THE WEBSITE FOR THE FEUERWEHR-WIESLOCH in Germany reportedthat on Tuesday afternoon one of their tankers was involved in a collision that left it heavily damaged.
The truck was responding to a house fire in Malsch when it somehow crashed with a commercial truck on the roadway. The exact nature of the collision has not been reported, but none of the people involved, either on the firetruck or the commercial truck, were seriously injured.
The tanker is only three years old and will be out of service for a long time. The VFD is now trying to arrange for a temporary replacement for it to maintain their water delivery capability.
Update, Friday 9 pm: More photo links and new information. Scroll down.
SHORTLY BEFORE 1 PM ON FRIDAY (local time) A FIRE TRUCK FROM THE THALFANG (Germany) Volunteer Fire Department left the roadway and flipped over while responding to an emergency call. The driver of the truck was killed and the other FF on board was seriously injured.
Geideis-TV
The driver, who has not been identified, was 45 yrs. of age and leaves a wife and three children. The other FF is 33-yrs.-old and was flown to the hospital in critical condition. An unconfirmed report says that the second firefighter has died, too.
Early reports say that the truck was responding with another VFD to a house grass fire when the truck drifted off the roadway, crashed through a guard rail and tumbled down an embankment.
Update, Friday 9 pm:
The truck was responding to a grass fire. Still no confirmation on the mortality of the 2nd firefighter.
Volksfreund now has a 54-image photo gallery posted HERE. (Hover your mouse icon over the photo to bring up the < and > paging buttons.)
Another photo in the gallery (linked above) shows the scuff marks
beginning from the right-hand shoulder indicating the
possibility of an over-correction maneuver.
(Volksfreund photo)
Updated: Another video and photo added. Scroll down.
A DETROIT, MICHIGAN, LADDER TRUCK was parked on a railroad mainline Monday shortly before noon, while the fire company was washing down a gasoline spill from an auto wreck, when an AMTRAK passenger train plowed into it, demolishing the truck. Ladder 13 had been dispatched for the washdown and had been positioned on the tracks. When they realized that there was a train approaching, the driver tried to move the truck, but was not in time.
Detroit Free Press / Jackson photo
The train was traveling from Pontiac, Michigan, to Chicago and carrying just over 70 passengers with a crew of 4. There were no injuries on the train, but one firefighter suffered a gash on his head and required treatment at a hospital.
A visibly angered Fire Commissioner James Mack said, “I’m very upset. It was a $600,000 truck, we’re trained professionals. We should always be thinking. I don’t think the citizens of Detroit are pleased that he parked on the tracks. This was a disservice to the citizens. It’s their fire truck, they paid for it.”
WUSA-TV has provided this raw aerial video of the crash scene from WDIV-TV:
There were also two police cruisers that had been thoughtlessly left on the tracks, but they were able to get them out of the way.
This photo by Daniel Jasina shows L-13’s 2003 Pierce Dash
waiting to be offloaded at DFD’s apparatus shops.
This video report from WJBK-TV Ch. 2 interviews some of the eyewitnesses:
We received an item of “good news” yesterday that I’d like to pass on. This notice was forwarded to us from Chief Gaston Wilson of the Nicol Volunteer Fire Department in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. The members of Nicol VFD have been readers of Firgeezer since shortly after we went online nearly three years ago. You might remember the story of the Dalmation Chicken that they sent along back then.
Yesterday they were notified of this grant award:
WASHINGTON – Congressman Spencer Bachus (AL-6) today announced that the Nicol Volunteer Fire Department in Tuscaloosa County has been awarded a federal fire grant in the amount of $119,225.
“Firefighters are on the front lines every day, protecting lives and saving property. They deserve modern equipment and the best in safety gear. This grant program helps ensure that fire companies have the necessary resources to quickly and effectively respond to emergency calls. The Nicol Fire Department serves its community well and is to be congratulated for qualifying for this grant,” Bachus said.
Bachus announced the following grant.
Nicol Volunteer Fire Department – $119,225
Operations and Safety Grant for purchase of 1800 gallon Rural Fire Tanker Tender
Chief Gaston Wilson, Jr. said, “First of all, we would like to thank Congressman Bachus for all the support he has provided. He has always stuck with us and helped us. We are in an area that is mostly poor and impoverished and people don’t have much to give to this volunteer fire department. This is not only going to assist us, it will assist others in our area. This will increase our safety rating and lower the cost of insurance while greatly improving our capabilities as a fire department.”
