ONE OF THE SADDEST STORIES THAT CAME from the current California wildfires is the destruction of the Oakridge Mobile Home Park in Sylmar.

The fast-moving fire  swept through the community with such violence that the fire department was driven out by the firestorm after trying to take a stand to save it.  The fire destroyed 477 of the 608 residences along with the administrative buildings.

Yesterday the sheriff’s office arranged for the residents to tour the site.  It remains closed to the public because it is still considered a crime scene.  They were divided into two groups, those whose homes survived the fire and those whose residences were destroyed.

The people who lost everything were gived a riding tour through the development while those whose homes are still there were taken separately and given 10 minutes to go into their homes to retrieve personal valuables such as medications, legal papers and jewelry.

The Los Angeles Times tells the STORY.

The Associated Press reported on the event with this video:

WHILE THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY’s CORONER’S officers were busy combing the Oakridge Mobile Home Park today looking for fire fatalities (Firegeezer story HERE), the Sylmar station of the Coroner’s Office burned down in the wildfire.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Coroner’s spokeswoman Lt. Cheryl MacWillie said the facility was a total loss, although employees were able to rescue computers and vehicles.

“Everything else was burned,” MacWillie said. The three investigators that used to be housed there will now be redeployed, possibly to the San Fernando police station.

The Sylmar office is one of three offices maintained by the coroner.  The other two are in Los Angeles and Lancaster.

WHEN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, FIREFIGHTERS RESPONDED to a monitored alarm call in a Back Bay restaurant Saturday morning at 6:10, they found no sign of fire.

The popular Atlantic Fish restaurant shares the first floor of the building with a Crate & Barrel furniture chain store which also extends over the restaurant on the 2nd and 3rd floors.  The Boston FD runs several such calls every day where there is no indication of a problem after receiving a monitored alarm and in this instance they followed their standard practice of not breaking into the occupancy because there was no smoke, heat or fire.

A few minutes after they returned to quarters 2 blocks away, an restaurant employee arrived to open up and immediately smelled something burning.  The second dispatch was sent out at 6:30 and this time the FF’s found the top floor of the Crate & Barrel filled with smoke.  The challenge was only beginning, however.  There were so many hidden ceilings added on over the years that they consumed a lot of time and manual labor getting to the fire itself.

Boston Herald / Garfinkel

The Boston Globe describes it:

“Every time we opened up a ceiling trying to fight the fire, we’d find another ceiling,” (FD spokesman Steve) MacDonald said, describing tiers of plaster above Crate & Barrel’s showroom. “It was a difficult fire to find.”

As the fire progressed unseen, firefighters used thermal-imaging cameras and pulled down the ceiling. They fought the flames from both sides and punched multiple holes in the roof before controlling the fire at about 7:30 a.m., MacDonald said.

By the time it was over, ninety firefighters had responded to the three-alarm fire, which began with an electrical short-circuit in the third-floor ceiling of the three-story building, in ducts above the sprinklers.  The early loss estimate is around $1.6 million and both business will be closed for several months.

Read the full report in the Boston Globe HERE.

DETROIT, MICHIGAN, FIREFIGHTER WALTER HARRIS of Engine 23 perished this morning at a fire in a vacant house.

WJBK image

The fire started around 1 am this morning and later in the operations after the fire was out,  FF Harris was working on the roof when he fell through onto the floor inside.  Sketchy, early reports say that next either the roof or the wall then fell on him crushing his diaphram.  FF Harris had been on the FD since 1991.  He has a son who is also a DFD member.

STATter911 is keeping up with the breaking story HERE with the information as it comes in and links to videos on scene and interviews.  Check back with Dave through the morning.

THE BRISBANE (AUSTRALIA) TIMES is REPORTING:

A man who was trying to clear an ants nest by setting it on fire has been taken to hospital west of Brisbane with severe burns.

A Department of Emergency Services spokeswoman said the man, who is in his 20s, had suffered (3rd degree) burns to about seven per cent of his body.

The incident happened at Condamine Plains, west of Toowoomba, about 2pm (AEST) (Thursday). “It is believed the man suffered the injuries after attempting to clear an ants nest by lighting it on fire,” she said.

At least this one didn’t TAKE THE HOUSE with him.

NEIGHBORS IN A HEIDENHEIM, GERMANY, APARTMENT house became curious Thursday after seeing the windows smoked up in one of the units.  They had also noticed an unusual lack of activity in the 2-room unit of the 8-apartment building.

After the building manager was unable to make entry, the police were called and when they forced inside they found the bodies of 5 men that had apparently died of CO poisoning.

Two of the men were quickly identified as being the tenants of the apartment, but the other three were apparently visitors and have not been identified as of Friday.  The cause of their deaths has been blamed on a faulty furnace flue that had leaked the gasses into the apartment.  The police surgeon has tentatively placed the time of death as 4 to 6 days before they were discovered.

The Nachrichten News has the STORY.

A MAJOR WILDFIRE IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, California, has destroyed more than 100 multi-million dollar mansions in the exclusive Montecito community overnight.

