A MAN DRIVING A VOLUNTEER RESCUE SQUAD AMBULANCE in Orange County, New York, was arrested Monday night after driving his ambulance into a ditch while he was under the influence of drugs.
Cable tv channel News12 is reporting that Monroe Village Police found Paul Casson, 30, disoriented and unable to stand without assistance around 1 am Tuesday morning. Apparently he was alone and it is not told why he was driving the ambulance.
He was taken to a hospital where he was treated for minor injuries before being arrested. No other information has been released so far.
A HELICOPTER CHARTERED BY THE IDAHO Fish and Game Department crashed in the center of Kamiah, a small town not far from Lewiston, Tuesday morning. The crash killed the pilot and two Fish and Game biologists that were conducting an aerial survey of salmon spawning nests.
The aircraft was low and making loud noises which brought the attention of many residents in the town of 1,100 population. The AP reportsfrom one witness:
Witness Jim Emmert saw the crash from his house. He said he initially heard loud rhythmic banging, “like a rock-crusher, but with metal parts.” He ran to his deck of his home and realized the noise was coming from the helicopter heading east through Clearwater Valley.
“The thing was sounding like there was some serious metal destruction going on,” Emmert said. “It was maybe 800 feet off the valley floor, and then it kind of hesitated in its forward momentum before sliding backward.”
The helicopter lost a few hundred feet of altitude and flipped upside down, with its rotors toward the ground, before the pilot briefly managed to get it upright and level again.
“It started sliding to the left and downward and going down too rapidly,” Emmert said. “He was headed toward some power lines, and I perceived that he banked it toward the right to avoid them.”
Others said that the pilot was doing his best to avoid any structures as it went down, clipping the corner of a house and crashing into a parked travel trailer.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT ALL THIS CAN BE SPONTANEOUS,” related Colonel Christopher Risdorfer, the Director of County Fire and Rescue Herault in France. Monday afternoon around 1 pm the first of several fires started in the brush and scrub land in and around Herault, Meze and Fontanes. With a strong wind blowing one of the fires raced through 3,000 hectares in a brief time and brought five Canadair firefighting planes to the scene to assist.
Literally hundreds of firefighters were brought in to tackle the many fires threatening the communities. The town of Meze has been most affected with a house burned down and the inhabitants evacuated in haste.
Paris Match
“Five Canadair aircraft, two trackers and a Dash resumed aerial rotations. It seems that the main fire was contained around the village of Saint-Bauzille Montmel, located about ten kilometers north of Montpellier, “said Peter Maitrot, chief of staff of the prefect.
AFP
One of the main highways, the A9 was shut down for 16 hours because of the dangers along the freeway from the fires as seen in the later moments of this video:
The remaining fire is now contained and hopes are to continue it as the strong, sudden wind gusts are capable of moving the fire 300 meters along in seconds.
These were the largest fires recorded this summer in the Southeast. In total, nearly 3,000 hectares of vegetation have gone up in smoke since Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning, the fire that destroyed some 2,800 hectares in the single department of Herault was contained on Tuesday morning. A dozen homes have been destroyed, however, including four in the village of Guzargues.
The fire that started Monday afternoon north of Montpellier, near Fontanes, “is fixed and will not progress,” said Colonel Christopher Risdorfer, the commander of firefighters in Herault. Firefighters, however, remain “very, very careful because we are not immune to a takeover. The wind picked up in the zone. It was weak in the early hours but it has strengthened. ”
The 900 firefighters from departments in reinforcing of Languedoc-Roussillon, PACA region and even the Auvergne, fought the flames all night to contain the blaze on three fronts – north, west and south-east – and prevent its spread to the capital of the Hérault, distant ten miles. At dawn, four Canadair Dash resumed their rotation that was interrupted by nightfall.
AFP
Another fire that started around 16:30 between Monday and Meze Villeveyrac, south-west of Montpelier, also destroyed 600 hectares of vegetation in the same department. It jumped over the A9 highway which was temporarily closed. The fire then hit the outskirts of Meze, where homes have been evacuated. According to the first deputy of the city, Yves Pietrasanta, a restaurant and a wine factory burned in the fire, which reached the entrance to an industrial park and failed to reach a new police station that had been evacuated. The fire was contained around 21:30.
