Some of you probably stayed away from the computer over the long Thanksgiving Day break and missed Rodney Gentry’s fine article on Wednesday about using Verizon’s new Droid service in a fire/ems setting.  He expects to have a follow-up later on incorporating some other apps and passing on your ideas and experiences with it, too.

So take about four minutes this morning to read his posting HERE (and scroll on down through the Comments, too), and get in on the discussion.  His email address is in the article.

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No real surprise here, but I thought I’d pass on the news that the ATF has officially declared that the large fire in the Rochester Family Dollar store was intentionally set, and a $5,000 reward is being offered for information about who set it.  (See Firegeezer reports HERE and HERE.)  The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported yesterday (HERE) that:

Chris Porreca of the ATF said 16 investigators from throughout the country completed a “painstaking” investigation, with help from eight local investigators.

Porreca said investigators have determined where the fire started in the Family Dollar, but he would not release the information while the local investigation is ongoing.

Rochester Fire Chief John Caufield said his department has not linked the North Clinton fire with a fire that occurred earlier the same day at a Family Dollar store on North Goodman Street. ATF agents did not investigate that fire.

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Do you remember our chat last Friday about the S & H green stamps?  (HERE)  One of the unique gimmicks of the S & H company was their willingness to get almost anything that you wanted to exchange your stamp books for.  People used them to get vacation trips to Disneyland and churches ran collections to get enough books for a new social room kitchen, for example.

One of our readers pointed out that his VFD had a campaign to collect stamp books and they accumulated enough to get a new pumper for the firehouse.  They acquired stamps worth $17,000 and purchased a new 1963 Howe/International 750 gpm pumper with a 500-gal. tank.

How about that?  You can visit the Rowley (Massachusetts) FD website HERE and read up on the history of Engine 3.

Now we had better bring our own histories up to date and get this equipment checked out.  I’ll go start the coffee.