Funds awarded under the Assistance to Firefighters (AFG) program are used to meet the firefighting and emergency needs of fire departments and nonaffiliated medical services organizations. Only the applications most closely conforming to program priorities are considered and scored by peer review panels.
The program is administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Congratulations to the Nicol VFD for being awarded this grant that is just as valuable and appreciated by them as any of the large grants that go to some departments. There are many such rural departments that continually scrape by to just keep fuel in the tank, let alone replace or enlarge the fleet. These are the people who need to be remembered whenever somebody advances the notion of donating equipment to needy departments, instead of some place in Central America.
Let’s get our own equipment checked out now. I’ll get the coffee started. We’ll meet back in the day room in a little while.
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.
IN GERMANY THE FIRE DEPARTMENTS – FEUERWEHR – UTILIZE heavy-duty cranes more than we do on this side of the ocean. So much so that many of them have large cranes as part of their fleets. Most of the large cities, all of which are all-paid departments, have a crane on their rosters and they have refined rescue techniques utilizing them.
FW Garmisch
The smaller cities, towns and communities that are either part-paid or all-volunteer, don’t have the resources to buy and maintain one of these giant vehicles. An exception to this is the small city of Garmisch, known to many of you from watching international skiing competitions on television. Feuerwehr Garmisch, an all-volunteer department, recently took possession of a new crane just as their firehouse is being renovated. It has replaced a 27-yr.-old crane that was impossible to get replacement parts for anymore. The crane was purchased by the “county” where they are located, Garmisch-Partenkirten for use in the entire region.
FWnetz photos
According to the Feuerwehr Garmisch WEBSITE, the vehicle specs are in part:
Chassis: Liebherr
Engine: 408 hp
Weight: 48 tons
Length: 13 meters
Width: 2.5 meters
Extended length of arm: 42 meters
FW Garmisch
The rear pulley is part of a 70-meter cable winch for mountain rescue lifting and the arrangement below is a towing device. For off-road travel, all four axles can be locked on for 8-wheel-drive.
The auxiliary equipment and tools, including a water rescue basket that can carry 5 people, are transported in a roll-off container module.
A CINCINNATI ENGINE COMPANY AND A MEDIC unit responded Thursday afternoon for a medical call. When they arrived on the scene, a man came out of the house and began acting very strangely and not cooperating with the medics’ attempt to evaluate him.
When he continued his act, they called the police for assistance. While they were waiting for PD, the man jumped into the cab of the fire engine, locked the doors and tried to drive away. He revved up the engine several times, but didn’t know the sequence to put the truck in gear. The police arrived quickly and got him out of the cab and into the handcuffs.
WLWT-TV image
Makhtar Fall, 23, was taken to a hospital psychiatric ward for evaluation and then transferred to jail where he has been charged with felony theft along with resisting arrest. Fall has been arrested several times in the past five years for an assortment of petty crimes.
A FIRETRUCK FROM THE HENNEBONT FIRE DEPARTMENT in the Morbihan region of France crashed shortly after 1 am this morning, killing one firefighter and injuring three two others, one seriously. The worst-injured firefighter was ejected from the cab.
Ouest-France photo
The truck was responding to a vehicle accident call when it got onto an icy patch of roadway, went out of control and had a complete rollover. The three FF’s were all career firefighters; the unidentified 40-yr.-old man who perished was trapped under the cab and had to be extricated by his colleagues.
Update:
The deceased firefighter’s name has been released. He is Damien Hochet.
TODAY’S MUG SHOT COMES TO US FROM GERMANY. Long-time reader Christian Lewalter submitted this photo of him holding his GeezerCup while standing in front of his department’s brand new rescue/engine.
The spanking-new engine was delivered to the Freiwillige Feuerwehr Brandoberndorf (Brandoberndorf Volunteer Fire Department) this past Wednesday and, after four days of intense preparation, it was placed in active service today – December 21.
The 2,000 lpm pump also has a foam tank, pneumatic light pole, and a full compliment of hydraulic rescue tools. The crew cab has room for the driver, officer and seven firefighters.
The Brandoberndorf VFD has their own website where you can visit and view more photos HERE. Don’t worry if you can’t understand the words, just keep clicking on the links.
If you haven’t sent us your mug shot yet, don’t be shy….email it to us so that we can add it to our gallery. If you don’t have your own GeezerCup yet, then CLICK HERE and order yours today using our safe and secure PayPal button down at the bottom of the order page.