* A 4-alarm fire in Houston, Texas, last night struck the 27th floor of what is an architecturally historic skyscraper in the city. There were some dicey moments when a water supply failed and again when a mayday call went out, but all ended well. STATter911 has the full story along with videos and a history lesson HERE.
* FirefightersWorstEnemy has his own 2nd-floor high angle rescue to share with us (ref: Firegeezer story HERE). In this instance it was a horse trapped on the 2nd floor and he has pics showing us how the beast was “rescued” HERE.
* Mick Mayers at Firehouse Zen mulls over the pro’s and cons of whether the fire/rescue service should adopt a “customer service” mentality or not HERE.
* Looking for a nice fixer-upper to get ready for next year’s parade season? Steve M. found a 26-yr.-old ladder truck being auctioned on eBay with an opening bid being asked for $4,500. Hurry, there’s less than two days left before it closes HERE.
* John Mitchell at Fire Daily thinks we should be more willing to “Just Say No” to unsafe fireground activities. Read what he has to say about it HERE.
FROM THE INBOX WE FIND THIS video sent to us by regular reader Ron Y. that has 6-½ minutes of red-light runners. He suggests that it would make a good day room drill and discussion topic. After all, contolled intersections seem to be one our most dangerous hazards these days.
So here it is for you enlightenment, enjoyment and education:
THE RECENT FLAP ABOUT THE CITY OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN, failing to keep enough ambulances in service to handle calls still has city officials befuddled. (see the August 24 Firegeezer report HERE.) Television station WJBK-TV has been almost alone in reporting on the sorry state of EMS in the Motor City and the other day they were granted an interview with the Fire Commssioner, James Mack.
Yesterday (Monday) they broadcast their report on the interview which didn’t turn out to have much new to report:
There were two things that I particularly noticed. First, the chief tells that “The mayor signed off last week for me to hire 20 additional medics,” and secondly that “the rules have to change,” including having “other agencies” respond to calls that aren’t life threatening.
Taking the second item first, I think that to wish for “other agencies” to start doing your work for you isn’t a viable solution for obvious reasons. The tv station’s interview was heavily edited down, but I like to think that if the chief had anything of more substance than that to say, it would have made it to the final cut and been included in the broadcast. His rambling on about all of his relatives who live in the city is completely irrelevant to the topic and nothing more than an attempt to say something to fill the time with.
His first statement that the mayor has given him the ok to hire more medics sounds nice, but isn’t the major part of the problem the fact that over half of the ambulance fleet is sitting in the garage awaiting repairs on any given day? Wouldn’t it have been more effective to hire more mechanics, too? Maybe they did and he just didn’t mention it.
Commissioner Mack seems to be a sincere and truly dedicated chief. But he could use some help in finding solutions to his problems. It’s understood that the city council is heavily corrupted and squanders large sums on patronage and questionable expenditures. The fault lies in front of many doors.
There was a bit of sad news handed down on Saturday from South Carolina. SConFire posted a notice that Jeff Thompson, Deputy Chief of the Pine Ridge Fire District had suddenly passed away after suffering a heart attack at the young age of 32 years. Compounding the grief of the family is the fact that he was the older brother of a Charleston firefighter who perished in the infamous Sofa Super Store fire in June, 2007.
Funeral details haven’t been announced yet, but check back to SConFire HERE to learn the plans and schedule when they are finalized.
* * * * * * *
Looking through yesterday’s fire news and video reports I came across a news story about an arson at a public park in Mattydale, New York. The fire destroyed a park pavillion and heavily damaged a concession stand owned by the local Little League. The Mattydale FD successfully kept the fire from spreading into the storage building where all the baseball league’s equipment is stored.
Syracuse Post-Standard
Naturally the first thing that flew into my mind was, “Did they pull the Mattydale hose load to attack the fire?” And that got me to thinking a little more. It seemed to me that the Mattydale of hose load fame is up there in New England or New York somewhere. So I did some quick checking and sure enough, it’s the same one. My fire department adopted the Mattydale load sometime in the early 1970′s (I can’t recall exactly when) and we had no idea why it was called that. We thought that maybe Mattydale was the name of some guy who designed it. If I’m not mistaken, I believe it coincided with the delivery of some Seagrave wagons that had the crosslay trays pre-piped with an 1-½” discharge that was on a swivel joint that allowed it to swing from the left side to the right side of the pumper. That was a new concept for us and “somebody” knew about the hose load and showed us how to pack it.
