Jan. 29, 2023 Firefighters found heavy fire and smoke conditions Saturday morning.
Source Firehouse.com News
One of two twin boys rescued Saturday morning from a house fire in east Baltimore died at the hospital.
His brother was reported in stable condition at the hospital, Baltimore City Assistant Fire Chief Roman Clark told 11 News.
Crews encountered heavy fire and thick smoke billowing from the row house Saturday morning.
The cause remains under investigation.
Jan. 28, 2023 The Maui County firefighter was swept approximately 800 yards to where the drain empties into the ocean.
Source Firehouse.com News
A Maui County firefighter is in critical condition after flood waters swept him out to sea.
The firefighter was responding with a crew to flooded residences when he was caught up in a four-foot-wide storm drain in Kihei, KHON reported.
The storm waters carried him approximately 800 yards to where the drain empties into the ocean. His crew was able to retrieve him from the shoreline.
He was then transported to Maui Memorial Medical Center in critical condition.
Jan. 28, 2023 Phoenix Fire Chief Kevin Betton said crews encountered heavy fire.
By Alexandra Kukulka Source The Daily Southtown, Tinley Park, Ill. (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Jan. 27—A fire at a Phoenix home left a family of five displaced Friday morning after a space heater in a back bedroom caught fire, according to the family.
Tanisha Curtis, who lives in the home, said the heater inside the home wasn’t working. She said the landlord sent crews out twice since November to fix the heater, but after a day or two it wouldn’t work again.
Curtis said her son was using a space heater in the back bedroom to keep warm, and it must have been close to the mattress or a piece of clothing because that’s where the fire appears to have started.
“We were just trying to heat the house,” Curtis said.
Gilford Banks, the landlord, declined to comment Friday.
Phoenix Fire Department crews responded at about 6 a.m. to the fire in the 15200 block of Vincennes Road, said fire Chief Kevin Betton. Crews reported heavy smoke and flames from the back porch of the single-family home, he said.
No one was seriously hurt, Betton said, but two people were taken to UChicago Ingalls Memorial for treatment of minor burns.
Betton said Friday the cause of the fire was under investigation.
A basketball hoop and trash cans were tipped over on the property as fire crews and the arson team walked in and out of the house about 8:45 a.m. Friday. A bicycle on the porch was bent and porch railings were missing as the fire destroyed the majority of the rear of the home.
Curtis said she heard screams at about 5:45 a.m. as her fiance woke her and her three children. Curtis said she quickly grabbed her dog and ran out of the house.
Her 14-year-old son and her fiance were taken to the hospital with minor burns, she said.
Sitting in her Chevrolet Impala, Curtis said she didn’t know what to do because she ran out of the house without identification.
Curtis, a nursing student at ATS Institute of Technology, said she considered going to class but realized she couldn’t because all her course work and nursing supplies were inside the house.
“I don’t have anything,” she said.
Her family planned to stay with family or friends Friday night, she said.
“We’re trying to figure it out now,” Curtis said. “It’s a terrible experience that I never imagined going through.”
Marisol Espades, who lives across the street, said she woke up at 6:30 a.m. to her dog barking outside. When she looked out the window, the street was filled with fire crews.
Espades said the blaze looked terrifying.
“The entire street was filled and the entire house looked inflamed,” Espades said.
Espades said she knew the family who lived in the home and said they are very calm and quiet neighbors.
“I got really scared and worried for the kids,” Espades said.
Shortly before 11 a.m., two people with the American Red Cross came to the home to help the family. They spent about an hour, talking inside a vehicle, and at one point one of the workers gave the family a few bags of supplies.
Mara Thompson, a spokeswoman with the American Red Cross, said the family reached out for assistance, which means the workers discussed shelter, food and financial resources they would need.
“What they need immediately, we help with those next steps,” Thompson said.
Jan. 27, 2023 Richmond-Carolina Firefighter Robert “Bob” Thomas Gardner Jr., 55, died of an apparent heart attack.
Source Firehouse.com News
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The Richmond-Carolina Fire District has lost a longtime volunteer.
Firefighter Robert “Bob” Thomas Gardner Jr., 55, was at the fire station putting apparatus and equipment back in service, following a residential structure fire call on Jan. 25. Sometime in the middle of the night, he suffered an apparent heart attack. according to the U.S. Fire Administration.
Gardner, a 15-year volunteer, was a past deputy chief.
Jan. 27, 2023 Vincent Dransfield has been with the Little Falls Volunteer Fire Department for 84 years.
Source firehouse.com News
A 108-year-old man from New Jersey is the oldest firefighter at a local volunteer fire department.
