Colorado Springs officials have agreed to pay the legal fees of a firefighter being sued for wrongful death.
Firefighter Wesley Cosgrove was driving a brush truck in a park last October when it ran over and killed Margaret Miller, 76, according to KRDO.
In January, Miller’s daughter filed a wrongful death suit against Cosgrove, the City of Colorado Springs, the Colorado Springs Fire Department and El Paso County Emergency Services.
Cosgrove pleaded guilty to careless driving, a class 2 traffic offense on Feb. 6. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the second offense, careless driving resulting in death.
He was sentenced to pay a fine that was less than $300 and perform 100 hours of community service.
Cosgrove, who reportedly drove the brush truck through a park as his commander ordered, ran over what he believed was a pile of debris. Later, after a civilian pointed to the rubble, he pulled back a blanket and saw the victim.
He and the crew with him were sent home after the incident.
Mar. 13—The on-site investigation into the cause of the fatal four-alarm fire on March 1 that claimed the life of Buffalo firefighter Jason Arno is over, with the results being forwarded to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office for further review.
“I can confirm that the evidence will be turned over to our office for further review to determine if there was any criminal conduct related to the fire,” said Kait Munroe, a DA spokeswoman.
For nearly two weeks, the Buffalo Fire Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives combed through 745 Main St., the former home of D.C. Theatriks, seeking clues to the fire’s origin. Damage was estimated at $2.6 million.
With the investigation over, the city’s Department of Permit and Inspection Services has ordered an emergency demolition, including removal of foundations and debris, to begin as early as Tuesday and take at least two weeks. Backfill and grading work will follow.
“I want to thank all of the fire investigators, led by Buffalo Fire and the ATF, for their thorough and careful work over the last two weeks, which will hopefully provide a measure of closure to the community,” Mayor Byron Brown said in a statement.
Main Street, between Tupper and Goodell streets, is expected to be closed to traffic for about a week. Washington Street between Tupper and Goodell will remain closed until further notice.
The cause of a deadly explosion last week in Cache County is continuing.
Fire and rescue personnel from Newton Fire Department found Caryn and Joshua Mullin seriously injured, according to KSL.
“While it wasn’t a raging inferno or a large fire immediately after, it continued to grow and got bigger immediately following this explosion,” Lt. Mikelshan Bartschi told reporters.
Joshua, who was blown from the house, suffered multiple burns on his arms, chest and face.
Caryn was rescued from debris and suffered with multiple fractures and burns to her body.
John Mullin’s body was recovered from the rubble.
“The men and women who put their lives on the line to save Caryn demonstrated heroic behaviors, as expected in Cache County,” Bartschi said.
“Our sincerest condolences to the family of the victims involved in this incident,” Bartschi said.
Firefighters from nine neighboring departments assisted with the incident.
The Mullins family are professional dog breeders.
Crews found 16 dogs in the home after the explosion, five of which were taken to the New Vision Intake and Animal Shelter for treatment. Three were in critical condition, and two were in good condition.
Family members are taking care of the 30 others that were in a different structure.
Mar. 11—The Mt. Juliet Fire Department will be adding medical emergency response to its list of services on Monday.
“It’s been on the horizon for several years,” Mt. Juliet Fire Department interim chief Joseph Edwards said. ” The Mt. Juliet City Commission had gotten to a point where they knew the city was growing at a really fast rate, and they needed to do something to add to services and supplement some things the county was providing to give an extra layer of protection for citizens and for visitors.”
The Mt. Juliet Fire Department has already hired an additional 33 employees for the new service. The department currently has three ambulances ready to roll out Monday morning, and three more are on order.
“Most of our responders are already medically trained,” Edwards said. “They have medical licenses, such as paramedics and AEMTs (advanced emergency medical technicians), as well as EMTs. It really doesn’t change anything for us other than adding another vehicle to our fleet.”
The new ambulances will operate out of the three primary fire stations in Mt. Juliet. On Monday morning, the transition will begin with Wilson County Emergency Management Agency (WEMA) and Mt. Juliet Fire Department officials coordinating to ensure that there are no breaks in coverage.
