Several homes had to be evacuated near where an extra-alarm fire broke out Friday morning in a rehabilitation clinic in the Portage Park neighborhood on Chicago’s Northwest Side.
The blaze started about 8:30 a.m. in the one-story Vital Rehabilitation Clinic, 5820 W. Irving Park Rd., and because of the heavy smoke authorities had to start evacuating homes just east of the building. Traffic was closed along several blocks of Irving Park Road as firefighters and equipment arrived on the scene.
A firefighter suffered a slight injury to his neck and was taken to Advocate Lutheran General in Park Ridge, but no other injuries were reported, a Fire Department spokesman said. He said several people were inside the clinic when the fire broke out, but escaped before firefighters arrived.
Remember the days when we played together off-duty with our families?We’d go to the big parks or lakes or to the river and have picnics, play volleyball, softball and waterski.We’d share stories and re-live tough calls.We were closer because we lived closer to each other and within the cities we worked.But times have changed and we’ve moved out of our cities for various reasons and with those moves have come a more individual lifestyle.Many of us have kept the bonds close by still managing to hang out together in smaller groups but have had to schedule times to make trips work.Most of us have simply adapted to an off-duty type of mindset and made friends outside the department.The internet has added to the long distance existence but it has also provided an enhanced communication ability and capability to extend greetings and invitations to friends and groups well outside our immediate area.One of these opportunities has come in the form of transportation that doubles as entertainment… the motorcycle.
Although it can be more expensive than other forms of activity, it’s not necessarily always the case.Many have turned to it for their basic commute to work.There is a core group of us that have embraced the bike as a way of living beyond the more accepted methods of riding.It‘s known as the long distance trip.A multi-day adventure built around riding as far as possible and seeing as much as can be absorbed on two wheels.Some have been doing this for years – even decades.Some of us here on San Bernardino City Fire have been involved in this since 2000.We started out getting together with members of Pasadena Fire Department and embarking on a 4 day odyssey we ended up calling “Chrome on the Coast”, a name derived from the trip route up the coast of California to Monterey Bay.We’re now into our 7th year of COTC and have explored Northern California’s redwood forests, Napa Valley, the Russian River and an extensive exploration of the coastline from San Louis Obispo to the Point Arena Lighthouse.We do this ride every May.
But the crown jewel of long distance riding is “The Fortnight Ride” or “5000”.This is a well planned tour that usually takes about two weeks and covers over 5000 miles, hence the name.Daily averages range from 325 to 450 miles and can span 12 hours of riding.The sights, sounds and smells of this kind of riding can only be experienced – no amount of writing or explanation can express the complete immersion you feel as the miles click by.To give you a brief example – one does not simply ride through an area… you are part of the environment and all of its exposures.You are part of the landscape.You are the weather, the wind and the aromas.There are no glass windshields, no A or B pillars, no roof and no floors to block the views.Everything is taken in all around you all at once.Imagine Banff National Park in Canada and the Columbia Icefields.Imagine the Juan de Fuco Straight and Vancouver Island.Imagine Glacier National Forest and the Going-To-The-Sun Road.Imagine Yellowstone Park and the Yellowstone Grand Canyon.Now imagine all this with no obstructions, no time limits and sharing it with friends.That is the essence of long distance riding and is the pinnacle of the riding experience.It’s an opportunity to get the full measure of why you bought that expensive toy in the first place.It doesn’t matter if it’s American or Metric.It’s not important if it’s an 800cc V-Twin or a 2000cc6 cylinder motor.It makes no difference if you like day trips for coffee and pie or the occasional overnighter trip to San Diego.The only thing that matters is that IF you bought it and are licensed to ride it and can do so safely… then why not ride it?So many of the bikes purchased in the last 5 years are barely ridden with less than 5000 miles on the odometer.Imagine the opportunities that have passed you by or will pass you by again.
We used to hang out together and do family activities.Some still do.We used to go to the lake or river and waterski till our arms fell off.Some still do.We used to have an “Auxillary” that promoted family time and department get-togethers.Some departments still do.We used to live within 20 miles of each other and spontaneously visit each other – “check in” – as it used to be known.Some still do.But most of us… don’t.The past is the past and life moves on.Rookies become veterans and familiar faces eventually retire.In between that period of time is the place called “The Dash”.It’s the written place marker on your tombstone that is in between the year you were born and the year you died.It’s the dash.This is the time that life is lived and careers are made.This is the moment for living and experiencing the opportunities that you create.How are you living your dash?Are you satisfied with what it represents?Could you do more?See more?Experience more?