Ours was a bottom-to-top load with arm loops on both sides and the final 50-ft. section was reversed so that the nozzle is on your shoulder and the hose play off the top as you advance. It works really good and I always liked it. Anyway, back to the present. A quick check on the internet (“Everything is on the WWW”) I see that the hose load was developed by Mattydale Fire Chief Burton Eno in 1947 and it’s popularity gradually spread across most of the Northeast United States over the next couple of decades. Fire engines didn’t have preconnected lines until sometime in the 1950′s and attack lines required the firefighter to pull several sections off the rear of the hose bed and then uncouple them and then the operator would couple it onto a discharge at the pump panel.
Chief Eno had a tray built and installed on the top of their 1939 Buffalo fire engine just ahead of the hose bed and was designed for the hose to be pulled off of either side. The big innovation was the pre-connection of the hand lines to the discharges on the other side of the pump. As good fortune has it, fire historian Mike Legeros posted some photos earlier this year HERE of the original Mattydale load. That very same Buffalo pumper is on display at the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York (FASNY) museum in Hudson, New York.
Mike Legeros via Barry Furey
As legendary baseball announcer Mel Allen used to say, “How about that!!”
Now, how about we get this equipment checked out while we give a pleasant thank you to people like Burton Eno who are always advancing the art of fire suppression. I’ll go get some more coffee started.
When you get back to watch room, check out the FASNY museum’s webpage HERE.
Visit the Mattydale Fire Department WEBSITE.
AN ENTIRE BUILDING IN A DES MOINES, IOWA, apartment complex was destroyed Saturday afternoon when a suspected meth lab blew up in one of the units. The large explosion blew out part of the wall and started a fire that swept through all 30 units in the building, leaving at least 100 people homeless.
Des Moines Register
The Des Moines FD required two hours to bring the fire under control and all the personal possessions of the tenants were destroyed. The two suspects, ages 28 and 21, were seriously injured and hospitalized with one of them burned over 30 to 50 percent. Both have been transferred to a burn center in Iowa City.
WHO-TV
After the fire was extinguished about 2/3 of the roof collapsed. The entire building is a total loss and will have to be demolished. The multi-building complex has 180 apartments and management believes they have enough vacant units to house the residents that were burned out.
Des Moines Register
KCCI-TV Ch. 8 posted this video report from the scene:
The Des Moines Register has a 30-image photo gallery HERE.
The Register has the STORY.
THE VENERABLE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY is considering the discontinuance of their printed edition and issuing digital-only versions in the future. The accepted authoritative dictionary of the English language has been offering online references as well as CD-ROM versions for several years now, but as needs and requests for the printed and bound editions of the 20-volume set decline, they are looking ahead and need to make a decision before their next revision is completed several years from now.
Publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary have confirmed that the third edition may never appear in print. A team of 80 lexicographers began working on it following the publication of the second edition in 1989. It is 28% finished. In comments to a Sunday newspaper, Nigel Portwood, chief executive of Oxford University Press, which owns the dictionary, said: “The print dictionary market is just disappearing. It is falling away by tens of percent a year.” Asked if he thought the third edition would appear in printed format, he said: “I don’t think so.” However, an OUP spokeswoman said no decision had been made.
“It is likely to be more than a decade before the full edition is published and a decision on format will be taken at that point,” he said.
“Demand for online resources is growing but large numbers of people continue to purchase dictionaries in printed form and we have no plans to stop publishing print dictionaries.”
The online version currently charges subscribers $295 a year and it gets 2 million hits a month from the U. S. alone. That massive 20-volume set that you see in the library sells for $1,165.
Firegeezer Flashback, August 16, 2008
Just two years ago we talked about the history of the O.E.D.
in our Morning Lineup and we’ll replay it here:
Everybody has heard of the Oxford English Dictionary (the OED). Some people have even seen a set of the 20-volume work in their local library. But nobody that I know has ever actually used it. I certainly haven’t.