Dransfield is also the oldest firefighter at the Little Falls Volunteer Fire Department. Not as active as he once was, he’s still on the roster at Singac Engine Company No. 3.
“I said, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to become a fireman,’ so I became a fireman,” he said.
His contributions and pictures from the last 84 years with the department are plastered on the firehouse walls. He’s proud of showing his accomplishments to his great-grandchildren.
“That’s the helmet that I used to wear when I was fire chief,” he said as he pointed to the original helmet.
His great-grandchildren are just as proud to call him a great-grandfather.
“It’s a lot of fun,” his great-grandson Matthew Lista said. “Every single time he tells jokes, he tells stories. Just like stuff that you wouldn’t think he would remember, he’s remembering back to when he was 30 and stuff like that. It’s crazy to think he could remember all these stories and they’re awesome.”
Dransfield is also independent. He lives own his own, does his own grocery shopping and doesn’t take daily medications — only over-the-counter medication when he has some knee pain.
“He has his daily routine,” his granddaughter Erica Lista said. “He gets up with the train. He goes to the QuickChek in Little Falls and gets his coffee and paper.”
So what is his secret to longevity?
“I drink Ovaltine every day,” Dransfield claimed.
Jan. 27, 2023 Los Angeles police were investigating a domestic disturbance when they learned a man was setting fires.
By Christian Martinez Source Los Angeles Times (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
One person was arrested Thursday at the scene of a massive fire at a two-story apartment building in Westlake, police said.
Officers arrived at the building in the 2800 block of 7th Street about 3 p.m. in response to a report of a disturbance, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
As police were talking with the person who reported the incident, they were told that someone inside was lighting things on fire.
The suspect eventually left the building and was arrested, but police did not say what offenses the person was suspected of committing.
The Los Angeles Fire Department said a 45-year-old man in police custody had been taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The blaze, which spread through the second floor and attic, was mostly extinguished within 53 minutes by more than 100 firefighters, Fire Department officials said.
Video footage from KTLA-TV Channel 5 showed firefighters on the roof of the apartment building as flames roared around them.
Fire crews remained on the scene working to extinguish the last small pockets still burning.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Jan. 27, 2023 An evicted tenant was arrested for arson by Moline police, who also helped civilians save residents.
By Tom Loewy Source Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Jan. 27—Jordan Blake and David Qualls were hard at work Wednesday morning, fixing a garbage disposal in apartment 102 at Timber Knoll Apartments in Moline, when they heard a loud ringing.
The Rent QC workers had no way of knowing when they walked out of the first-floor apartment how important their next steps would be.
Fire was ripping through the two-story, 16-unit apartment building. Fifteen of the units were rented to tenants and the ringing Blake and Qualls heard was smoke detectors, signaling them to rapidly spreading flames. The fire was primarily on the second floor when they walked into a first-floor hallway.
While the Moline Police Department praised the efforts of those who helped rescue Timber Knoll residents, Qualls and Blake shunned the spotlight.
Qualls declined to comment, and Blake was unavailable for comment Thursday. But the owner of Rent QC, J.C. Millman, offered their account.
It was around 10:15 a.m., he said, when a call came into the Rent QC offices about a water leak in the building.
” Dave (Qualls) and J.J. (Blake) were already in the building, but we sent another maintenance worker over,” Millman said. “Here’s what I know from what everyone told me:
” Dave (Qualls) and J.J. (Blake) walked out into the hallway and there was smoke coming down from the second floor. They tried to go up the stairs, but they were fully engulfed in flames.”
Qualls and Blake started down the first-floor hallway, knocking on doors to alert tenants. At some point, the smoke became so thick they had to crawl on their bellies.
” J.J. (Blake) had to leave the building first because the smoke was too much. Dave (Qualls) stayed and made sure he knocked on all the doors. Then he got out.”
Once Qualls and Blake were out of the building, Millman said, they turned their attention to the tenants on the second floor.
” Dave (Qualls) told J.J. (Blake) to get the ladder from his truck,” Millman said. “That’s when the guys from Asplundh Tree Service showed up. They were helping Dave and J.J. get people off the second-floor balconies.”
Millman described how a man and woman reached the balcony with an infant.
“The lady was holding her baby and she dropped the baby down to J.J.,” Millman said. “Then they got the lady and the man down.”
Moline Police cruisers quickly arrived and parked beneath another balcony.
“They had people jumping down from the balcony to the top of the police cruisers,” Millman said. “It was a real team effort all around.”
He said, “A lot of heroic people” responded to the fire.
“What our employees did, and the crew from Asplundh, was just amazing,” he said. “And the police, first responders and firefighters were amazing too. We just can’t thank everyone enough.”