Mike Alder, Mike Clark and I decided to finish what we had started over a year ago.We had planned on a two week trip up the coast and into Canada.Plans were made and then put on hold.The decision was made early in ’08 to follow through and complete our 5000+ mile trip.On Sunday, July 13th, 2008, we started at the Mobil Gas Station on 4th Street at the Ontario Mills Mall and finished late Monday evening, July 28th.All of the sights I wrote about above are just some of the sights we saw plus hundreds more.On top of that we met some amazing people and rode with some of them on a spur-of-the-moment suggestion.We were invited to a steak dinner in Hinton, Alberta, Canada and made gifts of our department patches to some of the people that we met.We helped a few poor souls that needed assistance and had our picture taken by several people that didn’t speak a word of English. We rode through some interesting weather and spent some time realizing that we were doing the right thing at the right time.We were riding to improve our skills and at the same time we were ambassadors of our department and the fire service as a whole.We answered endless questions and thanked them for their kind words of support and praise for those that were currently on the fire line.We saw some amazing sights and managed to complete our trip without even one negative comment or personality issue - an accomplishment that has us all baffled.
The reality is this – If you have a motorcycle, ride it.Our time together as a fire service family has become more complex and not easily shared anymore due to schedules, distance, age and personal tastes.The purpose of this little article was to reminisce, share, offer and support.Our trip was truly a lifetime experience and one that all three of us have decided to repeat in the very near future.Our Chrome on the Coast ride is an annual affair and is open to everyone.There are numerous opportunities for day rides and special events throughout the Southern California area all year long.I / We simply wanted to show you all what a great time we had and extend an open invitation to anyone reading this-if you have a motorcycle, you’re invited.The choice is yours on how you want to live your dash.
Three members of Las Vegas Fire & Rescue (Medical Director/M.D., Engineer and Firefighter/Paramedic) have been deployed with FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Nevada Task Force One, to the Southeast U.S. to assist because of the Hurricane that is expected to hit this weekend.
60,144 - TOTAL NUMBER OF CALLS JAN. 1, 2008 TO DATE (57,399)
A divided city council approved a $1.5 million contract with the state to take control of its municipal fire department.
The city projects that hiring Cal Fire to run the department will save about $1.4 million over the next five years — a point of close contention among the council members.
Mayor Joan Faul, Mayor Pro Tem Lesa Rasmussen and Councilman Nelson Crabb supported going with Cal Fire to manage the department. Councilmen Joe Rivero and Gary Frago dissented.
“This city is not afraid of watershed moments,” Rasmussen said before calling for the vote. “The progress is in front of us, and all we have to do is reach out and grab it.”
The council approved the contract Monday. Faul signed it Wednesday and sent it to Sacramento for the final stamps of approval.
Under the deal, the city maintains the equipment and stations, while Cal Fire manages the staff and deals with union contracts.
A final date for Cal Fire to take control hasn’t been set, though city leaders expect it to happen Oct. 1 or sooner. Firefighters will sever ties with the city and be hired by Cal Fire, which also contracts with Merced County, Livingston, Gustine and Dos Palos.
The split vote ends 15 months of city research into whether a Cal Fire contract would benefit the city and the firefighters. The union signaled it wanted to be at the table if the city council looked into contracting for fire services.
City estimates show that the city will lose about $124,000 in the first nine months of the deal because it must pay out sick and vacation hours earned by the employees. Projections show it will save $186,000 in the next 12 months. By the end of the five-year, nine-month contract, the city believes it will have kept an extra $1.4 million that wouldn’t be there, had it kept running the department.
This includes an estimate that the contract’s cost will increase by nearly 20 percent in the next five years.
Resident Constantino Herrera wondered if the city would get stuck with expensive contracts later on with little choice but to approve them. “Once we go down this road, it sounds like we’re stuck with whatever cost,” he told the council.
Frago, the city’s first paid firefighter, noted that a possible switch posed an emotional decision for him and he wasn’t ready to support it. “It may be a good thing, but we’re moving too fast,” he said. “This is a big move for the citizens of Atwater.”
Rivero, after doing his own calculations, questioned the accuracy of the estimated savings. He thinks the city will only save $50,000 yearly. “I don’t care what anybody says,” he said. “I have gone over the forms. I have triple-checked them and quadruple checked them with different calculators.”
He worried that the city will lose control of the department and couldn’t support such a change.