That’s probably because it isn’t the same type of reference work that we usually associate with a dictionary. The OED was created with the thought of becoming the authoritative source for not only the definitions of words, but their complete histories and usages from the time of their first-known utterances. Most of the individual entries run to hundreds of words and are mostly utilized by scholars.
Briefly put, the dictionary project was begun in 1858 by a group of linguists headed by Frederick Furnivall and they put out a call to English language scholars for help. They requested that volunteers send in their submissions of specific word histories complete with their references of past usage. Then the papers began to pour in by the thousands. The project continued to grow over the years and in 1879 Dr. James Murray took over the post of editor.
As the massive work approached its mid-point of completion in 1896, Dr. Murray noticed that of the thousands of steady contributors, the most prolific of them all was a Dr. William C. Minor who had sent in an astounding 10,000 entries and was still going strong after 20 years. Despite many invitations and pleadings, Murray never was able to convince W. C. Minor to travel from his home in SW England up to London so that they could meet. Dr. Murray then decided to take the train to Berkshire and call on Dr. Minor personally. When he arrived, it was then that he learned that Minor was a permanent resident of the Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum.
Not long ago I finished reading a fascinating book that tells the story of this remarkable man who was an American army surgeon but had gone mad and murdered an innocent Londoner. The book, The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, weaves the story of Minor’s sad life along with a concise history of the OED. The dictionary project was finally finished in 1929 after 70 years of dedicated effort by thousands of scholars. A second edition was issued in 1989 and a digitized edition on CD-ROM was released in 2002. A complete overhaul of the OED culminating in the release of the 3rd edition is hoped to be completed in 2037.
That’s probably more than you wanted to know about the Oxford English Dictionary, but I really would recommend the story about W. C. Minor. The 230-page book is inexpensive and easy reading, but is very interesting if you like historical stories.
A CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS, FIRE ENGINE was parked on the front ramp of Station 3 Thursday morning when a car pulled onto the property and collided with the engine.
Caller-Times / Alford photo
The woman who was driving the car was having a medical episode of some kind and was attempting to stop at the firehouse to seek help. A firefighter was loading some equipment into one of the compartments at the time, but he was uninjured.
An ambulance responded from another location and transported the woman to the hospital with an undisclosed condition.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times carried the STORY.
IN BRIGHTON, ENGLAND, MONDAY MORNING FIREFIGHTERS were called to rescue an ambulance crew that was stuck in an elevator with their patient.
According to The Argus, the incident happened just before 7:45 am and the crew from the Roedean fire station successfully freed them without any poor results for the patient.
AN EARLY-MORNING FIRE ON MONDAY TOOK THE LIVES of nine retirement-home residents about 100 miles northwest of Moscow, Russia. The building’s fire alarm sounded at about 4:40 am Moscow time, but the employees did not promptly notify the FD.
The fire was reported to the fire brigade at 5:05 am and the firefighters were on the scene quickly. While they had the fire extinguished by 5:30, smoke suffocation killed eight of the unfortunate victims. The firefighters did rescue and evacuate about 480 residents, however. They are claiming that the fire deaths might have been avoided if they had been called out when the fire alarms first sounded.
The Interfax News Agency is reporting that the fire was started when a man set himself alight in a suicide attempt that not only was successful, but spread to a larger area of the housing unit and completely burning out the room where it started. A spokeswoman for the Tver branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry said investigators found a canister of flammable liquid in the room where the fire started.
This fire continues a long string of fatal fires in nursing homes and retirement centers throughout Russia. The government has repeatedly announced clampdowns on unsafe practices, but with limited success. This retirement occupancy had been inspected in March and was in compliance, but the failure to report the fire in a timely way led to this fatal consequence. The local police have opened a criminal investigation of the incident.
DO YOU RECALL OUR REPORT LAST MONDAY about the crazed 19-yr.-old driver who survived that spectacular car crash that was captured on a dash cam?
WDTN-TV image
The astounding video shows the car speeding down the median strip and going airborne, then crashing into a bridge abutment about 15 feet off the ground. If you are one of the four or five people remaining in the U. S. who haven’t seen it yet, then CLICK HERE to watch it.