Rent QC is working to find alternate housing for the tenants displaced by the fire, Millman said.
Police said the fire was arson and arrested Frederick Jermaine McKenzie, 36, of Moline. He was being held Thursday in the Scott County Jail on an interstate warrant and $100,000 cash-only bond. He waived extradition to Rock Island, where he faces charges of arson and aggravated arson.
He is a former resident of Timber Knoll, police said. Court records show he was evicted from an apartment there in December.
Jan. 27, 2023 The City of Norman Emergency Communications and Operations Center will provide the necessary resources to safely and effectively respond to emergency operations to critical incidents.
By Brian D. King Source The Norman Transcript, Okla. (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Jan. 20—Firefighters, police officers and emergency services personnel joined members of the community Thursday to commemorate the groundbreaking ceremony for the new City of Norman Emergency Communications and Operations Center (ECOC).
The purpose of the new facility will be to provide the unification of necessary resources to safely and effectively respond to emergency operations to critical incidents, officials said.
Currently, the dispatch office is located in the basement of the Norman Police Department.
Linda Price, who represents the Public Safety Sales Tax Oversight committee, expressed her gratitude for those who have made the project possible, and said that for the safety of the community, it was important to move the dispatch team to an adequate space.
“For those of you that don’t know, they’ve been in a little tiny space in the basement of the police department all of these years, no windows, no access to anything,” Price said.
You have to climb a bunch of stairs to get out. They really support everyone in this community. When you are scared or need help, you talk to them. They are on the front line.”
Fire Chief Travis King said it is important to build the dispatch team a new home for safety reasons, particularly during storm season.
“For the first time, we are going to be working in a ‘hardened’ facility,” he said. Countless times through the years … we’ve been in standby watching the storms come in and sometimes tornadoes come right at us, and a decision has to be made. Are we going to jump in a firetruck? Or are we going to ride this out?
King said the computers and infrastructure that operate the city’s tornado sirens are currently not housed in a ‘hardened’ facility, which means that should the current building get struck by natural disaster, the city’s safety could be compromised.
Housed in the new 20,000 square-foot facility will be a 911 center, emergency operations center, incident command resources, space for a future traffic management center, and associated technology and support systems.
City Council member Stephen Holman, who represents Ward 7, said voters first approved the ECOC project as a part of the April 2014 Public Safety Sales Tax election.
Construction, however was delayed because the project required further resources. In 2020, a second vote failed, so in 2021, the City Council allocated money received from the American Rescue Plan Act.
“ARPA money became available that could be used for this type of purpose, and the council decided to allocate a large sum of that for this project because it is such an important piece of our emergency response apparatus,” Holman said.
“For me, getting our dispatchers out of the basement of the police department may be the number one thing that I am excited about having this project done.”
He also said that building the ECOC is important to sustain the longevity of dispatch in Norman.
“It is hard to recruit people for a job like that. I hope this will help us to attract people for that job and retain the good people that we already have,” he said.
The facility at 2801 E. Robinson St. will be constructed at a cost of approximately $13.5 million and is expected to open in the summer of 2024.
Architects Design Group of Winter Park, Florida, served as the primary architecture and engineering firm; Boynton Williams & Associates of Norman is the local architecture firm; ADG|Blatt Architects of Oklahoma City is the program management team; and Crossland Construction is the construction manager.
Jan. 26, 2023 Santa Rosa’s new fire station in Fountaingrove will mark another milestone in the neighborhood’s long recovery following the 2017 Tubbs Fire.
By Paulina Pineda Source The Press Democrat (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Jan. 24—Construction of Santa Rosa’s new fire station in Fountaingrove could start this fall marking another milestone in the northeastern hillside neighborhood’s long recovery following the 2017 Tubbs Fire.
The Santa Rosa City Council on Tuesday approved awarding a contract to local firms Wright Contracting LLC and COAR Design Group to design and build a permanent station on Fountaingrove Parkway and Stagecoach Road that will replace the one on Newgate Court destroyed in the fire.
City officials hope the new station improves response times in the neighborhood and helps the department be better prepared for the next large emergency as it’ll provide room for additional engines and staff during extreme weather.
Fire Chief Scott Westrope said his department is excited about this next chapter after years of planning.
“It has been a long process to get to this point and taken a lot of work and collaboration with several partners and we’re really looking forward to being the crown jewel of that corner,” he said. “When you lose a community asset like a fire station, it’s a hit to the community, but we are able to rebuild and we’re building something better and stronger and I really think it puts the cap on recovery efforts in general.”