Cal Fire Unit Chief Mikel Martin said Atwater Chief Ed Banks will become a Cal Fire battalion chief. He’ll still attend council meetings and manage the two stations.
“The patch might change,” Martin said, “but we’re not here to upset (the service).”
Three Buffalo firefighters were injured this morning battling a fire that started in a vacant East Side home, the latest in a long list of firefighters hurt while responding to fires in vacant or abandoned city buildings.
The blaze started just after 5 a.m. in an unoccupied, two and one half-story frame house at 21 Herman St., off Broadway, according to Buffalo Fire Department officials.
The fire caused $20,000 damage to the building, and its cause is under investigation.
The fire spread to the houses on either side, at 15 Herman and 23 Herman, before firefighters were able to bring it under control.
The house at 15 Herman sustained $42,000 total damage, while 23 Herman sustained $22,000 damage.
Three firefighters were taken to the Erie County Medical Center with injuries that didn’t appear to be serious, a fire official said.
Though the cause of this fire is not yet determined, vacant buildings are attractive targets for arsonists.
In 2007, 60 percent of Buffalo’s arsons were set at vacant and abandoned buildings, according to a recent Buffalo News analysis of city fires.
Twenty-seven firefighters were hurt while battling those fires, including Mark P. Reed, who nearly died while fighting a blaze in a vacant Wende Street house last year. Reed later lost a leg because of his injuries.
Pittsburgh’s first female deputy fire chief has been replaced by a man who four years ago was passed over for the job.
Colleen Walz, 46, of Brookline called the move “desperately wrong.” She said Fire Chief Darryl Jones brought her into his office Downtown on Monday afternoon and told her that she had been reassigned.
Walz will retain her rank of deputy chief for salary and seniority purposes, but her duties will be those of a battalion chief in Oakland, according to Walz and an office memo issued by Jones.
“He said, ‘You are no longer deputy chief,’ and he reassigned me,” Walz said Thursday. “He said it was by court order.”
The order stemmed from a 2006 lawsuit against the city in which Battalion Chief Michael Mullen said he was unfairly passed over for a promotion to deputy chief in favor of Walz.
Mullen sued the city and won. On Monday, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Timothy P. O’Reilly ordered the city to install Mullen as deputy chief immediately.
According to court records, Mullen was passed over for promotion because of “numerous issues surrounding his attitude and conduct.”
Other firefighters and paramedics accused him of physical and verbal abuse, records show, and Walz once accused him of intimidation, creating a hostile work environment and other charges, leading to a city investigation in 2002.
Mullen was cleared of the charges. Walz sued him in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, and they settled for $60,000.
Walz, who started in 1987 as a firefighter at stations in the Hill District and Brookline, described the reassignment as a de facto demotion “through no fault of my own.”
“I think it is interesting that right in the middle of a huge promotion to try to attract women and minorities to the fire department, this is how the only woman (ranked deputy chief) is being treated,” she said. “This is absolutely insulting.”
Mullen declined to comment. Reached at home, he said the case took “a long, long time, with a lot of painful memories,” adding that he wanted to focus on the future.
His attorney, James DePasquale, said Mullen and the city still are haggling over back pay. When Mullen won the case in March, the city paid him $25,000 in back pay. DePasquale said his client deserves an additional $40,000. O’Reilly will rule on the back pay at a future hearing.
Chief Jones said only that the decision had “absolutely nothing to do with the performance of Deputy Walz. I can’t stress that enough.”
Ed Mann, Pennsylvania state fire commissioner, said he was surprised by the news.
“In my dealings with Colleen and watching her teach classes at the Pennsylvania State Fire Academy, her demeanor and approach to things has always been professional,” Mann said. “In the things that she’s done for us, she’s been more than qualified.”
Last year Walz co-chaired the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ task force to analyze and enhance investigations into firefighter deaths.
“It certainly shocked us when we found out,” said Deputy Chief Billy Goldfeder, chairman of the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ safety health and survival section. “We don’t know the circumstances, but any time someone is reduced in rank, it certainly raises eyebrows.”
People were back at work at the New York Wire Co. Wednesday morning, hours after a fire in the plant’s tower.
Crews were called to the two-alarm blaze at the plant, in the 400 block of East Market Street, around 12:15 a.m., York Fire/Rescue Services Deputy Chief Steven Buffington said. When they arrived, they found the fire pouring from the tower.
Once inside, they had to work through narrow corridors and some falling debris, Buffington said. Three firefighters ran low on oxygen while fighting the fire and had to escape to the roof, he said, where fresh tanks were brought to them.