Information has since come out that the irresponsible teenager had been arrested and then released about an hour before this unscheduled launch when police found him in a parking lot along with some drugs and alcohol. WDTN-TV continues the UPDATE:
Beavercreek police arrested 19-year-old Brennan Eden of Mason, Ohio, for prohibition, drug paraphernalia and drug abuse after officers found Eden in his vehicle in a parking lot in the area of Beaver Vu Drive and North Fairfield Road with a juvenile female. That was at about 6:13 a.m.
Officers found Eden to be in possession of an unopened can of alcohol, a trace of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. The juvenile female was arrested for prohibition and was released to her father. Eden was cited for his violations and was released.
Officers did not believe Eden to be under the influence of alcohol at the time of his arrest. He was released prior to 6:45 a.m.
It was at approx. 7:15 am, roughly 30 minutes later that his career as a stunt driver was launched. He is still in the hospital in critical condition.
MULTI-NATIONAL FIRETRUCK MANUFACTURER, ROSENBAUER INTERNATIONAL AG announced on Friday that they have succeeded in bucking the current economic downturn and had a successful 1st-half of business results.
The company headquartered in Leonding, Upper Austria, managed to increase turnover by 14 per cent to 274.5 million Euros year on year, while earnings before interest and taxes (Ebit) rose by 33 per cent to 20.6 million Euros. Rosenbauer said it expected annual turnover to reach 600 million Euros, considering the recovery of the economy.
The firm announced a few weeks ago it has been contracted to produce 140 fire-fighting trucks worth 34.6 million Euros for the Saudi-Arabian national civil defence organisation until 2012.
The company produced and delivered more than 1,500 trucks to countries all over the world last year.
Here in the United States, Rosenbauer America’s distribution division Central States Fire Apparatus, employs 275 people in Lyons, South Dakota, a town with a population of 75 people. Overseas markets now account for 42 percent of the firm’s sales, compared with 21 percent three years ago.
A recent study at the University of Leeds in England revealed that one in four lap-dancers has a college degree and another 30% of them are working the nightly grind to pay for their tuition and college expenses, including the 6% who are in a postgraduate degree program.
Apparently the watering-down of the value of a university education isn’t something that even bothers the academe. Instead the eggheads are deeply involved in spending valuable research funds in finding out the benefits to be gleaned from this revelation and they are now plunging headlong into justifying the job as something worthwhile. Probably they would like to plant the idea that college provides a sound educational basis for advancement in the squirmy trade.
BBC News even went so far as to broadcast a round-table discussion with university researcher Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon and lap-dance club owner Peter Stringfellow (his real name) who would love to see his workers get the intellectual recognition that they deserve. Listen while he tell us that these “girls” are smart to work as lap-dancers because “the work is flexible,” (he really says that, too.) “they are self-employed, and it fits in with their life style.”
(if the video doesn’t appear on your monitor, CLICK HERE to view it)
Personally, I’m wondering if it’s wise to publicize the notion that your grinders are smarter than your customers. This same study, that occupied Dr. Teela Sanders and Kate Hardy for a full year, found that of the 300 performers they interviewed, 75% of them described themselves as either ”happy” or “very happy.” The happiness no doubt is aided by the fact that most of them are earning the equivalent of $74,000 a year.
Reuters
One of the researchers, Dr. Sanders is completely serious when she tells us, ”These young women do not buy the line that they are being exploited, because they are the ones making the money out of a three-minute dance and a bit of a chat. You have got to have a certain way about you to do it. They say 80 percent of the job is talking. These women do work hard for their money — you don’t just turn up and wiggle your bum.”
For the life of me, I don’t know how I wandered into this topic in the first place, but I’m beginning to see why FossilMedic is happy working at the university. You meet interesting people there.
Now let’s get interested in getting our equipment checked out. Monday check list today, so it will take extra time. I’ll get some more coffee started.
A COLUMBUS, OHIO, POLICE DEPARTMENT HELICOPTER took off Wednesday on a mission to help in the search for a missing woman. But the mission soon turned into an unplanned bombing run when a $145,000 infrared camera fell off of the plane over a parking lot and damaged six cars.
