Ann Fairchild and Leslie Moseley grabbed what they could Thursday afternoon as smoke filled Fairchild’s family business, Painters Ice Cream shop in Garden City Beach.
Moseley had just served two customers about 2:30 p.m. when an employee of the adjacent Pacific Beachwear store ran into the ice cream shop and said, “Please call 911; the roof is on fire,” the women said.
In the end, fire destroyed both businesses and two vehicles in the parking lot.
Billowing smoke and flames made worse by windy conditions forced emergency officials to close both lanes of U.S. 17 Business for several hours, and the blaze melted power lines and left nearly 3,000 without power for more than an hour.
Moseley said she was concerned with getting her two customers safely out of the building.
“I grabbed my purse and the register and ran out, but outside you couldn’t breathe, it was so thick; it burnt your lungs,” Moseley said.
Fairchild added: “She quickly served her customers, and they bolted because the ceiling was filling with smoke.”
When firefighters arrived, heavy smoke and flames were coming from the shared roof over the two businesses, said Chief Norman Knight with the Murrells Inlet/Garden City Fire Department.
Passing motorists made multiple calls to 911 to report the fire, which was in the 2100 block of U.S. 17 South, Knight said.
The beachwear store worker met firefighters when they arrived and told them the fire started in the roof of his building and that no one was inside the businesses, Knight said. The employee said he had been in the attic earlier, and when he went back up there to store another item, he saw smoke.
No injuries were reported, but the beachwear employee, who was not identified, was taken to a local hospital to be checked out, Knight said.
More than 50 firefighters from Knight’s department, Surfside Beach, Midway and Horry County battled the blaze. Myrtle Beach firefighters moved to Surfside Beach to answer other calls in that town during the incident, Knight said.
Because the wind was blowing west, it protected the Vista Plaza Business Center located behind the two destroyed businesses. But the fire spread across Kings Highway into several trees at the entrance of Ocean Breeze Plantation and singed grass in the median, authorities said.
“It was blowing in our favor. We had a large volume fire in a very old building. We had our hands full when we got here,” Knight said.
It was unclear what caused the fire, and investigators were at the scene Thursday evening looking at the beachwear store near the entrance of the building, where the fire was believed to have started, Knight said. It may take a while to determine the cause because of the intensity of the blaze, he said.
“When you have this much damage, it’s tough to determine cause and origin,” Knight said.
About 2,900 people lost power for more than an hour while repair crews worked to reroute power, said Santee Cooper spokeswoman Molly Gore. Gore said at 4:45 p.m. that about 100 people were still without power, but she expected that power would be fully restored by evening.
Several people were without cable and telephone connections at 7:30 p.m. as emergency crews worked to reroute those lines as well.
Owners of the beachwear store could not be reached Thursday evening for comment.
Fairchild said her family has owned the ice cream business in that same location for 19 years. The business employed eight people and was to remain open until Nov. 1, when it would have closed for the season, she said.
“I’m very sad because it is a family business. I don’t know what the future holds now,” Fairchild said.
Many area residents walked up to the businesses to snap photos of the blaze with their cell phones, while
West Coast 911 firefighting news source - The Sun News - Myrtle Beach FL
An Augusta firefighter remained hospitalized Tuesday after being injured during a weekend blaze that gutted the Southern Milling Co. building on Twiggs Street.
Lt. Jay Jones was pinned beneath a “deck gun” water cannon and its 1,000-gallon-per-minute pressure stream after the device tipped over, Chief Howard Willis said.
A fellow firefighter, Lt. William Dickerson, was beside Lt. Jones and helped pull the machine off him, enabling him to escape from the stream of water.
“The pump operator shut the line down and the rescue units came running over there, but William Dickerson was right there beside him,” Chief Willis said.
Lt. Jones, who was knocked unconscious, was taken to Medical College of Georgia Hospital with deep cuts and a broken leg, ankle and collarbone. He was later transferred to Doctors Hospital, said his wife, Sheryl Jones.