AP / Steinberg photo

Anticipating a major fire problem after getting weather forecasts calling for high winds in the southern California region starting yesterday, many upstate fire departments had already shifted resources into the area.

The Santa Barbara fire, dubbed the Tea Fire, started up around 6 pm Thursday evening and rapidly spread through 3 sq. miles taking the homes and a college dormitory with it.  Many of the people were caught off guard with the unexpected blaze and fiercely fast spread.  Another overnight report says that the fire is moving toward Santa Barbara city with 20 homes there burning already.

The Associated Press is reporting:

Thousands of feet above the flames, footage shot from television helicopters showed what initially looked like a massive campfire with dozens of glowing embers. When cameras zoomed in, however, what appeared to be flaring coals turned out to be houses — many of them sprawling estates — gutted by flame. Palm trees were lit like burning matches.

“It looked like lava coming down a volcano,” Leslie Hollis Lopez said as she gathered belongings from her house.

About 500 firefighters were trying to stop the flames from marching farther west to dense neighborhoods in Santa Barbara.

Fire officials planned an aggressive attack from the air at daybreak Friday with the help of nine water-dropping helicopters and 10 air tankers.

The fire was fanned by evening winds known locally as “sundowners,” which gusted up to 70 mph from land to sea late Thursday. Around sunset, winds shift from the normal onshore flow of cool, moist sea breezes and push downhill from the Santa Ynez Mountains.

The winds weakened overnight, with gusts reaching from 17 to 25 mph, said Jamie Meier, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. “We’re expecting conditions to improve for firefighters on the lines, but it will still be warm and dry through tomorrow,” she said.

Updates will be continuing throughout the day.

An early raw video from CNN:

EARLY THIS MORNING IN GERSFELD, GERMANY, a bungling bunch of burglars-in-training decided to break into a supermarket’s safe and steal the payroll.  Their planning fell short in a few areas, though.

First of all, they cleverly filled the alarm system control box with some builder’s expansion foam.  Then they began cutting into the safe with a portable welding torch.  As they were trying to burn through the safe, they set the adjoining cabinets on fire filling the office with smoke.  Despite their “as seen on tv” trick of foaming the control box, the system sent a fire alarm to the dispatch center.

As the Feuerwehr was responding, the yobs were gagging on the smoke and had to bail out of the office, leaving their tools behind.

The clincher was that even if they had successfully gotten the safe door opened, by then the 8 - 10 thousand Euros inside had already burned up from the torch.  It’s back to the drawing board if the cops don’t find them first.

The Osthessen News has the early story and more photos HERE.

FLAMES WERE THROUGH THE ROOF IN NORTH POLE, Alaska, Friday night.  When the North Pole VFD arrived on the scene, Lee’s Oriental Massage Parlor was already well-involved.  With fire, that is.

KTVF image

Within minutes the building was totally engulfed and the hands-on business was destroyed.

Santa will have to bring in some specialist elves pretty quick if he wants a pain-free flight next month.

KTVF Ch. 11 Fairbanks filed this video report on the polar village’s loss:

A ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, BALLET PERFORMANCE finished up in a blaze of glory last night.  While dancing with flaming torches, one of the performers accidentally lit the scenery on fire.

A few of the performers were treated at the hospital for minor burns, but overall everybody got out all right.

In most countries the audience would immediately make for the exits and get out of there.  But the Russians …. they stick around and give the special effects crew a big ovation for the spectacular finale.  They appreciate a good fire show.

A LARGE INDOOR SPORTS ARENA WHICH IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION in China was burning this morning for the second time in four months.

Xinhua News Service

The indoor stadium is being built as part of a sports complex being created for China’s quadrennial National Games.  The major Olympics-style national competitions are held in a different city every four years.

Today’s fire started on the roof when, The fire was knocked down after about 4 hours by ”dozens” of firefighters and 7 engines.  The cause is not yet known, but is believed to have started in a pile of waterproofing materials.  The stadium was nearly completed, but may now be set back by two months.

China Daily

This is the second major fire to occur in this structure, the first happening on July 27 when, as the investigators so quaintly put it, “sparks sprinkled out during the welding process.”  

Shanghai Daily has the early STORY.

Jinan firefighters, with hopes of making the front page
of FirefighterCloseCalls, work on extinguishing the
fire in the stadium’s roof.  (Xinhua)

A CHEATHAM COUNTY, TENNESSEE, DEPUTY CHEATED DEATH Thursday night when bystanders pulled the unconscious officer from his burning patrol car.

Ashland Times / Adkins photo

Deputy Don Azbill was sitting in his parked cruiser talking to some patrons of a convenience store when a pickup truck driven by James Ferguson, 43, went out of control on the street behind, went through a yard and crashed into the patrol car.  The impact knocked the deputy unconscious and started a fire in his car. after knocking it into the building.

Bystanders rushed to the deputy’s aid and pulled him out of the car before the fire got to him.  Ferguson, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was killed in the crash and two other cars that were parked and unoccupied nearby also burned.

WSMV-TV has this video report that includes some footage from a surveillance camera showing the fire starting: