ON SATURDAY FIREGEEZER REPORTED HERE on the firehouse in Dana, Henderson County, North Carolina, that was severely damaged when a cabinet door on one of the trucks opened and caught a pillar between the bays.

FireNews.net is now reporting that the county building inspectors have determined that the damage is so great that the building will have to be demolished.

Read the full story and what the FD is going to do about it in FireNews.net HERE.
Click on the Firegeezer link HERE to view the video of the damage.

THE WARWICK TOWNSHIP FIRE CO. IN BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, has its tower truck trapped inside the firehouse this morning.  About 8:10 pm on Saturday a pickup truck came careening into the front of the station, destroying the tower’s bay door and knocking down several chunks of the building’s facade.

WPVI Ch. 6

The tower suffered some body damage, but does not appear at first to be mechanically impacted.  There was also some plumbing and electrical damage in the station.

Police are attempting to figure out why the driver, who was alone in the pickup, drove into the building even though it is set back some distance from the roadway.  He was the only person hurt in the crash and was taken to a hospital for undisclosed injuries.

phillyBurbs has the STORY.

THE DANA (NORTH CAROLINA) FIRE & RESCUE DEPT. had a bit of bad luck Friday morning when a compartment door flew open as one of their trucks was leaving the station on a call.

The opened door caught the pillar separating the bay doors and pulled down a support beam, resulting in the front of the station partially collapsing.

The falling debris caused some minor damages to two of their trucks.  Neither of the two people in the building at the time were injured.

WLOS -TV has this video report:

Dana Fire & Rescue WEBSITE.

A LARGE MAJORITY OF DALLAS, TEXAS’, 53 FIRE STATIONS are so decrepit that they are nearly untenable.  Whenever something breaks that requires maintenance or repairing, the city has been ignoring the problems while their buildings deteriorate.

Today’s Dallas Morning News is reporting that at one station, for example, an unfixed plumbing problem routinely causes raw sewage to back up onto the bathroom floors.  Several stations have leaking roofs that pour buckets of water into the buildings whenever it rains.  At another station the emergency generator only works occasionally.

The infamous Sta. 35, one of the unhealthiest
firehouses in the city.  (DFD photo)

The Morning News reports:

Dallas’ fire stations have fallen victim to years of shoestring budgets and staffing cutbacks that have left city maintenance workers overwhelmed, understaffed and unable to meet the repair demands of more than 500 city buildings, city officials said. Requests for repairs, minor and major, sent to the city’s Equipment and Building Services go undone – sometimes for years – as roughly 1,500 firefighters make do at stations across the city. Some firefighters even do painting and remodeling themselves.

Big D already spends 45 percent less on average on building upkeep than comparable cities, according to a 2006 benchmarking report conducted by the International City/County Management Association.

And an already-grim situation may get worse: The recent multimillion-dollar budget crunch has the city considering slashing the building upkeep budget 52 percent. Half of 144 staff positions could be cut. Half of all work orders would be delayed. 

“It takes an act of Congress to get something fixed,” firefighter Ed Levell lamented. “When we call in with something that’s broke, they’ll send out two men in a truck and they say, ‘Yep, it’s broke.’ We don’t need anyone to confirm that it’s broke. We know it’s broke.”

Read the complete article HERE.

DUXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS, VOTERS went to the polls this past Saturday to cast their ballots on the Town’s tax measures.

One of the proposals was to begin design schedules to replace the overcrowded and inadequate police and fire station.  Currently it is one building shared by both agencies.  The planning would include exploring the option of replacing it with another dual-use building, or construct two separate facilities.

The estimated cost for two new buildings is approx. $16 million.  The Board of Selectmen even prepared a slide presentation for the citizens showing the inadequacy of the police and fire dept. offices.  Designed for 11 officers forty years ago, the PD now has over 30 officers.  Both departments also suffer from the inability to fully utilize modern equipment for lack of space and infrastructure.

The fire department’s slide show is online and you can view the appalling working conditions HERE.

Photo showing that diesel exhaust
blasts onto the gear racks

EMS de-con and gear-cleaning area
(Firegeezer wonders why the State Health
Department hasn’t been brought into this.)

Click the above link to view all 30 photos.

However, the votes failed to approve the $1 million tax-override measure to begin the replacement process.  Andre Martecchini, chairman of the Board of Selectmen says, ”When people have the opportunity to say no to raising their taxes, many people take advantage of that. I don’t blame them.”

But to illustrate just what their priorities are, the taxpayers approved only two measures.  One of them  was  a $163,000 debt exclusion override for design plans to renovate the town swimming pool.

The Boston Globe has the STORY.
The Quincy Patriot-Ledger has MORE.
Duxbury Fire Dept. WEBSITE.

THE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT IN RATANA, NEW ZEALAND outgrew their little firehouse long ago.  Built in 1963 when fire engines were much smaller than now, the building is too small for modern fire appliances.  The current engine has to have its ladders removed before it can be backed into the one-bay hut.