No firefighters were injured, and all plant workers were safely evacuated.
The fire began in the powder coating system, Buffington said. The pressurized system that applies a coating to the screens made in the plant appeared to then back up, allowing the tower itself to catch fire, he said.
Firefighters contained the blaze before it spread through the building, which spans most of the block.
Crews were still looking for hotspots inside the plant at 2:30 a.m. A few wisps of smoke curled from the square, gray-sided tower that rose above the hulking brick plant.
Jim Bailey stood on the sidewalk and watched firefighters trudge past, carrying axes and oxygen tanks.
“They must be getting worn out,” he said.
“There were flames all the way up to the top,” said Bailey, a loom tech who has worked at the plant for 16 years. “It looked just like a candle.”
Fire crews are
usually called to the plant a few times a year for the same system in the tower, Buffington said.
“Most times, their fire suppression system knocks it down and we just wind up clearing smoke,” he said. “This time, the fire was just too aggressive, or I don’t know if the fire suppression system activated.
Philadelphia Sn 28 was raising the lower boom to get the bucket closer to the ground so two costumed mascots could enter. They were going to ride the truck in the bucket to the National Nite Out festivities several blocks up the road. The knuckle of the waterway made several contacts with the high voltage lines and then got stuck to them. The result is in JD’s photo. And no one was injured except for some bruised egos.
Developer J. Brian O’Neill dreamed of bringing people back to the banks of the Schuylkill in Conshohocken. And yesterday, they came by the thousands - to watch in horror as his vision went up in flames.
This morning, fire trucks were still on the scene as embers from the buildings smoldered. Firefighters napped on the sidwalks littered with debris and water bottles.
Six riverfront buildings that O’Neill developed, including the Riverwalk at Millennium, were ravaged by an eight-alarm blaze: Three were destroyed, three damaged.
More than 300 firefighters from all corners of Montgomery County battled the spectacular fire, which raged for about six hours before crews got the upper hand about 10:30 p.m. Even so, firefighters were to remain overnight to douse hot spots.
From emergency workers to newly homeless residents, few could grasp how swiftly the flames turned a redevelopment showpiece with a clubhouse and courtyard into a smoldering disaster zone. At least 125 apartment units, housing 375 people, were destroyed.
The blaze began in a five-story building under construction at 203 Washington St. called the Stables at Millennium and spread quickly across what one official called a “lumberyard.”
The description was apt. The building was in the framing stage, which involves putting together the bones of the structure out of kiln-dried two-by-fours, plywood and lumber, materials that can burn very quickly.
Montgomery County Sheriff John Durante, who is also a longtime volunteer firefighter, said he had arrived on the scene soon after the fire was reported. “I’ve never seen a fire this intense burn so fast,” he said last night.
He figured that the blaze began in the end of the building closest to the river and spread to the front - about 100 yards - in 15 minutes.
At the height of the fire, flames encompassed the entire structure and were as tall as the building itself. They radiated so much heat that the roofs of adjacent buildings caught.
The cause of the fire - which began about 4:30 p.m. - was unknown.
“Jobs like this just beat everyone up,” said Leo Costello, an assistant fire chief in Conshohocken who was catching his breath late last night. He had been on the scene since about 5.
Riverfront fires are among the most challenging because of the difficulty in routing enough water into the area, fire officials said.
Embers and flames jumped from the Stables to adjacent apartment buildings in the Riverwalk complex, said Tom Sullivan, Montgomery County public safety director. The attics of those buildings caught fire, which “enabled the fire to get around the fire walls,” he said.
One firefighter who suffered from smoke inhalation and a young woman who collapsed were taken to Chestnut Hill Hospital.
Because the buildings border the river and railroad track, “access is challenged,” Sullivan said. “They’re working through it, and have been cutting down fencing.”
Sullivan said the borough had a limited water supply, which it was trying to overcome with supplies from other fire companies and lots of hose. “They’re making very good progress,” he said.
He noted that the fire was in what used to be an industrial area with limited firefighting infrastructure.
Ten fire companies responded.
Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers, who could see the smoke from his home in Roxborough, said this type of riverfront fire was particularly difficult to tackle.
In Philadelphia, water mains dead-end at the river, and hydrants at waterfront locations tend to have lower water pressure, he said.
“It’s a very challenging firefighting moment,” Ayers said. “They’re up against the size of the fire . . . and getting water resources together to get in front of the fire.” The Philadelphia Fire Department was not called to the scene.
