Updated, scroll down.  

CHARLOTTE (NORTH CAROLINA) ENGINE 12 COLLIDED with a private automobile at 10:45 this morning.

Charlotte Observer / Todd Sumlin photo

The engine was responding to vehicle accident on I-77 when it collided with an SUV at an intersection.  The Charlotte Observer is reporting that the engine was traveling northbound on the city street and appeared to have crossed over into the southbound lanes as it approached the intersection where it met the SUV head-on.  This account has not been verified.  A television report by WSOC shows that the engine was on the southbound lanes with a landscaped median separating the traffic lanes.

The TV report says that the SUV driver was on the cross street and made a right turn into the path of the fire engine.  If you watch the video you will see that the collision point was a good 50 ft. or more short of the intersection.  We’ll have to wait for the police report before we’ll know what all the circumstances were.

Watch WSOC video report HERE.

The driver of the SUV was transported to the hospital with serious, but not life-threatening, injuries.  The four firefighters were checked at the hospital and all were released.

Read the Charlotte Observer STORY.

THIS VIDEO WAS POSTED OVER THE WEEKEND but doesn’t say where or when it was taken.  The accents of the people heard on the video have a British tinge to them and the fire engine has that kind of appearance, also.  But the vegetation in the neighborhood indicates a more tropical climate.

Anyway, watch the “driver with the big eye” take his engine up on two wheels and narrowly miss another pumper and some firefighters.

Update and disclaimer:  We have learned that this video was taken a long time ago and is one of those that floats around the web endlessly.  But it’s still fun to look at, isn’t it?

A FIRE ENGINE FROM THE MANITOU VOL. FIRE DEPT. near Madisonville, Kentucky was involved in a fatal crash Saturday night.

The pumper with two members on board was responding to a fatal crash when it drifted onto the shoulder of the highway.  When the driver apparently overcorrected he lost control of the vehicle and crashed head-on with an oncoming pickup truck driven by a 27-yr.-old woman from Madisonville.

The fire engine then ran off the road and rolled over landing on its top in a creek.  The driver of the pickup was killed in the collision although she was wearing a seatbelt.

Skid marks show the path of the
fire engine that rolled into the creek.

Both men in the fire engine were belted also but the passenger had to be flown to Louisville for treatment where he is in stable condition.  The driver was treated and released.

WFIE Ch. 14 has the STORY.

 Updated, scroll down:

CONNECTICUT STATE POLICE WERE CALLED EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING for a fire engine theft from the Jewitt City Volunteer Fire Dept.

The theft occurred shortly after midnight, but while the police were searching the neighborhoods in the area they found the engine abandoned behind a business in nearby Canterbury.  It was undamaged.

They continued searching the area and came across a suspicious individual walking nearby.  After talking to him, he admitted to breaking into the fire station and stealing the tanker truck and taking it for a “joy ride,” state police said.

Update: 9:30 pm
It was a volunteer FF that spotted the fire engine going up the highway with lights and siren going and he called the fire chief to confirm that there wasn’t a fire response at the time. Then it was reported to PD.
Police say that the thief is a teenager who is a former fire cadet. He is known to have a mental problem.

WFSB Ch. 3, Hartford has filed this video report:

THE NEW HARTFORD, NEW YORK, VOL. FIRE DEPARTMENT recently held their 5th Annual Fire Truck Spectacular at a local shopping center parking lot.

The public relations event is designed to both acquaint the citizens with their local fire departments and to serve as a recruiting tool for new members.

About 30 fire departments were there displaying 50 pieces of apparatus.

It looks like a good idea and appears to be successful.  WKTV, Ch. 2 in Utica gave this video report:

The New Hartford VFD is more than 100 years old and has a good, informative website HERE.  While reading through their History page, Firegeezer got a kick out of this entry from their company minute-book:  September of 1921- The Chief noted complaints of some firemen entertaining girls and playing the piano until 2 or 3 in the morning. Motion carried that the piano was to be played only from 7:30 to 11:30 PM.

ON I-93 IN NEW HAMPSHIRE WEDNESDAY, A TILTON-NORTHFIELD FIRE DEPARTMENT pumper was severely damaged when a car drove right into the back of the engine.

Fosters photo

The department’s first-line engine was responding to a highway medical call and traveling with its lights and siren activated when the driver slowed down to turn into the emergency vehicle crossover.  At that point, a 2008 Dodge driven by a Kansas City, Missouri man crashed into the rear of the pumper.

Fire Chief Stephen Carrier said (the engine driver)  told him the impact “sounded like an explosion” and gave him a “pretty good jolt” but he did not lose control of the fire truck.  The engine is out of service and Carrier said insurance investigators will determine whether or not it is repairable. He said there is some concern that the frame may be bent.  The E-One pumper was purchased less than two years ago for $310,000.

The car’s driver, who was unhurt, was charged by State Police with negligent driving.