WBNS-TV
The cameras are too expensive to buy one for each of the six aircraft, so they are frequently switched from one to another as they are placed in and out of service. The camera on this final flight had just been re-installed moments before the last take-off.
One vehicle suffered significant damage and other five were just minor damages. Despite it being the noon lunch hour, there were no injuries reported from the event. It is not yet known if it was caused by improper installation, or from a mechanical malfunction. The camera had just been returned from a repair session in California.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON (August 27) THE OFFICIALS FROM E-ONE fire apparatus announced the winner of their annual contest to recieve a new E-One pumper. More than 700 volunteer fire departments had entered essays describing why they needed a new fire engine and spelling out the financial predicaments that prevented them from purchasing one.
The Grand Prize E-ONE fire engine.
Photo by Larry Shapiro
The applications were winnowed down to 7 finalists by a group of judges and the winner was selected by garnering the most votes from the public during an open period that ended on Friday. At 3 pm from the floor of the Fire Rescue International convention held by the IAFC, they announced that the Owens Cross Roads (Alabama) VFD was the winner of the $250,000 engine. It will be used to replace a 42-yr.-old engine that has ceased to be serviceable and cannot be repaired.
Owens Cross Roads VFD Fire Chief Dan Kelly
reacts when he hears his department named the winner.
Larry Shapiro photo.
Owens Cross Roads said it would dedicate the state-of-the-art vehicle to the memory of Robert M. Maples, who helped found the department in 1958 and served as its assistant chief for half a century. He died in September 2009.
“I’m so on Cloud Nine right now,” said (Garland) Elders, Owens Cross Roads’ fire chief from 2002-06. “It’s awesome.”
Elders said he’s not sure when or how the truck will be delivered to Owens Cross Roads, located a few miles east of Hampton Cove. But he said Madison County Commissioner Jerry Craig, who represents the area and lives nearby in New Hope, wants to throw a party to celebrate its arrival.
E-ONE workers immediately applied the name
of the winning FD to the pumper that was on
display in the exhibit hall.
Larry Shapiro photo.
“This is definitely going to upgrade our equipment,” Elders said. “It’ll have everything we need to fight structure fires and try to save lives and property in our community.”
He said the new pumper will replace a 1968 Chevrolet truck known as “Mr. Maples’ engine.”
WHNT-TV Ch. 19 Huntsville ran this video report on the award:
Chicago Area Fire website has a photo report from the floor of the exhibit hall on the drawing HERE.
Go to Chicago Area Fire’s homepage HERE to see a photo report on new Chicago area apparatus that were also on display.
Fire Photographer Larry Shapiro has a 66-image photo gallery on the E-ONE display and giveaway event HERE.
THE CENTRAL SCOTLAND FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE has given up on trying to get their “new” quints in service and have put them up for sale. The two Volvo chassis’d trucks that were built in Germany to Scotland’s specifications have been in storage for five years because when they are equipped with all of their tools and equipment they are a ½-ton overweight.
The fire service paid £400,000 for each truck and now they have decided to cut their losses and are advertising them for sale at £300,000 each.
(Fire) chiefs say that the engines were pushed over the 18-tonne legal weight limit by their huge aerial rescue platforms. Even when they were stripped of enough equipment to make the engines lighter, firefighters discovered mechanical and electrical problems.
Chief fire officer for Central Scotland, Kenny Taylor, said: “Very early on it became clear there was a problem. When the engine became kitted it was substantially overweight.” John Duffy of the Scottish Fire Brigades Union, added that staff who had used the appliances had discovered problems including the water supply becoming less powerful when the height platform was in use.
The Lothian and Borders Fire Service bought two of them also, but they are still attempting to get them altered to meet the road and safety standards.
* The Rambling Chief has an informative update on the growth of Move Over laws HERE.
* There was another “Fire in the Firehouse” last Tuesday, this time in Oregon. STATter911 has a video report HERE on fire that claimed a fire engine also.
* Good news from “across the pond!” – Mark Glencorse has been given the greenlight to fire up the Medic999 blog again. He had a bit of a tough go with some upper-level dinosaurs for a while, but you can READ HERE how he was able to get the buggy going again. Welcome Back, Mark!
