TWO CHICAGO (ILLINOIS) FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDICS were injured last night when an SUV ran a red light and crashed into their ambulance.

They were responding at 11:30 pm to a medical call with lights and siren sounding when the car, which was coming off an exit ramp from an expressway, blew right through a red light and broadsided the ambulance.  The crash knocked the ambulance onto its side and is skidded along the pavement just missing another auto.

The driver of the other car witnessed the entire event and verfied that the SUV never slowed down and blew right through the traffic signal.  The two medics were transported to the hospital where they remain in stable condition.  The driver of the SUV was not injured, but the police took him into custody.

WLS-TV has the latest REPORT.

A FIRE IN A CHEMICAL PLANT near Birmingham, England, Friday released an unusual cloud of phosphorous peroxide that traveled overland for a while before it dispersed about four hours later.

The fire at the Rhodia Consumer Specialties factory began just after noon and brought 50 firefighters to the site to battle the blaze.  Police also responded and set up a cordon around the plant which was evacuated of its 400 workers.

During the course of the extinguishment the fire released a thick, low-hanging dark cloud that was approx. 50 by 400 ft. in size and was blown southward over neighborhoods and toward a freeway. 

This Sky News photo shows the chemical cloud as it
drifts along before it dispersed  about 3 hours later.

The police made public announcements for drivers to keep moving with their car windows up and ventilation systems turned off.  They also advised the nearby residents to stay indoors with windows closed until the fire was out and the cloud was safely passed.  Many people chose not to heed this healthy advise, however.  The Guardian reports:

Ben Bonness, a warehouse manager who lives two streets from the site of the blaze, said many locals had ignored police warnings. “The police were out in force earlier to warn everyone to stay in but, now they’ve gone, no one has been taking any notice,” he said. “There is a weird black cloud, which has risen across the entire area, but I do not think anyone is too worried. Most people are all too keen to get out and have a good look at it.”

A spokesman for the West Midlands Fire Service said, “The incident was caused by a small leak from a process using phosphorus, causing a small fire as phosphorus gas reacts with air.”  The fire was brought under control by 2:15 pm.  The only injuries reported were to two highway workers who suffered some nausea.

THE STUDENT UNION BUILDING AT San Jose State University in California had a small fire Thursday.  But nobody showed up to see it.  A drink-storage refrigerator motor overheated while the building was closed on New Year’s Day and it set off the sprinkler head which did it’s job and put the fire out.

Unfortunately, nobody responded to the monitored sprinkler alarm until later that day when a police patrolman heard the bell ringing and peeked in to see what it was all about.  By then, the sprinkler had been flowing for 5 hours and had discharged approx. 27,000 gallons of water into the building’s food court area and the bowling alleys that are directly beneath it.

Mercury News photo

Of course an investigation is being launched to find out why the FD was never called out.  The San Jose Mercury-News reports:

(Campus police Sgt. Robert Noriega) said that some campus buildings are connected to a security company that automatically alerts the San Jose Fire Department when an alarm sounds, the student union is not one of them. Noriega said an alarm in the student union alerts the campus dispatcher, who would send officers to investigate and then call firefighters if necessary.

Noriega said his department is investigating what happened Thursday, including looking at the alarm panels to see if they worked properly. But as of Friday, he said, no one had talked to the campus police officers who had been on duty when the incident occurred. The crew included a dispatcher, three officers and one sergeant, he said.

 

“We’re still reviewing what happened, and if anything went wrong,” Noriega said.

Read the entire article HERE.

Firegeezer notes:  You don’t need me to point out all of the things that went wrong here, including some things that are STILL going wrong.  It’s apparent that this Seat of Higher Learning still has a lot of higher learning of its own to take care of.  I thought that senseless practice of sending a night watchman to check out the alarm before calling the fire department was stopped 30 yrs. ago.

It is common for state legislatures to exempt the state from laws that they pass for everybody else and this is the result.  Couple that lack of accountability with the decision to hire security people who don’t know the basics of security and you’ve got a disaster just waiting to happen.