Ratana Chief Fire Officer Bill Rourangi
with the town’s sole fire engine in front of
the current fire hut.  (Chronicle photo)

Finally, work began yesterday on a replacement station.  Besides having enough room for modern fire engines, the new building will have changing rooms, cleanup facilities, two offices and a social room.

The new half-million-dollar facility should be ready for the 18 volunteers in about five months.

The Wanganui Chronicle has the full REPORT.

THE MILTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE, FIREHOUSE SAGA CONTINUES.  Our New England correspondent has been keeping us up-to-date with the story.

You may recall (Firegeezer story HERE) that the town’s fire station was condemned by the State Fire Marshal and they were forced to vacate the building which began its life back in 1830 as a horse barn.  They were permitted to continue parking the apparatus in the building, but all human activity had to move into a too-small construction trailer.

Last year the town residents voted down a measure to build a new fire station.  This month the issue was on the ballot again.  The situation was carefully explained to all the residents and it was shown that the facility could be built without raising taxes.

Yesterday the vote was held and the results are in.  The gritty townsfolk voted the measure DOWN AGAIN.  This time it failed by 8 votes.

The Foster’s Daily Democrat has the full STORY.
Milton Fire-Rescue Dept. WEBSITE.

THE TOWN OF MILTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE, WAS ORDERED BY THE STATE back on February 6th to vacate its Fire-Rescue building within 15 working days.

Firgeezer reported the situation to you HERE.

Milton FD photo

Their old fire/rescue station, which began its life as a horse barn in 1830, was condemned.  When the deadline arrived at noon on the 22nd, they moved all their belongings and office supplies into a work trailer that has been set up alongside the old building.  They are permitted to continue storing the vehicles (they have 9 of them) in the old building and can enter it only to start up a truck and drive it out.

But the trailer is so small and uncomfortable that the FF’s have no room to move around or congregate.  And the facilities are so poor that they are ready to hang it up.  While they are running more calls than ever before, Fire Chief Andy Lucier says that morale is at an all-time low.

The Foster’s Daily Democrat reports:

In the makeshift trailer headquarters, this will no longer by physically possible — the total area is 350 square feet, but much of this space has to be taken up with filing cabinets containing records, a dispatch area, a table for report writing, a computer and Internet hook-up, and a small office area. This leaves room for perhaps four chairs, estimated Lucier, as he eyed the space last week, as plumbers were trying to defrost water pipes and a toilet — but scarcely room for a crew coming back in the middle of the night after dealing with a nasty auto accident or a house fire.

 
Fire Chief Andy Lucier makes a final dispatch shortly before the vacate deadline last Friday.
(Jim Nolan / Times photo)

“Morale in the whole department is a problem. Everyone is discouraged,” said Lucier.  Last year an article on the town warrant seeking to raise $950,000 for a new station was rejected by voters, with 451 opposed and 350 in favor. It would have required a 60 percent majority (481 in favor) to pass.  The members of the department feel that they are getting no support at all from the community.

The Foster’s Daily Democrat tells the whole story and even more problems that are possibly dooming the FD’s future HERE.

Milton Fire - Rescue Dept. WEBSITE.

IN MILTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE, THE STATE HAS given the town 15 working days to remove all employees from the Milton Fire-Rescue building due to safety issues.

Originally, the state Dept. of Labor, Inspection Division, had given them 5 days to vacate, but the town administrator convinced them that it just wasn’t possible and negotiated a compromise of 15 days.

Milton FD photo

The state claims that emissions from the fire trucks were not being properly expelled and were a safety hazard to the firefighters.  They also claimed that the old building, which was originally a horse barn, might have horse manure embedded in the insulation.  They also said that the paint inside might have lead in it.

The building was condemned last May by the State Fire Marshal, but the town was given a 1-year variance to give them time to bring it up to code.  However the town council declined to take that measure because of the cost in doing so.

The town is trying to arrange for a mobile home to be located nearby to provide shelter and amenities for the firefighters.

The Foster’s Daily Democrat provides the full story including the town’s proposed solutions HERE.

Firegeezer adds:  Obviously there’s something more to this story that isn’t being said out loud.  When has a firehouse been condemned because the exhausts weren’t ventilated?  And to load up the complaint with a bunch of “maybe’s” and “might be’s” that haven’t been determined indicates to me that this is just being used as a tool to settle a different problem.  Hmmm.

Milton Fire-Rescue Dept. website is HERE.

IN ROTHESAY, NEW BRUNSWICK, AN OUT-OF-CONTROL CAR smashed through one of the bay doors of the local firehouse on Tuesday.

It is believed that the driver suffered some sort of medical emergency while driving which cause him to crash.  (Perhaps he was attempting to get to the firehouse for help? … FG)

The fire lieutenant on duty at the time said, “I think we’re lucky to be alive.  We heard a noise and nobody knew what it was. There was just a shower of glass and debris and when dust settled there was a car sitting in our fire station.”

The car bounced off three trucks and came to rest wedged between one of the engines and a pillar.

Rothesay Regional FD photo

The Daily Gleaner has the STORY.
Rothesay Regional FD WEBSITE.

Firegeezer notes:  Fortunately the car didn’t strike their 1924 Ford chemical wagon.

RRFD photo