“The current method is that we go to all of those (medical) calls, and then, the county sends a transport vehicle to pick them up,” Edwards said. “The only difference now is not only will our trucks go to that call, but it will be a city-owned ambulance versus a county-owned ambulance as the primary vehicle. The county will still back the city up and vice versa.”
Emergency medical response in Mt. Juliet will be a partnership between WEMA and the Mt. Juliet Fire Department.
“It’s both leaderships out of both organizations working together to form what’s needed,” Edwards said. “All we care about is taking care of the people.”
A lot of the coordination after the service is in place will come through dispatch services.
“If a call comes in, we work very tightly with our dispatch to be in coordination with everything we do,” Edwards said. “Their administration and our administration are in constant communication to work through logistical issues. There’s minimal changes that need to be worked out logistically. Most of those are with dispatch, and those are being worked out now.”
Edwards stressed that this will be a partnership between the Mt. Juliet Fire Department and WEMA, and that there will be no competition between agencies.
“It’s a partnership between the county and the city,” Edwards said. “We still have to support one another, because at the end of the day, it takes every one of us to do this job. We have 170,000 people in this county, and more than 40,000 are in Mt. Juliet. It’s something that we absolutely have to coordinate together, because our small department is not designed to take care of that many people at one time. We have to have good partnerships, and we do.”
The goal of adding the service is additional coverage for the city and protection for citizens.
“Any time you add another level of service, I always think it’s for the better,” Edwards said. “Emergency services are strapped all the time for responses. It’s not uncommon for us to have more than one call at one time. I think this adds another level of protection for the citizens and for the community.”
Mar. 14—Crews responded Monday evening to a fire involving several row homes on North Plum Street in Lancaster city.
Emergency crews responded to the 500 block of North Plum Street around 5:45 p.m. for the report of a residential fire. The block is closest to the Lancaster Science Factory and Cork Factory Hotel. A dispatcher with Lancaster County-Wide Communications said the building was reportedly vacant.
All seven houses appeared to have been involved. As of 7 p.m., there were more than 20 emergency crews dispatched to the fire, according to Lancaster County-Wide Communications. Dispatch marked the fire as under control as of 8:33 p.m.
A dispatcher with Lancaster County-Wide Communications said the fire left four adults and two children displaced.
Fire officials at the scene declined to comment, saying city officials would likely hold a news conference sometime Tuesday. It is not immediately clear which house the fire started in and what caused it.
The fire is in the same block where 17 residents were displaced from 7 row homes in September 2019 after inspectors condemned the aging buildings. Engineers discovered subsoil problems which caused foundations of the set of row homes, extending from 523 to 535 N. Plum St., to shift, LNP previously reported.
In 2020, city officials were no closer to lifting the condemnation orders on the homes.
Luz Martinez, 65, lives nearby and said she hasn’t seen anything suspicious near the homes recently. She remembered police chasing kids out of the home about two years ago and putting fences up to keep people out. She said police came back for reports of kids in the area about a year ago, but the only recent activity she saw was a developer doing inspections.
Martinez also said her power went out around 6:30 p.m. and power appears to be out at other homes in the vicinity. PPL’s outage map indicates 2,798 customers are without power at the scene of the fire and the surrounding area due to a tripped breaker or blown fuse. It is not immediately clear if the outages were a result of the fire.
As of Tuesday morning, power was restored to all customers in the area.
Rochester firefighters battled a five-alarm fire in a warehouse on the city’s west side Monday evening.
One firefighter was injured as a flames engulfed a warehouse filled with pallets on Rochester’s west side this afternoon.
Crews arrived to find pallets on fire outside the 52,000-square-foot building at 301 Otis Street around 5:30 p.m. and the fire quickly extended to the structure.
“It’s a large warehouse and we’ve got heavy fire,” spokesman Capt. David Abdoch said in a live stream from the scene. “All the firefighters are working their hardest right now to extinguish it. We’re trying to do it safely.”