“He has four or five months of recovery ahead of him,” Mrs. Jones said. “But if it wasn’t for Lt. Dickerson, my husband would not be here today.”
Firefighters are like brothers, she said.
“He risked his life to save my husband; that’s just the way they are,” she said.
The cause of Friday night’s blaze remains under investigation, Chief Willis said.
Illinois 121 near the Kenney Blacktop between Warrensburg and Latham was closed in both directions for several hours Thursday as emergency personnel worked to clean up after an anhydrous ammonia leak at a local fertilizer plant.
Macon County Emergency Management Agency Director Phil Anello said the road was closed from about 8:50 to 11:45 a.m. because of an ammonia leak at the Van Horn Fertilizer plant near unincorporated Heman.
Anello said no injuries or hospitalizations were reported in the incident, and foul play is not believed to be involved. Anello said it was an accident with a faulty valve that caused a large ammonia cloud to form.
The leak triggered a “multiagency, multijurisdictional response,” Anello said.
Warrensburg Fire Chief Keith Hackl, whose department was the lead agency in handling the leak, said 12 to 15 homes downwind from the leak temporarily were evacuated, but the communities of Warrensburg and Latham were not directly affected.
Hackl said Warrensburg firefighters received assistance from many fire departments, including Harristown, Latham, Kenney, Maroa, Hickory Point Township and South Wheatland Township.
The Decatur Fire Department also sent 10 technicians from its hazardous materials unit to help control and clean up the leak, Battalion Chief Michael McGeehon said.
Anello said that while the accident was unfortunate, emergency personnel are often required to respond to similar incidents in the fall, as many farmers look to fertilize their fields with anhydrous ammonia.
“These things happen sometimes, and (farmers and fertilizer sales people) use extreme caution when handling this product,” he said.
He credited the Macon County Sheriff’s Office and Macon County Highway Department with working quickly to secure the scene so emergency personnel could contain the leak without interference from passing traffic.
West Coast 911 firefighting news source - Herald and Review - Illinois
SCHENECTADY — A city firefighter was hospitalized with a severe leg fracture battling a suspicious fire at a home Tuesday morning where a man was shot dead earlier this month, authorities said.
Lt. Michelle Wilson was expected to undergo surgery at Ellis Hospital where she was taken after being hurt in the 4 a.m. blaze at 933 Albany St. Fire Chief Robert Farstad said the cause of the fire is suspicious.
Ulysses Canty, 40, died Sept. 1 after being shot inside a downstairs apartment there. Police said they had no information to indicate a connection.
It was the second fire in the city overnight. At 9 p.m. Monday night, firefighters battled a blaze at 12 Grove Place that fire left 22 people homeless.
Officials said the Albany Street house had several apartments but only one was occupied.
The four residents had escaped by the time firefighters arrived. The home’s ground floor and attic were badly damaged. The fire also caused minor damage to a home at 935 Albany St.
Nearly two dozen residents, including 16 in one apartment, were displaced by Monday night’s larger fire that all but destroyed a two-family building and threatened to spread to neighboring structures.
Everyone got out safely, but a number of firefighters who responded to the blaze nearly got caught inside when something — an explosion or intense burst of flame — occurred, Farstad said.
Despite the number of people living in the building, it doesn’t appear the arrangement violated city codes, City Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden said.
Firefighters were faced with heavy fire on arrival at a house located in the Packanack Lake area of Wayne Township, shortly before midnight Sunday, September 21.
Neighbors reported seeing flames and hearing what sounded like fireworks or an explosion at 51 Forest Terrace. The fire was so intense that it melted a plastic fence which was 20 feet from the front of the house, and the house itself sustained heavy damage.
Companies made a quick knockdown and the fire was under control in less than an hour with no serious injuries reported. An investigation is ongoing.
At least a dozen Mountain View residents escaped without injury through the windows of their three-story apartment building early Friday morning after someone lit a fire in the stairwell, according to the Anchorage Fire Department.
The 4 a.m. fire at 3209 Peterkin Ave. did not damage the building’s six units but they are uninhabitable because the stairway was destroyed, said Bridget Bushue, division chief for the Fire Department.