The department has been operating out of a temporary station on Parker Hill Road since late 2018 but the building doesn’t meet building requirements for the wildland urban interface, where wildfire risks are higher. It will be dismantled after the new station is built.
The station replacement represents some of the last recovery work being carried out by the city related to the Tubbs Fire, which alone destroyed more than 4,600 homes, including more than 3,000 in Santa Rosa, and killed 22 people.
City officials anticipate utility work at the site will begin in the summer and construction will follow in the fall. The project is slated to be completed in spring 2025.
The total project cost is estimated at $24.8 million and the bulk of expenses are being paid through a $16.9 million federal grant with remaining costs being covered by fire recovery and general fund dollars.
The new Fire Station 5 is planned on a 2.1-acre portion of the Keysight Technologies campus about a mile downhill from its predecessor.
Council members in February 2022 approved purchasing the property from Keysight to relocate the fire station. The acquisition, completed in April, cost $205,000.
Though the old station was touted as an advantage to fighting fires in the city’s northeastern hillside when it opened in 2015, the city decided to relocate the station after a review of department coverage and deployment plans following the Tubbs Fire found the Newgate Court station was in a dangerously fire-prone area and too small to meet needs.
The new location is expected to provide several advantages for firefighting efforts in Fountaingrove.
The station is closer to Highway 101 where new homes in Fountaingrove are cropping up and future development is planned. It is expected to shave off about a minute in response time from the temporary station on Parker Hill Road, Westrope said.
The larger site also allowed the city to design a bigger station.
The new 8,690-square-foot headquarters ― nearly double the size of the old station ― will feature three apparatus bays and six rooms to allow for additional staffing during red flag warnings and other extreme weather events.
There is also room to transform the station into a command center and set up a refuge for residents during emergencies, Westrope said.
The station also will feature a 10,300-square-foot operations yard with space for a generator that can power the station during power outages, storage space for extra fuel for fire trucks and ample parking.
The larger lot will provide officials with room to build more defensible space around the building, which will be built to the “highest fireproof standards,” Westrope said.
Early plans for the facility included a proposed second-story community room but city planning staff said it would push the project costs over budget and likely would be underutilized.
In addition to building construction, plans call for improving the intersection of Fountaingrove Parkway and Stagecoach Road and upgrades to the sidewalk and curb to improve accessibility.
The contract approved Tuesday was capped at $18.3 million, including a 20% contingency to cover unexpected costs or construction increases.
The total project cost, which was pegged at $17.3 million in December 2020, has ballooned to nearly $25 million through the cost of preconstruction studies, acquisition of the property, permits and furniture and equipment.
That’s substantially higher than a typical fire station and more than five times the cost of the $4.6 million Newgate Court firehouse.
City officials have said site issues such as the slope, rocky terrain and an existing creek tributary, the larger footprint, rising construction costs and inflation have contributed to the price tag.
In addition to the federal grant, the city set aside $3.8 million in PG&E fire settlement funds, $2.8 million in insurance funds and $1.2 million from the general fund for the project.
Westrope said rebuilding the station has been a long effort and the department has worked with several state and federal partners to find a new location and access financial resources.
Though service has continued in Fountaingrove, having a permanent location tells residents the department is “back and we’re not backing down from this challenge,” he said.
“We’re excited to finally see movement on this and it’s going to be a big day for Santa Rosa and a big day for the fire department when we’re finally able to break ground and get it done,” he said.
Jan. 26, 2023 Fortsmouth Volunteer Fire and Rescue District Chief Homer Larry Cross, 74, died Jan. 23.
Source Firehouse.com News
A fire chief was found unresponsive in the Fortsmouth Volunteer Fire and Rescue station earlier this week.
District Chief Chief Homer Larry Cross, 74, was pronounced dead in the station Jan. 23 after resuscitative efforts by fellow firefighters failed, according to The River.
The Warren County Sheriff’s Office and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia are investigating.
“District Fire Chief Homer Cross was an inspiration for our Department and a fixture on almost every fire ground. He was a dedicated fire officer but, above all else, a great friend whose legacy will certainly live on through the care and compassion he instilled in the next generation of our Fire Department, Warren County Fire Chief James Bonzano told The Royal Examiner.
Visitation will be held from 6-8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 30 at Maddox Funeral Home at 105 W. Main Street, Front Royal, VA.
Funeral service with military and fire honors will be held at noon Tuesday, Jan. 31 at Riverton United Methodist Church at 55 E. Strasburg Road, Front Royal, VA.
A procession from the church to Panorama Memorial Gardens will be conducted, where final respects will be paid.
The Cross Family will receive guests following the service at the Front Royal Volunteer Fire Station at 221 N. Commerce Avenue, Front Royal, VA.