* The Fire Critic has a Netcast update from the recently-concluded Fire Rescue International meeting in Chicago HERE.
* The Backstep Firefighter is running a “double feature” on the Odgen, Utah, training opportunity where they had 38 Buildings to BurnHERE.
* A few days ago the U. S. Forest Service was conducting a 100-acre prescribed burn and it escaped. So far, the wildfire in Montana has consumed more than 2,800 acres and is only 5% contained. Wildfire Today is following it closely and their latest update is full of information HERE. If you want to learn more, then go to the front page of the website HERE and just keep scrolling down the several related postings.
* Captain Mike, publisher of the original fire blog, Firefighter Blog, recently went “under the knife” for a hip replacement. Anxious to get back to the keyboard perhaps, he penned a nice posting describing his encounter with the hospital staff. Take a moment to READ IT HERE and then join me in wishing Mike a speedy and successful recovery.
* Mercy Flights, a leading air-ambulance provider has been fined $30,000 by the U. S. Dept. of Transportation for a “pronoun violation.” JEMS online has the STORY HERE. Does that sound nutty? Well, almost everything coming out of the government these days sounds nutty.
If you haven’t already seen it yet, make sure you scroll down to the next posting directly before this one about the “attic extrication.” Removing injured people from confined or remote spaces is nothing unusual nor rare. But what I found interesting was the FF’s use of the ground ladder to keep the patient level the entire time as they lowered him from the 2nd floor to the ground. Take a look and notice how they did that.
Perhaps it’s nothing new for you, but because it’s been quite a few years since I took anybody out from anywhere, I found it instructive. Those of you who practice high-angle rescue techniques, let me know if you are already familiar with this maneuver. While every job always requires a certain amount of on-the-spot innovation, I get the sense that these men from the SDIS 17 have done something like this before, at least in a training evolution.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure that many of our readers will benefit from this story. Whether you’ve seen something like this before or not, it’s a good idea to use for an in-station drill someday soon. It’s obviously only effective up to about 15 or 20 feet, but I like it.
I’m going to like Sunday breakfast, too. So I will go see how that’s coming along while you get started on the equipment check. I’ll get some more coffee going while I’m out there. See you back in the day room in a little while. Enjoy this week’s Sunday photo art:
A MAN WHO WAS RENTING AN ATTIC ROOM in an old home in St. Peter dAmilly, France, needed medical assistance for an acute lower back pain earlier this week. The loft he was living in has a very low ceiling (perhaps the cause of his back pains?) with only one small window and its only access is from this ladder used to climb up into the attic:
All photos by SDIS 17
When the ambulance arrived they decided that the man needed transportation to the the hospital, but there was no way to get him down the ladder with his severe back pain. So the GRIMP team (the French equivalent of USAR) from the local fire department, SDIS 17, was dispatched to get the man out of his loft room.
This series of photos from the SDIS 17 website documents their innovative extrication:
The man was successfully transported, in a fairly comfortable position, to the hospital at Niort.
SUDDENLY THERE HAS BEEN A SPATE OF “FIRE TORNADOES” associated with brush fires. Or maybe it’s just because there are so many trillions of cellphone cameras and pocket videocams nowadays. But look what showed up in just the past week:
* ON THE BIG ISLAND OF HAWAI’I last Sunday, firefighters were working a tough 1,400-acre wildfire when this fire tornado popped up. A worker for the Department of Land and Natural Resources took this video:
A “fire tornado” caused by lightning and thunderstorms Wednesday burned nearly 8,000 acres of public and private land in Moffat County, officials said Thursday.
Crews have contained the Alkali fire. The blaze was first reported at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday.
The “fire tornado” or “fire whirlwind” whipped across the sagebrush late Wednesday afternoon, throwing out embers that ignited rangeland in all directions, said BLM spokeswoman Lynn Barclay.
* THIS FOOTAGE WAS TAKEN IN BRAZIL earlier this week:
A SEBRING, OHIO, MAN WHO WAS A PAID-ON-CALL Firefighter was arrested and charged with setting a fire in his neighborhood.