The second and third alarms were struck minutes apart, with the fourth and fifth alarms called as crews set up all the city’s aerial ladders and water supplies were needed to protect nearby homes from the intense flames.
Abdoch said they were using multiple master streams with the ladder pipes.
Firefighters and police went door-to-door to ensure occupants of the threatened homes were able to escape, WHEC.com reported.
Three walls and the roof collapsed, according to WROC.
Abdoch told the Democrat and Chronicle that the fire was brought under control after eight hours. Demolition equipment was utilized to remove any lingering threats from the damaged structure.
A sixth alarm was called for relief, bringing several suburban fire companies to the scene, fire officials said.
The firefighter suffered non-life threatening injuries, according to the television station.
A driver ran over a fire hose at a Los Angeles blaze, knocking down and injuring a firefighter, California officials reported.
Firefighters were called to a fire outside Synthetic Grass Depot in Tarzana at 4:49 a.m. Monday, March 13, the Los Angeles Fire Department said in an alert.
While they fought the blaze, a civilian vehicle ran over a 4-inch hose in the street, knocking down a firefighter, the alert said. The firefighter suffered minor injuries.
“Due to the location of the nearest fire hydrant to an incident, it is sometimes necessary (we avoid it whenever possible) to cross streets with the large diameter supply line,” firefighters wrote.
The alert warned drivers never to cross a fire hose, saying “the potential for life-altering injuries is very real.”
Firefighters were expected to remain at the scene through the morning to finish mopping up the blaze, the alert said.
Tarzana is a neighborhood about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
The Victory Baptist Church fire in 2022 was deemed an arson.
LOS ANGELES — Less than 90 seconds after the bedside alarm broke the spell of sleep, Los Angeles Fire Department Battalion Chief Gregg Avery and his partner, Chris Klimpel, were racing out of Station 13 through the streets of Pico-Union toward Victory Baptist Church.
Their command vehicle’s lights scoured darkened storefronts. Their siren chased cars to the curb. South on the 110 Freeway, traffic was light.
Avery, 62, and Klimpel, 49, were in the 20th hour of their 24-hour shift, another day at work for the veteran firefighters with nearly 57 years of experience between them battling blazes in Los Angeles.
Yet as skilled as they are, the next half-hour would prove once again how unpredictable the most routine calls are and how quickly they can turn potentially fatal.
Avery’s and Klimpel’s recollections of that night — Sept. 11, 2022 — and a summary report by LAFD provide a harrowing account of the 30-minute battle to save the historic church. It drew upon the efforts of 150 firefighters who swarmed the property that over the course of its nearly 80 years had hosted renowned politicians, civil rights advocates and gospel musicians.
Radios, TV monitors and satellite phones in the command vehicle gave Avery and Klimpel a picture of what lay ahead. The LAFD report excerpted a few broadcasts.
“IC from SQ21, we have made entry off the Charlie side. I am going to come up front and open that door for you from the inside. First floor has smoke, no active fire inside.”
Using a rotary saw, firefighters had cut a padlock on the gate, gotten inside the fenced perimeter, forced open the side door and swung open the main doors.
Firefighters, ascending aerial ladders, had tested the roof’s strength with specialized hooks, then opened a section with a chain saw and scanned inside with a thermal imaging camera.
The fire had been burning for nearly an hour, according to the LAFD report, which placed its origin in “the crawl space underneath the raised foundation.” Flames soon rose into the attic, crowded with rafters and sheathing.
Avery, who has conducted training seminars for the department, explained the physics.
Unchecked with ample fuel and oxygen, a fire will double in size every 60 seconds, he said. Getting hotter, it soon reaches 1,128 degrees, and carbon monoxide in the smoke combusts — a flashover — propelling flames further.
Inside the attic, wood ignited, stressing and popping from the heat. Chicken wire, nailed to the joists and holding in place the thick plaster ceiling, weakened, all before anyone was on the scene. The 911 calls came at 2:22 a.m.