IT WAS 18 MONTHS AGO THAT WE reported on Stockton, California, Fire Chief Ron Hittle’s plan to sell advertising space on the sides of the city’s firetrucks. (see the Firegeezer report from June, 2007 HERE.) It sounded dopey then, and it sounds dopey now. But they’ve gone ahead and done it.
creation of Stockton Record
The city has sold space on their new US&R truck that just went in service to a local grocery store chain. They justify it by saying that they sell naming rights to sports arenas and ball parks, so why not the city’s rolling stock?
KCRA-TV has the video report on this demeaning bit of financial desperation:
Chief Hittle demonstrated his leadership skills back in 2007 when he publicly announced that his firefighters wear “funky helmets that don’t really perform all that well in a fire.”
A HOLLYWOOD STUNT-MAN HAS DEVELOPED WHAT HE THINKS could be a valuable resource for the incessant wildfires that occur in California and elsewhere every year. George Sack has built a specially-designed tanker truck that blasts water and retardant ahead of oncoming flames. Dubbed by Sack as the Velocity Fire Force, it has a shotgun-style nozzle that lays down a blanket of water or fire retardant up to 200 ft. away to act as a barrier to fire spread.
KTTV Ch. 11 filed this video report on his innovative tanker:
Sack has spent about five years developing and building his truck and has offered to sub-contract it to fire protection agencies for firefighting duty. So far he hasn’t been able to convince any of them to try his approach.
Velocity Fire Force has a website HERE and has also produced this promotional video:
THIS IS THE TIME OF YEAR WHEN ALL THE FIRE APPARATUS manufacturers issue their illustrated calendars for the upcoming year.
Our photography expert, Larry Shapiro of Shapiro Photography has assembled a handy list of links for you so that you can just click and order from the comfort of the Captain’s office late at night.
First up is E-ONE. Theirs is a 13-month calendar with 15 truck photos. We’re listing this one first because Larry took all the shots in this one. Take a look and order it from their website HERE.
Next on the list is Seagrave. You can order theirs online, too. Just CLICK HERE and fill in the blanks.
Sutphen has a different way of distributing theirs. They don’t sell it, instead you download the .pdf online copy and print it out yourself. Make sure your ink cartridges are filled and CLICK HERE.
For you Pierce fans, you can order your favorite brand’s calendar HERE.
Finally, Rosenbauer has posted all their calendar photos HERE, but we believe that the calendar itself is only available through your local dealer. So go and pester him.
If anybody knows of other calendar offers, pass them along and we’ll share the info. At the time of this posting, all of the calendars were still in stock.
Update: If you’re looking for a calendar with more variety and fireground shots, BTFirephotos, based in northern New Jersey, has quite a wide selection of calendars on sale. I notice that they also carry some “back issues,” calendars of previous years that have collectible photo collections in them. CLICK HERE to check out Bill and Chris Tompkins’ offerings.
SUFFOLK DISTRICT ATTORNEY DANIEL CONLEY announced at a press conference Thursday that there will be no criminal charges filed on the accident last January when a Boston FD ladder truck lost its brakes on a hill and crashed into an apartment building. The wreck claimed the life of Fire Lieutenant Kevin Kelley, a 30-yr. firefighter with the department.
Boston Globe / Ryan file photo
This incident garnered wide coverage around the fire/ems community and it also led to a new look at how the BFD’s vehicle maintenance program is carried out. Once that rock was lifted, all kinds of ugly things came running out, including a lack of certification of the truck mechanics, no routine preventive maintenance program, no daily in-station checks, among other things.
In yesteday’s press conference, Conley said that the Boston Fire Department failed to provide adequate training on how to handle firetrucks in emergency situations. The Boston Globereports:
The driver did not know to check brake pressure before he got behind the wheel that day and then, when the brakes failed, did not know how to engage secondary braking systems.
Instead, he pumped the brakes, releasing any remaining air pressure from the brake system, and put the truck into neutral, preventing the secondary brakes from engaging.
But the findings underscored the Boston Fire Department’s woeful lack of training, Conley said. Standard industry practices would have dictated that firefighters inspect trucks daily, including air pressure on the brakes, and that they be trained in all aspects of handling trucks.
Conley wrote in his report that (Operator) O’Neill had only “limited classroom instruction and no driver training in the proper use of air brakes in downhill and emergency circumstances.’’
“In point of fact,’’ Conley wrote,’’ Firefighter O’Neill was not aware that his desperate efforts to slow Ladder 26 during its accelerating descent down Parker Hill Avenue could have had the opposite effect.’’
Not only was the training seriously deficient, but the entire maintenance program was exposed as nearly non-existant. The Globe continues:
The main cause was brake failure, probably the result of years of “insufficient and substandard’’ maintenance, Conley said.
“An examination of the truck found reduced braking power on both front wheels, significantly reduced braking power on the rear right wheel, and nonexistent brakes on the rear left.’’
Read the entire article in this morning’s edition of the Boston GlobeHERE.
WCVB-TV Ch. 5 has a video report on yesterday’s press conference along with a summary of the accident:
A SMALL SUV-TYPE VEHICLE CRASHED PART WAY through a closed bay door of the Truro, Massachusetts, fire station Monday morning, demolishing the door and knocking the parked fire engine back about two feet.
WCVB-TV
The crash happened in the Cape Cod community shortly after 9 am this morning. The Cape Cod Times is reporting:
Truro fire chief Brian Davis was holding a meeting in his office when the accident occurred. There was a high-pitched whining noise followed by a loud explosion, Davis said, adding that it sounded like a bomb had gone off.
The driver may have been coming to the fire station because of a medical condition and may have passed out behind the wheel, Davis said.
The driver of the car was taken unconscious from the car and transported by helicopter to Boston for treatment. Nobody inside the station was injured.
UNFORTUNATELY THE DESIGNER OF THE AMATOYA fire suppression vehicle doesn’t seem to realize just how much water you need in a wildland fire when you’re miles away from a source. But we like his design as a starting point for what could become a practical firefighting vehicle if it’s efficiently outfitted.
The vehicle is described by Liam Ferguson, the designer as: Amatoya is a concept reconnaissance and suppression vehicle that gives us a new approach to fire-fighting. This highly advanced and specialized light tanker functions primarily as a reconnaissance vehicle and offers unmatched vehicle and crew safety/survivability. It promises to be the best front line defense during the scene of an emergency. He is obviously working with wildland firefighting in mind and is approaching it from European viewpoint.
He continues:
Cabin temperature and vehicle survivability are central to the AMATOYA concept. Existing approaches in survival engineering on fire tankers consistently appears as augmentation rather than integration. Methods are passive, typically reactive and often incapacitate the appliance when in use. A key example is the use of curtain heat shields, while effective, when employed render the appliance out of operation.
To create a homogenous directive towards survivability AMATOYA incorporates state of the art clear aerogel laminated insulation in the windows and bodywork, a dedicated auxiliary water supply to operate a highly efficient, intelligent temperature controlled spray down system, military grade sacrificial thermo ceramic intumescent paints, and a mechanically injected large displacement diesel engine specifically engineered for the unique conditions experienced on the fire ground.
These measures will assure that even in the case of an extremely prolonged and high intensity burnover the vehicle will not only maintain cabin integrity, but opposed to existing appliances AMATOYA will remain fully operational.
The concept is explained in more detail along with a lot more photos and diagrams on the YankoDesign WEBSITE HERE. Check it out and decide for yourself whether there is any potential in the design.
Ben Wojdyla at Jalopnik posts a picture from Google Street View that appears to show a bicyclist struck by a Neatherlands fire truck.
Go to the November 11 post (HERE) to see the rest of the street pictures that start before the encounter and the aftermath. It appears that the fire company did not stop to assist the elderly bicyclist.
PICTURES REMOVED BY GOOGLE
Wojdyla provides a follow-up on November 12:
A moment on Google Street View showing a Dutch fire truck driving away after allegedly knocking down a little old lady on her bike hit the internet yesterday, today Google’s completely erased the moment. Too bad we kept the pictures. (item HERE)
A DANIA BEACH FIRE RESCUE DEPARTMENT (Florida) fire apparatus lost a wheel while it was responding to an emergency on Monday morning. The wheel went bounding across the roadway and struck the front wall and window of a business office. The manager of USA Air Duct says that the wheel injured two employees. One of them had to be transported to a hospital and the other was treated on the scene.
WPLG-TV
WPLG-TV reports that Fire Rescue officials said no one in the fire truck was injured and that the vehicle was badly damaged. The representative said the truck has had no previous problems and that the department would investigate why the wheel came off.
Updated information and new photos added. Scroll down.
Update #2, video added.