The Youngstown News reports that Kristopher Sanor, 31, of Sebring, admitted to police that on Aug. 20 he purposefully set the fire in order to collect a paycheck, according to Sebring Detective Ray Harris. After further interrogation he admitted to setting between four and six other fires at that same residence.
WJW-TV Ch. 8 Cleveland has the full story in this video report:
Sanor was released on $35,000 bond and is scheduled back in court on September 23.
THE UNIONTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA, CITY OFFICIALS ANNOUNCED Wednesday that they would do what the mayor said would never happen. The city is going to disband its paid fire department and rely solely on volunteers for fire protection.
There’s an interesting development happening in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, just southeast of Pittsburgh. A new slate of elected officials took office last month and they are finding that the previous leaders have left quite a financial mess, bordering on the criminal.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Reviewreports that the city’s bank account has $93,700 in the bank – total. That was before yesterday’s city payroll checks in the amount of $73,800 were paid out. On top of that, the city owes the sewage authority $197,000 in unpaid bills going back two years.
There are no records of where all the tax income has gone. One councilman is quoted as saying, “Don’t ask me where the money went.” (Councilman) Sprouts said some financial records are missing from city hall and suspects they may have been shredded and disposed of. (Mayor) Fike disputes that and said he believes the records are in storage.
“If they were stored, why haven’t we found them if they’re in city hall?” Sprouts said. “There’s not that many rooms.”
The new city clerk Kim Marshall said since she took over the post in January, she’s had a difficult time finding certain papers. “It’s just a matter of searching,” she said. “You’re on a hunt-and-find mission every time you need something. I just don’t know where to look for things.”
Of course, there’s more. But what caused this to land on the Firegeezer worktable was the initial “solution” expounded by one of the councilmen to completely eliminate the paid fire department of 13 members. (He also wants to eliminate the sanitation dept.) Fortunately the mayor says no such thing will ever happen. They’ll find savings elsewhere.
Since those promises 18 months ago, the city has laid off seven firefighters leaving six paid FF’s plus the chief to operate two fire stations augmented by volunteers. Now they have decided to lay off the entire paid force effective December 31 when the current union contract expires. Adding to the controversy is a recent disclosure that the fire department is eligible for a $632,835 federal grant to bring the force back to its full complement of 11 for the next two years. But the city council doesn’t want to accept it because the funds will only last for two years and then the city will have to pay the full cost of operating the FD after that. Not being said is why they don’t want to postpone the disbanding for the two years instead of doing it now.
WTAE-TV Ch. 4 Pittsburgh filed this video report about yesterday’s announcement:
The city has a population of just over 12,000 people and is one of the oldest cities in the western half of the state, formed in 1776.
Detroit EMS Update
Comments OffTHE RECENT FLAP ABOUT THE CITY OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN, failing to keep enough ambulances in service to handle calls still has city officials befuddled. (see the August 24 Firegeezer report HERE.) Television station WJBK-TV has been almost alone in reporting on the sorry state of EMS in the Motor City and the other day they were granted an interview with the Fire Commssioner, James Mack.
Yesterday (Monday) they broadcast their report on the interview which didn’t turn out to have much new to report:
There were two things that I particularly noticed. First, the chief tells that “The mayor signed off last week for me to hire 20 additional medics,” and secondly that “the rules have to change,” including having “other agencies” respond to calls that aren’t life threatening.
Taking the second item first, I think that to wish for “other agencies” to start doing your work for you isn’t a viable solution for obvious reasons. The tv station’s interview was heavily edited down, but I like to think that if the chief had anything of more substance than that to say, it would have made it to the final cut and been included in the broadcast. His rambling on about all of his relatives who live in the city is completely irrelevant to the topic and nothing more than an attempt to say something to fill the time with.
His first statement that the mayor has given him the ok to hire more medics sounds nice, but isn’t the major part of the problem the fact that over half of the ambulance fleet is sitting in the garage awaiting repairs on any given day? Wouldn’t it have been more effective to hire more mechanics, too? Maybe they did and he just didn’t mention it.
Commissioner Mack seems to be a sincere and truly dedicated chief. But he could use some help in finding solutions to his problems. It’s understood that the city council is heavily corrupted and squanders large sums on patronage and questionable expenditures. The fault lies in front of many doors.
Says Firegeezer.