He poses no threat to the public. When he’s identified, residents may roll out the red carpet and stand in line to greet him.
Many say what happened was something like they’d seen in a movie. A man grabbed a ladder and helped rescue two residents from a blazing house fire, News Center Maine reported.
Then, he was gone.
“He put himself in a position of danger to save lives,” Hallowell Fire Chief Jim Owens told reporters.
Owens said it’s rare to see this act of bravery like Hallowell experienced Tuesday night.
“With the way the world has turned in the last few years, it really makes you feel good to see someone like the guy that came to help the police officer with the ladder.”
Louis and Clarence McCallum have a combined 64 years of firefighting experience.
“All of a sudden you could hear the fire in the background really roaring, coming towards the cabin. I told my dad, I said, ‘If we don’t back burn, it’s going to burn down.’ I grabbed a five-gallon tank of gas that I poured around the cabin and lit it on fire,” Clarence told CBC News.
The pair started burning a line, eliminating as much fuel as they could from around the cabin. Louis said surrounding trees caught fire, wrapping the cottage in a ring of flames.
“We didn’t have very much time to run to the lake — we barely made it to the dock. We had to run in the water and push the boat out, and get out of there. Once we got out of there, we didn’t even know where we were going anyway because there was too much smoke and red ashes just flying,” Louis recalled.
They wouldn’t know until the next day if their plan worked.
While surveying the damage by helicopter, Clarence saw they were able to protect not only their cabin but their neighbor’s as well.
“I told him that the cabin was still up. My mom was happy because that cabin was there for the family for the last 27 years and all of our pictures were in there — photo albums, all the memories that we had. If that would have burned, it would have been a sad moment and I’m just glad that it’s still standing today.”
“He (my dad) taught me all I know and he still teaches me today on how to fight fires,” he said. “To be there, fighting a fire like that, it breaks my heart. But for me and him to do that together, it sure bonded us even more.”
One person has died in a Lexington house fire that started Thursday morning, according to the Lexington Fire Department.
The fire started in the 1000 block of Gainesway Drive, according to Maj. Derek Roberts from the fire department. Roberts said firefighters were dispatched around 6 a.m. and found smoke visible from outside the home.
One victim was located inside the home, and the Fayette County Coroner’s Office has been called to the scene to investigate the death.
“As crews started extinguishment efforts and during the course of their efforts, they located a victim that was already deceased,” Roberts said.
Fire investigators were also at the scene Thursday to determine where the fire started and what caused it.
Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said his office was called just after 6 a.m. The victim was a man in his early 60s.
Ginn said he’s fairly sure what the cause of death is but the manner of death is still pending. He said he will wait to make preliminary determinations until after the autopsy.
“We are definitely interested in the origin of the fire, which arson investigators are currently here and working hard,” Ginn said.
Maj. Derek Roberts said the fire was reported by a civilian who saw smoke coming out of the home. Firefighters saw smoke and flames upon arrival.
An hour and a half after the fire, several fire trucks and other emergency response vehicles were still at the scene.
A box truck caught fire on a Bronx street early Wednesday, sparking a massive inferno that destroyed several nearby vehicles, the FDNY and witnesses said.
A box truck for a company contracted by the city’s Department of Transportation caught fire around 5:30 a.m. near the corner of Dyre Ave. and Light St. in Eastchester, just a few feet from an elevated train line.
Heavy smoke and flames, which quickly spread and consumed several cars near the corner, could be seen from the elevated station.
FDNY Fire Marshals were trying to determine what sparked the blaze and how it spead so quickly.
The truck belonged to a markings contractor who was working on filling in new pedestrian space under the elevated train with epoxy gravel, DOT officials said.
Video of the conflagration shows something from the box truck leaking out and spreading to the other cars. The fire quickly followed.
“(It was) like lava,” one area resident, who only identified himself as Horace, told the Daily News. “(It was) like gunpowder, but it gave a fire stream and it ran along here and burnt up this car.”
Horace and several other residents recalled hearing several explosions as the fires spread.
“(There was an) explosion, an earth shaking explosion. Not just a noise like a gunshot,” Horace said. “It was unbelievable. You would think a plane crashed down here. A lot of people don’t have power.”
FDNY officials said the explosions were most likely the vehicle tires becoming superheated and popping. Propane tanks were found in at least one vehicle, but did not explode, an FDNY source said.
Firefighters responding to the scene found the vehicles fully engulfed in flames. It took more than 60 firefighters an hour to put them out, an FDNY spokesman said.
The heat from the blazes were so intense that it damaged nearby homes, residents said.
“Each time I’m hearing the explosion getting closer and closer,” resident Antoinette Hoo told The News. “And when I opened my door, I can feel the heat. I see the flames under the door. I said, ‘The fire is going to come upstairs.’ I was crying.”
“It looked devastating. It was an orange flame,” Horace recalled. “The fire was like an intense wall coming to the houses. We were ready to go.”
The truck that caught fire belonged to a company contracted by the city to paint the road, witnesses said. The crew stopped when the truck started smoking and unsuccessfully tried to put the growing flames out with a fire extinguisher.
Horace’s work van and his Mercedes Benz were destroyed by the inferno, he said.
May 24, 2023 “We’re duct-taping and bubble-gumming things together,” Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt said of the city’s fire apparatus and ambulance fleet.
May 23—Pittsburgh’s public safety and public works vehicle fleets are in “dire straits,” officials said during a meeting Tuesday.
“We’re duct-taping and bubble-gumming things together,” Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt said. “We’re not providing the level of services we normally should be providing.”
Officials said the city’s aging vehicle fleets often see multiple vehicles out of service at one time, leaving police, fire and EMS personnel scrambling to make due with limited resources and forcing vehicles to respond to emergencies from further distances.
Tim Leech, the vice president of the firefighters union, said there were at least three instances in recent months when fire engines have been out of service and there was no fire engine at a fire house. In one example, he said, there was an eight-day stretch this spring when the Bloomfield fire house had no fire engine.
“We are in a crisis,” he said.
Even if officials act now, there’s still a long wait to get the needed vehicles, Assistant Fire Chief Brian Kokkila said. A ladder truck takes about four years to come in after it’s ordered, he said, and other specialty vehicles for the fire department take between two and four years.
The existing fleet, he said, is becoming increasingly expensive to maintain as more issues arise with aging vehicles.
“There are times when we’re investing money to repair vehicles that are well beyond their expected lifespan,” he said.
It’s also difficult and sometimes time-consuming to find parts to repair older equipment, Kokkila said.
About 75% of frontline vehicles in the city’s EMS bureau have over 100,000 miles, EMS Chief Amera Gilchrist said.
The city has seen ambulances break down en route to the hospital with patients inside, she said.
“I think that’s unacceptable,” Gilchrist said. “We need vehicles.”
Many police patrol units, which typically would be taken off of patrol after reaching 100,000 miles, now have over 150,000 miles, Assistant Police Chief Phillip Carey said.
“We’re in dire straits for vehicles,” he said, adding that the police bureau hasn’t gotten new vehicles since 2020.
“These are emergency vehicles,” Schmidt said. “We don’t want them to break down.”
The Department of Public Works is facing similar challenges, Director Chris Hornstein said. The average accepted age for a vehicle in the department’s fleet is 10 years, he said, explaining that after that, “the money you put into the vehicle tends to outweigh its value.”
A healthy fleet, he said, should have an average age of between five and six years. The Department of Public Works fleet is closer to 10 years old on average, he said. The refuse fleet, in particular, has 86 vehicles with an average age of nearly 14 years. The streets division, which includes snowplows, has 132 vehicles, which are, on average, nearly 10 years old.
Ten percent of the streets division vehicles are currently in long-term parking awaiting maintenance, Hornstein said, limiting the amount of work the department can do.
Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, who chaired Tuesday’s meeting and sits on the city’s Equipment Leasing Authority Board, said public safety and public works officials requested about $24 million in new vehicles in the 2023 budget. The city budgeted about $6.4 million.
“It’s going to be expensive, very expensive, but we can’t ignore it,” Coghill said, adding that he would support pulling money from American Rescue Plan Act projects or other areas to fully fund the effort to get the city’s fleet back up to par.
The problem, he said, has been years in the making.
“This is not recent to this administration,” he said. “It goes back years.”
Officials said the only way to remedy the issue is to dedicate consistent annual funding to vehicle purchases.
“Public safety vehicles and public works vehicles all work in conjunction together to keep the city safe,” Schmidt said. “We need to make sure we’re maintaining our vehicles and we have a plan that is consistent and spread across the board.”
May 24, 2023 “It has been unity that provided the foundation for fire service influence, strength, and relevance” Chief Dennis Compton told the crowd at the CFSI.
The 33rd annual CFSI National Fire and Emergency Services Symposium and Dinner took place in Washington, D.C. Tuesday night.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Delivering a United Message.
While the sun has set on the 33rd annual CFSI National Fire and Emergency Services Symposium and Dinner, that theme needs to continue as personnel fight for Congressional support of vital programs.
“Whether it’s been adequate staffing; prevention and public education; health – wellness – and safety…including occupational disease and psychological and emotional needs; apparatus and equipment; technology; research; data management; access to federal grants; support for the United States Fire Administration and National Fire Academy; and on and on…we have done our best when we have collaborated to deliver united messages to those who control access to funding and other resources,” Master of Ceremonies Chief Dennis Compton told the crowd.
“A united fire service doesn’t mean that we are in lockstep every day on every issue. What it does mean is that we are able to come together and identify our important overreaching issues and work in unity to address them.”
Congressional Fire Services Institute (CFSI) Executive Director Bill Webb said he was pleased with the attendance at the annual gathering.
“Our numbers were up. All the presenters said the seminars were well-attended,” Webb said adding that many groups went to Capitol Hill to meet with their representatives.
While the Senate has passed a measure to secure funding for the U.S. Fire Administration as well as SAFER and AFG grant programs, the House is still considering it.
Compton said firefighters are taught the importance of unity on the first day of training.
“It has been unity that provided the foundation for fire service influence, strength, and relevance – no matter what we faced. But with that said, we must always strive to do better in providing unified messaging at the federal level – and we will.”
U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr., D-NJ, said when he got to D.C. he knew what the fire service needed. He had watched people selling baked goods to raise money for equipment.
He said the legislation that provides federal money to departments is the “most important program in the federal government.”
A number of individuals who’ve dedicated their lives to bettering the fire and emergency services were lauded for their contributions.
Dr. Daniel Madrzykowski, of UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute, was the recipient of the Mason Lankford Fire Service Leadership Award.
He was the first researcher ever to be recognized, officials noted.
Madrzykowski spoke of his early meetings with various chiefs, engineers and firefighters that sparked his interest in studying fires. He thanked many for their contributions.
He said he was proud that chiefs changed standard operating guidelines based on the results of the research. And, he was quick to add that more work needs to be done to reduce the losses caused by fires.
The Colorado Springs Fire Department was lauded for its innovative EMS program developed to meet the changing needs of residents.
Chief Randy Randolph said the community response effort, a team approach, keeps people in their homes. Assisting them with basic medical needs has resulted in fewer 9-1-1 calls.
The program now includes a mental health aspect as well.
Paul, with the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition, said the honor was special as it coincides with the 50th anniversary of “America Burning.” Phillips was part of the panel that wrote the document.
When it was written, fire sprinklers did not exist. However, Paul noted that one of the recommendations in the report spoke of their importance.
“Sprinklers save lives,” she said, thanking people for continuing to spread the word about their importance.
Montgomery firefighters showed the daughter of a seriously burned colleague that the department is an extension of her family when she received an award this week.
Deandre Hartman – one of five firefighters injured at a fatal house fire – is still in intensive care after suffering burns to his eyes, lungs and arms.
When Hartman’s daughter, Dynasti, received an academic award at school Monday, other firefighters showed up to support here, according to WSFA.com.
“We feel the love from each and every one of them, so we are glad that they are here to support him by supporting his daughter,” Dynasti’s mom said.
“We, as the brotherhood of the fire department, you know, we stick together,” Chief of Special Operations, Sam Castanza told the television station. “We are here from the beginning to the end.”
Former Frisco Assistant Fire Chief Cameron Kraemer.
Cameron Kraemer had the patience of Job.
In work settings, his temperament rivaled the biblical prophet who went through plenty of trauma but was undeterred.
In August after two major structure fires and a mayday call, Kraemer, who has worked as a firefighter for the city of Frisco for 27 years, lost control and yelled at employees. The next day, a firefighter was severely injured when a fire truck backed up and pinned him against a wall.
Kraemer said as he was cleaning up blood and excretions from the event, he began crying uncontrollably, so he went home.
He has been dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder since 2020, and has been getting medical help, he told The Dallas Morning News.
On May 1, Frisco fired him while he was in the midst of a workers’ compensation appeal for PTSD.
Kraemer said the city does not believe the PTSD is work-related.
“I’m sure most of you wouldn’t understand the impact of listening to a mom cry from the second story because her kid is hanging in the closet in the other room. I’m sure most of you wouldn’t understand what it feels like to have a child handed to you, limp, from being found in the bathtub. I’m sure that most of you don’t understand what it’s like to have multiple near-death experiences in structure fires. These things add up,” Kraemer told the Frisco City Council on May 2 during the public comment opportunity.
Frisco City Manager Wes Pierson read from a prepared statement afterward, saying the city’s actions were in compliance with its policies, and with state and federal laws and regulations.
“Employees are required to provide specific medical documentation and evidence that meets the legal requirements that they qualify for particular leave and other benefits,” Pierson said. “The laws and regulations are very specific to ensure all claims are evaluated consistently and fairly. A claim may be denied if sufficient medical documentation and evidence is not provided.”
Kraemer, 46, took a medical leave-of-absence in August. He said he is under a doctor’s care and has provided the city with documentation. He said he is still healing and needs more time off, so he requested an additional 30-day extension.
“Since you are unable to return to work with or without reasonable accommodations by May 1, 2023, the city has no option but to terminate your employment,” Kraemer’s termination letter states.
The letter also stated his absence is “compromising the operations of the city of Frisco Fire Department and granting continued accommodations of additional leave would cause an undue burden and hardship on the department and the city, placing the safety of the community and the department at risk.”
Kraemer said he tried his best to push through for years.
“When it comes to mental illness, the higher you are on the chart, the harder it is to bring it up because you’re supposed to be this icon as it relates to the operation,” Kraemer said. “And so you try and be Superman in the equation as it relates to pushing through, but then all the people around you begin to suffer because your tank is full, it’s overflowing and relief valves have to start going off. And in my particular case, I bottled up a lot of stuff over time and I ran out of room to hold it.”
The 2018 SAMHSA study about suicidality, firefighters were reported to have higher attempt and ideation rates than the general population.
Repeated exposure to traumatic situations increases firefighters’ vulnerability for developing posttraumatic stress disorder with prevalence ranging from 16% to 22%, which is much higher than that of the general population, according to a 2019 study published on ScienceDirect.com.
Dena Ali, executive director for North Carolina first responder peer support, said diagnosing post-traumatic stress syndrome is difficult, and requires a person to have symptoms that impact their day-to-day abilities to perform.
Ali said post-traumatic stress syndrome differs from post-traumatic stress, which is something all people are susceptible to and a normal response to an abnormal situation. In the latter, 80% recover naturally.
“PTSD is like back pain, it’s hard to prove the true cause. Only the person suffering knows the truth of their cause,” Ali said. “However, PTSD does not occur in a vacuum. When PTSD occurs it is generally a disorder of recovery. When people lack support or resources to practice self-care, they are more likely to suffer from PTSD.”
Kraemer said maintaining the perception of a strong, healthy and patient leader was hard to do going through this illness.
“The reality is, I was dying on the inside trying to maintain that mantra,” he said. “And my family was dying in the process, too, because I would literally take it home as it relates to my inability to have that patience anywhere else.”
With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney read a proclamation during the May 16 City Council meeting.
“The stigma around mental health and treatment has long existed, even though this has started to change. Still, people hesitate to seek help or even talk about it with their loved ones for fear of being judged and facing unnecessary backlash. Simple logic dictates that if we are hurt anywhere, we must seek treatment to get better,” Cheney said.
Frisco Firefighters Association President Matthew Sapp said it was ironic the city would fire an employee asking for more time to heal from a mental illness on May 1, the start of Mental Health Awareness Month.
“The fact that we send an email to an individual who put 27 years into the city and told him he was terminated and never gave him a phone call is highly inappropriate. The (termination) letter states this is causing issues, and we have to provide services to the citizens,” Sapp told City Council May 2. “To my knowledge, we have not failed in our duty to serve our citizens. I believe our times are still good.”
Sapp said, “Make no mistake, this isn’t just about chief Kraemer, this is about the next guy.”
“It’s about my one-year guy who has seen two CPRs and a suicide in the last two weeks,” Sapp said. “What happens when he has PTSD and he has 200 hours of sick time? When he’s out of time, are we getting rid of him?
“(Kraemer) is not receiving a paycheck, so why the rush? Because if it’s just to add an assistant chief, we’ve already got somebody in his place doing that,” Sapp said. “This is really bothersome that we made this decision so abruptly and didn’t allow the individual to go through the process of the workers’ comp appeal.”
City officials, in an emailed response to The News, said they can fire an employee, even if that person has a doctor’s note saying they are not ready to return to work, if the person has exhausted all eligible job protected leave provided by law and the city of Frisco policy, and an accommodation cannot be made according to the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act.
Terminating an employee during the middle of a worker’s compensation appeal is handled on a case-by-case basis, according to the email.
“The bottom line in all of this is the city has abandoned me,” Kraemer said.
Kraemer’s attorney, who is hired by the Fire Fighters Association, declined to comment for this story.
Kraemer said his plans going forward are to continue to heal so he can get back to work in fire service. His hopes are that nobody else will suffer the humiliation from their employer like he has or worse, they will be afraid to seek help and not live through it.
“What you really want to do is hide from it, and that’s what I caught myself doing,” he said. “Then I went to my doctor and said, ‘I’m trying to be proactive about this.’ And I quickly realized I was being way, way reactive. What I thought was proactive would have been a long time ago,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot in the process. But I’ve also learned how vulnerable I was, and I still am, but I’m getting better.”
May 16—A historic home in Dickinson was destroyed in a fire Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
The Nicholstone House, on Park Avenue, stood on the banks of Dickinson Bayou since 1857. The building had been a target of local preservationists, who hoped to preserve rare example of Queen Anne Victorian-style architecture before it decayed away, said Joan Malmrose, the executive director of the Dickinson Historical Society.
The building was the oldest existing residence in Dickinson, according to the Galveston Historical Foundation.
“It’s so, so sad,” Malmrose said as firefighters worked to put out the remaining flames of the multialarm fire.
The fire started around 4:15 p.m. as a strong thunderstorm passed over Galveston County. A suspected cause wasn’t announced.
The couple who lived in the home escaped and weren’t injured, officials said. Three firefighters suffered non-life threatening injuries and were taken to a hospital for treatment.
The house was built by Ebenezer Nichols, a Galveston entrepreneur and railroad executive who had a summer estate built on Dickinson Bayou during the island’s 19th century heyday. The estate the house stood on once included an exposition hall, a ladies pavilion, an artesian well and a private railroad spur that accommodated excursion cars from Galveston and Houston, according to a press release from the city of Dickinson.
The building was originally a single-story home but was remodeled to include a second story in 1872 after Nichols’ death.
The home had stayed in the possession of Nichols descendents even to this day, Malmrose said. The family had tried to maintain the house, and in recent years it was added to the historical foundation’s Heritage at Risk list. The designation is meant to draw attention to a structure at risk of being lost. The historical foundation said the building “was in danger of being lost to the elements of the Gulf Coast climate.”
“This tragic event serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of preserving our community’s history and cherishing the architectural treasures that tell our story,” Dickinson spokeswoman Jaree Hefner said in the press release. “The loss of the Nicholstone Home is deeply felt by the residents of Dickinson and beyond.”
Firefighters from Dickinson, Santa Fe, League City, San Leon, Texas City and Galveston responded to the blaze, officials said.
Maxine Willis, whose son is behind bars, has worked to prove the fire that killed Detroit Firefighter Walter Harris was accidental.
Source firehouse.com News
For 14 years, a Detroit mother has been fighting for her son’s innocence regarding a house fire that claimed the life of a beloved firefighter.
Mario Willis, convicted of second-degree murder for hiring someone to start the fire where Detroit Firefighter Walter Harris died, is behind bars serving a 30-year sentence.
Maxine Willis, who has been working non-stop to prove her son’s innocence, was joined by Bill Proctor, founder of Seeking Justice, according to WDIV.
In addition, Willis’ new attorney Craig Daly and an investigative reporter with the Metro Times also uncovered several issues that jurors were never told which they believe would have proven the fire was accidental.
Following their deep dive, it’s now in the hands of the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit.
“The jury didn’t hear the whole thing. The jury never understood that this was an accident because they had so many people in government telling them ‘No, this was a conspiracy.’ They lied. They manipulated the truth. They sent two innocent men to prison. This should not be,” Proctor told a reporter.
Records show Darian Dove, a handyman, was in an empty house, owned by Willis, to rendezvous with a woman. He started a fire with a little gasoline for them to keep warm, but he says the fire got too close to the gas can. He called 9-1-1.
Detroit firefighters were working to extinguish the blaze when a ceiling collapsed, killing Harris, a 17-year veteran. The department chaplain was the father of six children, reports indicated.
Dove has reportedly admitted he was pressured to change his story, to say it wasn’t an accident and that Willis paid him to start it.
Proctor, a longtime investigative journalist, who founded Seeking Justice, and advocacy organization for wrongfully convicted people has been working on the case as well.
The jury was told the burn pattern suggested arson, but a later forensic study supported the accident theory, he said.
While prosecutors suggested to the jury that this was a case of insurance fraud, they weren’t told that Willis didn’t have any insurance on the house that burned.
“I think it’s criminal here that someone with a badge, someone with authority, convinced someone to lie,” Proctor said.