TWO FDNY APPARATUS, ENGINE 236 AND LADDER 107 collided at an intersection in Brooklyn shortly after 9:30 this morning. Both of them were responding to an emergency.
The New York Postreported 45 minutes after the crash:
Ladder 107, which was heading north on Ashford, flipped on to its side. Its back end landed on a minivan parked on the street and its front end jammed into a tree, witnesses said. The other rig sped into the front lawn of a nearby home.
WABC-TV
“I heard one firefighter yelling, ahhhh,” said witness Everton Brown. “After [the ladder truck] flipped, the one standing on the back flew off the truck and landed on his face. He walked back and sat on the other truck. Then guys from both trucks got out and started to help.”
Two firemen were trapped inside Ladder 107’s truck – one was cut out and removed on a stretcher. The other is still inside.
The Fire Department said there are 12 injuries all together, four serious and eight minor. No civilians were hurt. The firefighters were taken to three local hospitals with unspecific injuries, authorities said.
WNYW-TV Ch. 5 filed this video report:
Update, 6:00 pm: So far, the only information released about the crash by the FD says that Ladder 107 was in the intersection when Engine 236 struck it near the rear of the truck, effectively knocking it over and then skidding into a tree crushing the cab. The driver of the Ladder was entrapped for two hours before he was freed.
New York Post photo
Both units were responding to the same call, a report of a gas leak near the accident site.
When I started on the job, we had American LaFrance rigs with a rich maroon color. I fondly remember riding the 1969 100′ tiller at Station 22.
The county tried to duplicate that color when they were buying their first Seagraves in the early 1970’s, but it was not the same.
CENTENNIAL EDITION PAINT FINISH
To commemorate the Great Earthquake and Fire, San Francisco Fire Department and American LaFrance used paint chips from a museum steamer and hose cart to duplicate the original maroon color. American LaFrance delivered ten pumpers with a special Centennial Edition Paint Finish in 2006.
ABOUT THAT ACCENT WALL
I was getting my apartment painted and wanted ALF maroon for an accent wall, a dark background for the hi-def television.
While on a business trip I visited the museum that is part of San Francisco Station 10. Looked at the color on a 1893 4th size, double 550 gpm, steam engine. Also looked at the centennial paint job on Engine 10. Determining the right hue was as difficult as looking at paint swatches at Home Depot.
Had to laugh at the sign on the inside of the watchroom: R U AIQ? Immediately recognized the message, a question asked in every fire station that uses a computer aided dispatch system.
Found a shade of burgundy that seemed close enough, a friend suggested I should have added gold leaf trim on the corners of the wall. Another suggested a white V-stripe like the front of Truck 22. Great man-cave ideas.
Now I just need a recording of an unmufflered 900 series ALF tiller taking in the box when the exhaust was louder than the siren. That would be a great alarm-clock alert.
A PAIR OF PHOENIX, ARIZONA, CITY VEHICLES jockeyed to occupy the same space late Sunday night. One was a police car and the other was an FD aerial truck. You can guess who won out on that one. We don’t know yet whether they were responding on calls or not. Information is slow getting released on this one. But KSAZ-TV Ch. 10 has some video for us:
IN SPARTANBURG COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, a vandal fired gunshots into the Glenn Springs-Pauline fire station that disabled two of the three firetrucks.
The destruction happened sometime between late Friday night and Saturday morning last weekend and the sheriff says that the perp was using a .40 cal. handgun. The shots were well placed because they were sent through metal bay doors directly into the radiators of the two affected trucks, one of which is a 1-yr.-old tanker. Nobody was in the station at the time.
“I think they knew what was behind here because they aimed it to where it would go right at our radiators,” (Fire Chief Brent) Peeler said.
“Right now, I’ve got some neighboring departments on stand-by,” Peeler said. “We’ve got another station, so we’re still in pretty good shape. We’re still ticking at 100 percent, but it does hamper the emergency if we have one.”
Peeler estimated at least $6,000 in damages, though he was still waiting on an estimate from the department’s insurer.
The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office is investigating, but has no leads. The fire chief hopes going public about the crime will encourage someone to come forward and identify the shooter. ”Don’t know why somebody would’ve done this to us,” Chief Brent Peeler told WYFF News4’s Mike McCormick.The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office is investigating, but has no leads. The fire chief hopes going public about the crime will encourage someone to come forward and identify the shooter.
“It almost appears they picked the bay they wanted to shoot and placed the bullet exactly where they wanted it to go,” said Peeler. “Right through the radiators and cause a lot of mechanical damage.”
They found the bullets laying underneath the trucks.
THE SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, SHERIFF’S OFFICE got one of those nifty mobile command centers last year. With the help of a Homeland Security grant, they took delivery of the $625,000 truck late last year. It is designed to be a regional command post to coordinate fire, police and rescue agencies at major disasters. But there’s just one thing wrong … it’s too heavy to legally operate on California highways.
The deputies noticed something wrong during a training exercise when the vehicle started leaning and didn’t go back to level. Putting two and two together, they decided to take it to the truck scales where they learned that the real axle was carrying 2,060 lbs. over the legal limit.
The command center was built in Ohio where it’s legal to operate as well as at most other states, so it wasn’t caught at first. The sheriff dept. also increased the rear axle load by ordering two large air conditioning units and the camera mast to be located on the rear of the vehicle.
Plans are made to drive the truck back to the builder where they’ll install a tandem axle at no charge to the sheriff. But the county will have to pay about $8,000 for the costs of transporting it out and back – three drivers and their food and lodging expenses for the 11-day portal-to-portal assignment.
Sacramento TV News10 has this video report complete with an interior tour:
The Lodi News-Sentinel reported today:
Fred Gerling, owner and founder of Gerling & Associates, said in a phone interview Tuesday from Ohio that California’s 20,000-pound limit applies only to commercial carriers, not emergency vehicles.Sheriff’s spokesman Les Garcia disagrees, citing Section 35550a of the California Vehicle Code, which states that the gross weight of any one axle of a vehicle shall not exceed 20,000 pounds except for those carrying livestock.
Redistributing the command vehicle’s weight by more than 2,000 pounds will cost Gerling an estimated $9,000 in parts and $5,000 in labor.
“As owner, I basically care to err on the side of satisfying my customers,” Gerling said, adding that he wants San Joaquin County to be a repeat customer.
Gerling said that the sheriff’s department accepted the vehicle in June 2008 and was delighted with the product, but now he’s dealing with different sheriff’s representatives who insist on reducing the axles’ load to 20,000 pounds.
A LOS ANGELES CITY FIRE ENGINE STRAYED OFF COURSE this morning and tumbled into a sinkhole created by a water main break.
KNBC-TV is reporting that the truck is still slowly sinking into the pit.
City fire units and Department of Water and Power repair crews were at the scene of a water main break that is gushing water near the intersection of Hartsook Street and Bellingham Avenue, located east of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and south of Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood, according to city fire Capt. Rick McClure. The break was reported about 5:20 a.m., McClure said.
The fire truck blundered into it and was left with its back half protruding at a 45-degree angle.No injuries were immediately reported.
KTLA-TV has posted this video taken from their helicopter:
This is the third major water main break in the past four days in that same area.
Update, 4:30 pm:
It goes in a little deeper, but that mighty battery keeps the lights flashing:
Update #2, 6 pm Eastern: Shortly after 1 pm Pacific time, a heavy-duty wrecker successfully retrieved the sinking fire engine from the sinkhole.
Los Angeles Times
AP / Nick Ut photo
The fire engine was in the neighborhood checking on the flooding call when the driver felt that the road was unstable. They were in the process of backing out from the danger area when the weight of the truck caused it to fall through the undermined pavement. Road authorities believe that a car’s weight would not have triggered the collapse. All four firefighters escaped safely through the windows as the water and mud began pouring into the cab.
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, PUMPER 18 WAS RETURNING FROM A CALL shortly after 4 am this morning and was only 100 ft. from their firehouse when a Camarro auto smashed into it. The driver of the engine saw the car coming right at him and made a sharp turn to try and avoid the collision, but the car barreled into the side of the engine anyway.
The crash was so violent that the type of car wasn’t readily apparant at first. Two passengers in the car were killed immediately, one of them was the mother of the car’s driver. She was 47 yrs. old and the other passenger who was in the back seat, a 32 yr. old woman was killed also. The driver was a 24-yr.-old man who is listed in “extremely critical” condition.
WDAF-TV Ch. 4 has this video report from the scene earlier:
None of the four firefighters was injured except one of them was checked for some rib pains and released.
The truck was responding to a house fire in Malsch when it somehow crashed with a commercial truck on the roadway. The exact nature of the collision has not been reported, but none of the people involved, either on the firetruck or the commercial truck, were seriously injured.
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