Fosters

The Laconia Citizen has the full STORY.

THE TINY TENNESSEE TOWN OF LUTTRELL lost its second firetruck in eight months from rollover accidents.

Dave Statter has the photos and details from both accidents at STATter911 HERE.

FEDERAL SIGNAL CORP. ANNOUNCED WEDNESDAY EVENING that they have agreed to sell their subsidiary E-One to a buyout group.

Waiting until the stock markets closed, they issued a press release stating that the current management team, including CEO Peter Guile, will join with American Industrial Partners (AIP) to purchase the fire/rescue apparatus maker for $20 million.  AIP is a private-equity firm that makes investments in mid-sized industrial companies.

They expect the sale to be completed and closed within the next 30 days.

Firegeezer notes that the selling price looks like a real bargain.  The current management team  apparently took advantage of Federal Signal’s eagerness to shed the company and took it over for almost nothing.  This is good news for the people of Ocala, Florida where the plant is located.  If the company can salvage their dealership structure and weather the current sales slump, they stand a chance of surviving.

Rick Cundiff at the Ocala Star-Banner has the news and some background on the situation HERE.
You can read the press release issued last night HERE.

AMERICAN LaFRANCE HAS ANNOUNCED THAT they are relocating all of their fire apparatus manufacturing operations out of their Summerville, South Carolina facility. 

Summerville plant

The troubled plant was never able to get production up to speed and led to the vintage manufacturer to file for bankruptcy.  The court approved their reorganization plan on April 30, but they never made public until now their plans to resume full operations.

The Summerville plant is a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that was architecturally designed to look like a firehouse.  ALF says that they will continue to use the South Carolina plant to manufacture heavy-duty trash hauling trucks.

The firetruck business will be consolidated in their two other plants in Hamburg, New York, and Ephrata, Pennsylvania.  The Hamburg and Ephrata facilities have a combined total of 184,000 sq. ft. of space.  The Summerville plant that they are leaving has 440,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing area.

Left: Hamburg plant.  Right: Ephrata plant

There is expected to be more detailed information available tomorrow.  This report was based on information from the Charleston Post & Courier and the American LaFrance website.

A BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, FIRE ENGINE started out of the firehouse Sunday afternoon around 3 pm with one of its compartment doors left open.

Just over two weeks after a similar incident in Henderson County, No. Carolina (Firegeezer report HERE), the Trumbauersville VFD pumper caught the support column between the bay doors, ripping off the brick fascia and causing both overhead doors to come tumbling down on the engines in both bays, leaving the culprit truck halfway out of the firehouse.

WPVI

Unlike the accident in North Carolina, however, the borough building engineer said that the structural damage was insignificant.  Fire crews from Richland, Quakertown, Hilltown and Milford came to the station to help clear the debris and free the fire engines.  Main street was closed for several hours while the “rescue” effort took place.

The Bucks County Courier Times has the STORY.

THE CALGARY, ALBERTA, FIRE DEPARTMENT WILL BE SUBMITTING a plan to the City Council on Wednesday calling for a $43.6 million expenditure be earmarked for replacing aging fire apparatus over the next five years.

The city has been growing rapidly lately, putting pressure on the department to add more stations and handle more and more emergency calls.  Of their existing fleet of 89 trucks, over half of them, 47, are 10 or more years old.  And 16 of those are at least 20 years old.  Three units were recently taken out of service because they failed safety tests.

Calgary truck photo by Hidden Images

The Calgary Herald is reporting this morning:

In February, council approved $330 million worth of funding — from the 10-year $3.3 billion Municipal Sustainability Initiative from the province– to go toward priority protective services infrastructure. The fire department’s $43.65 million for new trucks could be spaced out over the next five years and is part of a larger $92 million needed over the next 10 years.

“In order to provide the citizens of Calgary with an effective fire service, it is essential to have safe, functional and fully maintained apparatus to appropriately deploy to an incident,” says a report approved by fire Chief Bruce Burrell.

“The Calgary Fire Department’s existing complement of personnel, fire stations and apparatus cannot continue to provide high levels of service delivery in a rapidly growing city without a long-term investment plan that responds to growth,” it says.

Alderman Andre Chabot sits on the Community and Protective Services Committee that will be guiding the related expenditures and he appears to be supportive of the request saying, “If our fire department doesn’t have reliable equipment to go on site to do what it is they need to do, which is to fight fires and protect lives, what’s the point of having firefighters?”

Read the full story HERE.
Calgary Fire Dept. WEBSITE.

A HELENA, MONTANA, WOMAN IS IN CRITICAL CONDITION with a serious head trauma after her mini-van was struck by a fire engine Thursday afternoon.

The engine from the West Valley VFD was responding to a grass fire when, according to Montana State Police, the woman drove through a stop sign into the path of the fire truck which had its lights and siren activated.

Both drivers were wearing seat belts, but the engine driver suffered a broken hand.

The Helena Record has the STORY.