A VACANT PASSENGER TRAIN STORED OUTSIDE THE MILAN, Italy, railroad station burned Tuesday morning causing major disruptions to rail traffic and high damages.
The string of passenger cars were all old coaches that had been taken out of service and scheduled to be scrapped. For some reason, they were stored just outside the terminal shed alongside the operating trackage and had been regularly used by illegal immigrants as overnight sleeping accommodations. This home video shows the magnitude of the fire and the challenge to the firefighters:
The fire began shortly after midnight Tuesday morning and rapidly spread through the entire train. As railroad employees worked to remove all the other nearby cars that are in use, the fire spread to another train of six cars and caused significant damage.
This video shows the other trains being removed by some rather courageous engineers as the flames were threatening them:
So far there is no further information available, but the story will be updated if and when we receive any.
A RAILROAD TRESTLE LEADING TO THE BRUNSWICK, GEORGIA, port facility caught on fire late Monday afternoon and trapped a train carrying a load of brand-new Mercedes Benz automobiles and another 30 cars filled with grain. The autos were being transported from the M-B factory in Vance, Alabama, to the intermodal shipping facility in Brunswick to be exported overseas.
The wood trestle crosses a marsh and is the only rail link to the port. The fire spread up onto the train and destroyed two railcars filled with 16 M-B autos that were worth at least $50,000 each. The bulk of the fire damage was to the train with about $800,000 loss from the autos. The train had been stopped on the trestle while some switching activity was taking place and when the fire started encroaching on the railcars, the switchmen were able to separate the grain cars from the car carriers and tow them off of the trestle.
Firefighters had to hand-lay supply lines down the trestle to reach the fire, but they were able to prevent it from spreading beyond the two involved cars to the rest of the auto loads. The fire that started around 2:30 pm was out by 4:00. Repair work is continuing non-stop on the trestle and they expect to be able to resume rail traffic by late this afternoon (Wednesday).
The Jacksonville (Florida) Times-Union has the latest REPORT.
It was just last month, on February 20, that we were talking on the Morning Lineup (HERE) about how some jurisdictions are abusing their mutual aid agreements by shutting down fire companies and reducing manpower, then relying on the mutual aid departments to pick up the slack on fire calls. One of the examples that we pointed out was the city of Milwaukee which is doing that very thing, bringing in neighboring departments to cover for the MFD’s failure to provide adequate resources of their own.
A more bizarre stunt came just a few days before that when the looney mayor of North Providence, Rhode Island, arbitrarily eliminated the position of Fire Chief. He has delegated the shift battalian chiefs to run the department on a rotation based on their shift work, and if a major fire occurs the city will rely on a fire chief from another jurisdiction coming on over to run the show. (see Firegeezer report HERE.) We predicted on the 20th, “…it shows how far some desparate politicians are willing to go in order to avoid taking proper fiscal responsibility for their own municipalities. This is just the sort of thing that can destroy the entire mutual aid concept, setting fire and rescue service back 50 years.”
Well, it took less than a month for our prediction to come true. On Monday, March 15, the Daytona Beach, Florida, Fire Chief Gary Hughes said that he is no longer going to send city fire units into Volusia County to respond to fires. Daytona Beach and Volusia County have/had a “nearest unit” mutual aid pact, but the city is accusing the county of doing just what we said before, closing stations and reducing the manpower on units below the recommended safe minimum. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported yesterday:
County officials have “taken their responses dangerously backwards,” the chief said.
Hughes said Daytona Beach firefighters are at risk when they don’t have enough help on a scene outside city limits, and Daytona Beach residents are in jeopardy when their firefighters are tied up on a call outside the city.
In a Feb. 23 letter to the county, Hughes said he’ll send his units “only after all available county resources have been exhausted and only if we have the resources to send.” He added in the letter that “… we will not commit resources to any incident if there are not sufficient personnel on scene to allow for firefighter safety and especially if there is not a formal command structure in place.”
It is obvious that the city is fed up with the growing burden on them to cover for the county’s lack of providing the basic fire protection themselves and shifting the expense to the city’s good will. Read the full article HERE to get the complete story and the county’s response.
WOFL-TV Ch. 35 Orlando interviewed Chief Hughes and filed this video report:
I will reiterate that this is not typical because most municipalities have been judicious and methodical in their compensating for the economic downturn. But there are some places like North Providence, Milwaukee, and Volusia County who think nothing of using their neighbors as stooges to make up for their own failings. Watch out for something like this happening around you and let us know if you see any other municipalities trying this stunt.
We’d better handle our own responsibility here and get this equipment checked out. I’m going to get the coffee started (and it won’t come out green).
It is Spring Break and we have been working non-stop negotiating revisions to the FY2011 budget. Even expensive private universities have revenue issues.
Not gonna lie, it has been brutal. I need a break
The weather-guesser promises two stunningly beautiful days in DC.
NATIONAL EMS & 9-1-1 STAKEHOLDERS MEETING
I am escaping the budget blues to spend the next two days at a federally sponsored “stakeholder’s” meeting in at the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda.
United States Emergency Medical Services started as a federally-funded program during the Great Society movement by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the mid-1960’s. Decades after the federal funding dried-up, the organizational and regulatory framework remained. Works great for some communities, is strangling others.
Almost every part and piece of what we construct as our local EMS system is scheduled for a major revision or is warping under the pressure of more demands with less resources.
The movement from vocational ems training, the only educational program housed in the Department of Transportation, to Scope of Practice in 2013 is a major changes impacting EMS in the next decade.
This stakeholder meeting is part of the federal process of oversight, funding and regulation of EMS.
The Federal Interagency Committee on Emergency Medical Services (FICEMS) is conducting a National EMS and 9-1-1 Stakeholders meeting on March 17-18, 2010 in Washington, DC. The meeting is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Health Affairs.
At this meeting, the FICEMS leadership will present a brief overview of current Federal EMS and 9-1-1 related activities, respond to questions and listen to the opinions and ideas of national organizations and interested individuals about national EMS priorities and future directions. We propose the meeting as one way to improve communications between EMS stakeholders and Federal agencies. The meeting summary will be provided to FICEMS and to the National EMS Advisory Council. (link here)
While not as exciting as twittering with Chronicles of EMS evangelists, it is part of how EMS 2.0 gets federal resources.
Some of the resources that might end up at my university. Cannot get away from the money issue
TWO MEMBERS OF THE CATTARAUGUS FIRE DEPARTMENT near Buffalo, New York, have been arrested and charged with stealing $30,000 to $80,000 from the department.
John Finnegan, 52, the treasurer of the VFD, and Edward Holtz, 39, a member of the department, were in charge of operating the Bell Jar Ticket Game, a fund-raising device. Holtz pleaded guilty to 3rd-degree grand larceny, but Finnegan was scheduled to be brought back to court today or another hearing.
It was just last month, on February 20, that we were talking on the Morning Lineup (
Recent Comments