‘We’re pulling heavy fire’
Avery and Klimpel arrived at 2:32 a.m. The street was crowded with several ladder trucks, engine companies, a command vehicle and an ambulance. A major emergency fire, it drew upon nearly 15% of the department’s citywide workforce typically on duty each day.
Stepping out of the truck, Avery looked up and saw flames and smoke pluming into the night sky. He heard chain saws on the roof.
The job that night was straightforward, he recalled: Attack the fire, protect the property and make sure everyone stays safe. The strategy was routine: open from above (to vent the smoke), attack from below (with water from hoses).
But he and Klimpel knew the odds were long for saving the building.
“Historically, churches and supermarkets are losers,” Avery said: too much roof, too much open space. The fire develops quickly, burning hot and fast, before anyone notices.
“It’s well ahead of us by the time we get there,” Klimpel said.
An update on the tactical channel from the roof confirmed the worst. “We’ve got multiple holes. We’re pulling heavy fire.”
Avery sloughed into his heavy jacket, pulled on helmet, gloves and breathing apparatus. He checked in with the incident commander, who assigned him and Klimpel to a second-story annex, connected to the church in the back.
Before joining the firefighters who were already working that part of the fire, Avery stepped inside the church, its sanctuary. He needed to check in with the battalion chief.
A large hole in the ceiling allowed light from the fire to illuminate a succession of pews. Smoke wafted above his head.
Initial efforts to open the ceiling with 12-foot pike poles had failed. The heavy plaster, mixed with Portland cement, more than three inches thick and applied to a lath of chicken wire, required an ax to break through.
Two firefighters stood on 20-foot extension ladders and fought the flames in the attic, trying to establish a horizontal line to sweep the fire with water. Two others managed the hoses at the base of the ladders. A fifth was pulling additional hose into the church.
Avery tried not to think about the loss of this church, the center of so many people’s lives. Instead, he was calculating the risk.
Two years ago, more than 230 firefighters fought a fire on Boyd Street in downtown Los Angeles. An explosion severely injured 11, some of whom are still not back at work.
“A building on fire is a building under demolition,” Avery said, and the church was quickly falling to ruin.
‘Firefighters trapped’
Avery and Klimpel left the sanctuary. The staircase to the annex was accessed from the parking lot, but they were interrupted.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” The international signal for distress came over their radios. “We have firefighters trapped!”
Seconds earlier, a slab of plaster, weakened by the fire, had dislodged from the ceiling. It hit one firefighter on a ladder and knocked another to the ground chest first, trapping him.
“All units on the McKinley Incident, we have a Mayday in progress. Hold your radio traffic!”
Avery and Klimpel rushed back to help.
“We have had an interior roof collapse! One member trapped! Give me a [rapid intervention crew] and a rescue standing by at the front! We still have heavy attic involvement above us!”
Klimpel felt the heat of the fire, fed by a sudden intake of oxygen, surging above him. He worried about more of the ceiling falling. All he could see of the firefighter on the ground was his head and part of his shoulder beneath a pile of debris. He joined a half dozen firefighters trying to lift the slab, but it was immovable.
The captain organized their efforts — “one, two, three” — and together they tried lifting the slab.
Again: “One, two, three.”
The trapped firefighter tried shimmying out from under the weight, inches at a time.
“One, two, three.”
Seeing the rescue in progress, Avery left the sanctuary. Time lost in the rescue was time lost in fighting the fire, and he needed to join the firefighters on the second floor.
As he reached the stairs, he got an update.
“The Mayday is over, we have two members walking out right now, stable, we’ve got them out to the steps. Everyone has been accounted for.”
Avery felt relieved. He started up the stairs. On the second floor, the smoke got thicker. With less than two feet visibility, he reached for his facepiece and breather.
An earthquake
Then he felt what seemed like an earthquake. The building shuddered. He knew it was another ceiling collapse, less than three minutes after the first. He had to get back.
He ran down the stairs, and once in the parking lot, found himself still holding his facepiece. He had moved so quickly that he didn’t take time to put it back in its pouch.
The other firefighters followed. Then the radio came alive:
“IC, IC Mayday, Mayday! Division 1! We have multiple members trapped!”
Avery had to find his partner.
After the first Mayday was cleared, Klimpel was leaving the building. The main doors of the church were crowded, so he made his way to a side door, keeping his left shoulder to the wall in the dim and smoky light.
Suddenly he heard the cracking and peeling sound of the ceiling coming loose. He sensed something terrible about to happen.
“Watch out! Watch out!” he heard.
He started to run as another slab of plaster, twice as large as the first, crashed down. Fire was rolling out of the gaping hole. Men were screaming and yelling.
One firefighter was grazed by the falling slab, but another — who had been at the center of the first rescue — was caught squarely beneath it. But for his helmet, he was completely covered, like the first Mayday only this time there was more debris and it was burning.
“We have a second Mayday! Everyone on the McKinley Incident, we have a second Mayday! Clear your traffic!”
Klimpel met Avery at the side door, and they rushed back into the sanctuary.
“We have one member trapped right now, critical. Two other members unaccounted for in Division 1.”
Klimpel heard the downed man moaning and screaming.
The fire was now around them. Avery worried about the fallen man burning. The hoses they had brought in were pinned under the ceiling and inoperable. He ordered a new line. Klimpel dragged one in.
The fallen slab was so large that a chain saw was brought in. Someone spotted the cuts.
After 2 1/2 minutes, the trapped firefighter was freed. Rescue teams carried him by the cuffs outside.
“Get me out of here!” he continued to scream from the sidewalk, still traumatized by the ordeal. A cameraman across the street caught the detail on video.
Paramedics loaded the injured firefighter onto a gurney and took him to the hospital.
Life vs. property
The momentum of the battle now faltered even as the flames raged around them.
Klimpel felt the futility. They had arrived too late. The fire was too advanced. Someone had almost died. He thought about the explosion on Boyd Street two years ago. With firefighters recovering, the building has been rebuilt, and a new business is operating in that space.
“We’re 100% committed to protecting your property, but your property is not worth a firefighter getting injured,” said Avery. There is the pain and lingering trauma of course, but there is also the cost. Taking risks “is not a good business model for the department, not a good use of taxpayers’ dollars.”
With the Mayday cleared, the incident commander changed orders. The firefighters took up defensive positions.
The ladders to the roof retracted. Re-equipped, they were raised high above the flames, where water was poured into the center of the building, nearly a 1,000 gallons a minute.
Avery looked through the open doors into the sanctuary bright with flames. They had lost the church.
“It was an unfortunate chain of events, but history holds true,” Klimpel said. “Churches and supermarkets never end well.”
By 4 a.m., the blaze had been knocked down.
“There is nothing here that’s a mystery or nefarious or bad,” Avery said. “It was an unfortunate incident. Sad and horrible that we got our guys hurt and that the church was destroyed.”
The fire at Victory Baptist Church had entrapped three firefighters. Ten others had experienced near misses.
Six months later, two of the injured are still off duty, still recovering.
A veteran firefighter called a Mayday when the second-floor of a house collapsed.
Capt. John Hastings, an 18-year veteran, who was pinned under debris immediately called for help, according to WCHS.
He was rescued in about 10 minutes and transported to an area trauma center for treatment. He was in stable condition.
“We are extremely thankful for the training and skill that crews demonstrated today. We will continue to keep Captain Hastings in our thoughts, and wish him a speedy recovery,” Chief Craig Matthews said.
The incident occurred as firefighters were wrapping up a search on the first floor.
Charleston Mayor Amy Goodwin said in a statement: “The men and women of the Charleston Fire Department work hard every day to keep our community safe and we were reminded, once again today, of their commitment to service and their bravery in the face of danger. Thank you to the CFD companies that responded this morning and those who helped get Captain Hastings to safety.”