This is the weekend when millions of tinder-dry Christmas trees get hauled out to the curb and left for somebody to carry them away to the dump or mulching pile.  When I was a youngster in the Boy Scouts, our little city had a post-Christmas event sponsored by the Scouts called the Burning of the Green.

People were encouraged to leave their trees by the street on the Saturday after New Year’s and all the Boy Scouts, riding in a fleet of open-bed trucks donated by local liverymen, would come through town collecting them.  They would then be carried to a large field next to the high school and tossed into an ever-growing pile - a big pile by the end of the day.  And that evening everybody who wanted to could come down and observe one of the most massive bonfires you could ever hope to see.

Thinking of those dried-up trees burning reminded me of a fire call that I ran that is one of those events that seems to stay in the memory bank rather vividly.  The house was in our first-due and it was one of those split-level affairs that were so popular in the 1960’s with a family room on the lower level, the bedrooms overhead and the day living quarters in the mid-level.  This house had a fireplace in the downstairs family room.

The man who lived there had a terrific idea.  Instead of going to the trouble of finding a way to get rid of the family tree, he would take advantage of the cozy fireplace and they would have a family Burning of the Green all their own.  He had it all worked out, you see.  They would build a little fire in the fireplace and gather ’round while Dad, holding on to the base of the tree trunk, would poke the top of it into the fire and feed the tree into the fire as it burned off.

When we got there, the family room was fully involved and spreading into the mid-level living quarters.  But it went well from there on …. we knocked it down quickly with the first line, and after that it was just another room-and-contents.  Until we learned the story behind the story, that is.  Another affirmation that there will always be a need for a fire department.

And we still need to get this equipment checked out, so I’ll go start the coffee.

TWO OF TODAY’S STORIES HAVE JUST BEEN UPDATED.

Scroll down to the original postings to read these updates:

*  Elizabeth firefighter run over by his own engine.  The full details of the accident have been posted.

*  A Tulsa, Oklahoma, firefighter has been arrested and charged with destroying the bay doors of the fire station that is being renovated.

THE BROOKSTON BEER BULLETIN, an informative beer blog that has the most complete collection of beer-related website links, has published their list of the Top-10 Beer Stories of this past year.

Three of them, specifically numbers 1, 8 and 10, were important enough to have been covered here at Firegeezer.  (You can find them by clicking on the “beer” category in the right sidebar.)

Check the story HERE and see if you agree with the list.

THE DALLAS, TEXAS, FIRE DEPT. WAS on the scene of an auto fire this morning (Friday) around 4:30 am Central.  Following good practices, they positioned one of their trucks to shield the working FF’s from traffic on the expressway as they put out the fire.

As if to reinforce the validity of the need for shielding, a car plowed into the rear of the ladder truck, becoming wedged underneath.

The driver was treated on the scene for minor injuries and the police are trying to figure out why he failed to see Big Red there with all those flashing lights.  No firefighters were injured.

Channel 4 has an early report HERE.

Updated.  Scroll down.

A NEW JERSEY FIREFIGHTER HAS DIED from injuries he received this morning (Friday) on the fireground after being run over and pinned beneath a fire engine.

The fire in Elizabeth, New Jersey, started in a vacant house and spread to then neighboring house that was occupied by a family of four.  All of the exposure residents escaped safely.

During the operation the unidentified FF was struck by the fire engine and witnesses are saying that it took several other firefighters to free him.

Update:  4:30 pm
It has been disclosed that the victim was Gary Stephens, 57, a 28-year member of the Elizabeth Fire Dept.

1010WINS is reporting that Stephens was directing a pumper that was backing up for a supply-line layout when he turned to look at the fire.  The engine lost sight of him and ran over him, inflicting heavy trauma to his chest and head.  FF Stephens never regained consciousness.

The driver of the engine is a long-time friend and co-worker of Stephens and he is understandably distraught over the accident.  The engine was moving at a very slow rate of speed.  The accident occurred a few blocks away from the fire scene as they were preparing to lay the supply line.

Later today the Elizabeth police arrested a vagrant and charged him with arson after he admitted setting the fire in the vacant house in order to keep warm.  He came to the police’s attention when he showed up at a local hospital with burns to his face and hands.

Read the complete account HERE.