately and corrected.
When they are done, the captain does not drop by and inspect it for any problems and when the batt. chief visits the station he does not triple-check to see that it was packed properly. But lately it seems that city managers and attorneys, who know very little of what a hose pack is, are intent on punishing somebody, anybody, as a way to mollify the citizens who are naturally concerned about the incident.
We can all empathize with the members of the department. This is a major event that causes them as much grief as anybody. But lacking any evidence of criminal carelessness, I hope that there isn’t any finger-pointing here. If it was just an accident, then please say so and then carry on. Unless Cambridge is pitching preconnects off their pumpers on a monthly basis, let’s skip the make-believe “solutions” like building special gates on the hose trays, or some such. A lot of how this turns out will depend on whether the politicians begin meddling in it or not. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out.
In yesterday’s Lineup I said that I would offer some comments on the National Hockey League current standings. I’ll be doing that in a separate posting today instead of here at the Lineup. We need to get this equipment checked out. And I need to get some more coffee started. See you back in the day room.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART’S BIRTHDAY is being celebrated this week. To help the festivities, a YouTube channeler who loves to be innovative with his video productions put together a special musical tribute to the musical giant.
MysteryGuitarMan (as he calls himself) used six root beer bottles filled to varying levels to make some musical clips and then edited and assembled them together to produce a good reproduction of Mozart’s Overture of “Die Zauberflöte”. Enjoy this quality musical interlude:
A CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, WOMAN WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED Tuesday when a pre-connected hoseline came loose and struck her legs. The Cambridge ChronicleREPORTS:
According to Cambridge Police, the fire department responded to call at 11:40 a.m. Tuesday. The Cambridge Fire Department engine was on Mass. Ave. with its lights and sirens activated when one of the hoses on the side of the engine became dislodged and began to trail behind the vehicle.
The engine took a left turn onto Western Avenue and the trailing hose reportedly struck an 82-year-old Somerville resident who was standing on the median island after allowing the it to pass.
The woman sustained serious injuries to both legs and was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital where she went through surgery.
Update, 8 pm: The victim, who has since been identified as Gertrude King, 82, died early Thursday morning in the hospital nearly two days after being struck by the loose hose. The Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office has now been notified while the Cambridge police continue their investigation.
HOUSTON, TEXAS, FIREFIGHTERS RESPONDED to a shopping center at 2 am this morning (Thursday) where they found a fire spreading across the roof of a strip shopping center and extending into the false facade surrounding the roof.
KTRK-TV
Fortunately, the fire was discovered before it got into the building and the HFD handled it easily. Beyond the badly damaged roof, the only other loss was water damages inside some of the stores.
Investigation disclosed that the fire started when an inflatable gorilla set up on the roof deflated during the night and the plastic monster settled across some lamps which in turn ignited the plastic.
KRIV-TV filed this brief video report:
After the fire was extinguished, gorilla remnants were found scattered across the area.
Collated from information provided by Houston Fire Dept.
WARWICK, RHODE ISLAND, FIREFIGHTER Daniel DeRobbio, who was off duty, was driving by a house in Warwick at 11 pm Wednesday night when he spotted heavy smoke pouring out of the eaves. The Providence Journal continues:
DeRobbio phoned in the fire and banged on the door until he awakened the residents. Two adults and their two children were able to get out safely, Silva said.
Then the owner of the home, Alex Sotski, did something Silva said a person should never do. He ran back into the house and upstairs to the second floor to try to put out the fire. DeRobbio ran in after him and escorted him back out.
When engine four arrived, Sotski was back inside, Silva said. Firefighters brought him out again. He then went back in one more time, Silva said.
THE CAMBRIDGESHIRE FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE in central England was called out Tuesday for this “mobile cafe” fire that left a lot of potential customers hungry.
Unfortunately for the lunchwagon owner, it happened in a remote area that is apparently served by an unmanned fire station because the Cambridge News reports that it took the Royston fire station 20 minutes to arrive on the scene. The full story is HERE.
This is a good time to check out the standings in the National Hockey League because the trading deadline is approaching and the general managers are fishing around to see if they can pick up a player or two to help them for the final stretch run. All of the teams have played over 50 games now and they know their needs. They are sorted into roughly three groups: There are those that are on the borderline of the playoff roster (only eight teams in each of the two divisions go on to the playoff rounds for the championship), and they need a player or three to put them into eighth-place or higher. Secondly, the teams that are on top of their divisions are wanting to solidify their standing and some will be looking for that one player that makes the difference in their playoff run. And finally there are the teams that are already so far down the standings that they know that they are out of it for this year. They will often be willing to sell off a good player that a top-ranking team would like and in exchange pick up some young prospects or draft choices to begin building next year’s team already.
The trading deadline is on March 3 this year (it is usually at 3 pm, so this will probably be the case). At first glance, that looks like they still have lots of time to see how their teams’ standings will be sorting out, but it is misleading. They have this stupid Olympic Games break coming up in a couple of weeks where the league shuts down while many of the premier players are appearing in their home countries’ Olympic teams. And because of that, each NHL team has less than 10 games left to play before the trade deadline. So look for some trading action and rumors to pick up over the next ten days. This part is always fun.
Tomorrow morning we’ll take a look at who is in which of these groups. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at last week’s top plays:
I meant to point out yesterday, in case you missed it, that noted actor Pernell Roberts passed away on Sunday January 24 at the age of 81. He was suffering from pancreatic cancer. A long-time acclaimed actor, he is still best-remembered as one of the original cast characters on theenduring tv western Bonanza where he played the role of Adam, the oldest of the three grown brothers who had to ask their Pa’s permission for everything that they did.
After becoming dissatisfied with his role at the ranch, Roberts quit the show after the sixth season just as it was reaching its peak in popularity. Financially, it was a disastrous decision, but he never regretted it. He is the last of the Cartrights, Lorne Greene who played Ben Cartwright, died in 1987. Dan Blocker (Hoss) died in 1972, and Michael Landon (Little Joe) died in 1991, also of pancreatic cancer.
(l. to r.) Adam, Little Joe, Ben, Hoss
Alright, let’s get this equipment checked out now. I’ve got to get some more coffee started.
Update #2, Thursday
The search for victims has been suspended at 7 am Thursday morning due to the instability of the adjoining buildings. Engineers and rescuers are concerned that they may have a partial collapse. Up until the discontinuation of the search there have been 9 bodies recovered, some of them heavily burned.
SEE THE EARLIER FIREGEEZER STORY ON THE APARTMENT BUILDING COLLAPSE IN LIEGE, BELGIUM, HERE.
Following the discovery of the 13-yr.-old girl still alive in the rubble, the firefighters recovered four bodies and the fire chief says that they believe that there could be as many as ten more bodies buried inside. As of Wednesday night they have recorded five deaths and 23 injured.
Earlier on Wednesday afternoon King Albert II arrived at the collapse scene to view the wreckage and in this brief video clip he meets with a group of firefighters:
This video indicates that the firefighters were able to detect the imminent collapse because you can see them withdrawing just before it falls in. (The collapse occurred about five hours after the explosion and fires.)
This video has an aerial view of the scene later in the morning:
See the earlier report on the collapse with photos and link to a photo gallery HERE along with the story.
On Friday, January 29, 2010 at 11:51 PM, 4 Companies of Los Angeles Firefighters, 3 LAFD Rescue Ambulances, 4 Arson Units, 1 EMS Battalion Captain and 1 Battalion Chief Officer Command Team, a total of 33 Los Angeles Fire Department personnel under the direction of Battalion Chief Gary Clark, responded to a Structure Fire with Civilian Injury at 6548 Fulcher Avenue in North Hollywood.
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