She said the fire consumed the first 2½ flights of stairs, causing roughly $15,000 to $20,000 in damage.
A dozen fire trucks and other vehicles arrived about three minutes after one of the building occupants reported the fire at 4:33 a.m., Bushue said.
“People were already climbing out windows when we got there,” she said. Firefighters rescued the rest with ladders.
She said the good news is that the building’s smoke detectors worked. “That’s what woke people up,” she said.
The building’s owner, Dan Hollingsworth, could not immediately be reached for comment.
An industrial waste-processing facility containing 1,000 gallons of sulfuric acid caught fire in New Castle Thursday morning, causing emergency officials to evacuate homes and businesses within a half-mile of the site.
Residents were allowed to return to their homes about 6 p.m. after air quality tests showed low toxicity rates, Lawrence County Public Safety Director Brian Melcer said.
Still, officials urged nearby residents to keep their doors and windows shut through the night as crews remained on the scene to clear potentially hazardous debris.
No injuries were reported to residents or firefighters.
Melcer said “a couple people” close to the fire on River Park Drive said they could smell something in the air. As a precaution, they were advised to go to a hospital, he said.
“There were a couple reports of respiratory distress, but it was not severe,” Melcer said.
The fire was reported at 11:45 a.m. at Castle Environmental Inc., an industrial waste services company.
Responding crews found “billowing smoke with flames” streaming from a south wall, New Castle fire Chief Tom Maciarello said.
Firefighters fought the fire from outside because of the hazardous chemicals inside and because the roof of the structure began to sag, he said.
Crews contained the fire within two hours, Maciarello said. Firefighters did not enter the building until 5 p.m. when crews knocked down a north wall. The last flames were extinguished shortly after firefighters went in.
Investigators believe the fire began when sparks from a welding flame lit insulation in the warehouse’s south wall.
Maciarello said a Hazmat crew dammed runoff water and was trying to prevent it from entering Shenango River behind the facility. The crew was expected to remain through the night as workers tried to pump the potentially contaminated water into a tanker.
Officials evacuated 53 patients from the Silver Oaks nursing home on Harbor Street, about 500 feet from the fire. They and about 40 other residents sought refuge at the Scottish Rite Cathedral.
Across the street from Castle Environmental is First Student bus company, which owns and operates the New Castle Area school buses. One of the drivers, Roanne Carbone, said she and others were called to the area around noon, given plastic gloves and face masks, and told to move the fleet.
“It was scary because we didn’t really know what was going on,” she said. “They just told us to get down here and get all the buses out because the smell was really coming in.”
WINNIPEG - A woman who was seriously injured in a crash with a Winnipeg fire truck on the weekend has died in hospital.
Kim Allison White, 21, was one of two occupants of a pickup truck that collided with the emergency vehicle as it was on it way to deal with a kitchen fire early Sunday morning.
The pickup’s other occupant, a 26-year-old man, is in stable condition, said Const. Jason Michalyshen.
A firefighter who was sitting in the front passenger seat of the fire truck was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said.
Alex Forrest, president of the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg union, alleged the pickup went through a stop sign at a high rate of speed and T-boned the fire truck, which was carrying four firefighters.
He said the truck had just pulled out of the station with its lights and sirens on and was driving behind a pumper truck.
Police are still investigating the crash.
WestCoast911 story source - The Canadian Press / Chris Kitching
“This video is dedicated to my brother firefighters lost on 9-11. This is my first YouTube video so bare with me. Thanks to the internet community for the pictures, FDNY communications for the audio & Garth Brooks for ‘The Change’, without them this project would not be possible..” ….. Youtube Member APGstrike
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 most of us made a pledge to “Never Forget.” This is a chance to put some action to that familiar phrase. On 9-11-08, join a free motorcycle ride dedicated to the memory of the 343 FDNY Firemen, 61 Police Officers and all those who tragically lost their lives on that historic day.
This video was provided courtesy of Youtube member Firefighter11A
