Legeros Fire Blog  -

Here's something that you don't see every day, a tree that was struck by lightning at the scene of a structure fire. The lightning strike also started the two-alarm apartment fire on Calumet on Tuesday. See more photos from the scene from Lee Wilson, as well the shots by Mike Legeros. Read prior posting about the incident.
 

Lee Wilson photo

For your Friday viewing, a new documentary film has been released about the recovery of the Charleston Fire Department after nine firefighters died at the Sofa Super Store fire on June 18, 2007. The video was produced by Statter911 Communications and Greg Guise Media for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. It focuses on how the leadership of the late Fire Chief Tom Carr helped the department recovery after its devastating loss. Here's more information. Watch the 26-minute short film, via YouTube:
 
 

Saw this photo on Facebook, via the Law Officer magazine page, via their web site story, via an Associated Press story, about newly released photos from the January 2011 shooting scene in Tucson, AZ, that killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The Pima County Sheriff's Department on Tuesday released to the public some 600 images taken by investigators. Check out this improvised whiteboard. Don't know if the images have been posted/hosted in their entirety by anyone(s). That's probably its own legal (?), ethical, and practical dilemma.
 

AP/Pima County Sheriff photo

Evening update. Added city budget information, released today.

Good morning Raleigh. Got nothing to comment upon. Enjoy these news stories...

• For Holly Springs rescue [engine], 'price is not an object' - FireNews.net posting of a Cary News story about the town's purchase of a customer-built rescue pumper. The $475,000 apparatus, built by Spartan ERV, utilized a cooperative bidding process and chose its vendor through a government cooperative based in Texas.
    
• Garner Fire [Department] captain almost through national program - Garner-Cleveland Record story about Capt. Shawn Godwin, who has finished three of four years of the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy.
   
• Draft budgt for town of Apex - This PDF document includes fire department items including: rehab of Station 2, design of Station 5 on Apex-BBQ Road, and a Captain position for training. 
   
• Proposed budget for town of Cary -  The web page includes Capital Projects information for the coming budget year, which includes a reserve rescue truck (maybe also used a reserve service ladder truck?), a rear entrance driveway for Station 5, and a new pumper for Station 8.
   
• Proposed budget for city of Raleigh - The newly published documents note such fire department highlights as two Deputy Fire Marshal positions added, replacement of all SCBAs, recruit approximately 30 firefighters in FY14, begin multi-year plan to recondition three fire stations per year, plus CIP programs to replace Station 12 in FY14, replace Station 14 in FY14 and FY15, and expand Station 11 in FY14.

Two alarms were struck this afternoon at 3216 Calumet Drive. Fire was showing through the roof upon arrival of Battalion 2, at the two-story, brick exterior, garden-style apartment building. Built in 1973. Hydrants were caught and lines were pulled for an interior attack, as the two arriving ladders were positioned. As searches were performed, heavy fire was found spreading through the attic. Crews were withdrawn at about the fifteen-minute mark. Car 20 assumed incident command. Ladder 2 (in parking lot) and Ladder 4 (using reserve platform, on Calumet Drive) were directed to begin aerial operations. Portable monitors were also deployed, one in the front of the structure and one in the rear. 

Command was located in the parking lot, on the left-rear corner of the building. Staging was along Calumet Drive. Hydrants were also caught on Calumet, with Engine 7 boosting to Engine 3, which boosted to Ladder 2 (was that right?), and Engine 11 boosting to Ladder 4. Rehab and medical monitoring was also on Calumet Drive, at Wake County EMS Truck 1. Dispatched at 3:31 p.m., the fire was controlled at 4:22 p.m. Seventy-five percent of the building was damaged. The cause was determined as natural, by lightning strike. First alarm: E11, E3, E21, E9, L2, L4, R1, SQ15, B2, B5, C420; Working fire: A1, C20, C401; Second alarm: E12, E13, E26, E10, L8, L1, B1; Self-dispatch (?) by E7; Also Car 3, Car 4, Car 5, Car 14 (Safety); Medical; EMS 3, EMS 5, EMS 36, EMS 63; D1, D9, M92, MD2, MD20, T1. See preliminary photos by Legeros. More later, plus also from Lee Wilson!
 

Press release. On May 21, today, the Raleigh City Council awarded a contract not to exceed $2,700,000 to Resolute Building, Inc., for the construction of Fire Station 29. It will be located at 12117 Leesville Road and will house a single engine company, Engine 29. The 10,000-square-foot fire station, designed by Stewart Cooper Newell William Ferm Architects, will have three apparatus bays, sleeping quarters with twenty-seven beds, an exercise room, office and watch station. The facility will have reduced water use and energy efficient HVAC and lighting. The project is pursuing U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification. Construction will begin this summer with completion scheduled for approximately ten months. Here's a map showing the location relative to the city's other fire stations. Below is a design drawing that appeared in the Raleigh Fire Department newsletter, as well as in the recent centennial history book.
  

Flickr has redesign their user interface. Will take some getting used to. Here's Lee's and Mike's pages:
  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/leewilson/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/legeros/

Tooling down to my high school home of Morehead City in Carteret County, the town dedicated their new fire station last month. The former home of the Carteret News Times newspaper at 4034 Arendell Street was converted to a new Station 2 as designed by C. R. Francis Architecture. Here's some background on the project, via our prior posting.
 
As the floorplan below shows, the single-story building was transformed into a three-bay facility with dormitories, training rooms, and offices for the department staff. The building was also planned to house a police substation and a magistrate. The fire department moved into the building in December, as this News Times story noted. The station was dedicated on April 13.

From the fire department's web site, the station houses Engine 2 (2006 Sutphen 70-foot quint), Rescue 2 (2012 Ford ambulance?), and Engine 10 (1982 Ford pumper/tanker). The department's fleet notably added a mobile ambulance bus in 2011, housed at Station 1. See prior posting on same.

The town has four fire department facilities: three fire stations and a "Station 4" training station used by the Crystal Coast Fire Academy. We'll pay a visit before long, and photograph the thing up and down. Either me or Lee Wilson, who usually takes a beach trip this time of year. 
 

Your evening fire video, found by Statter911. Lengthy (and well shot) footage before, during, and after arrival at a house fire this morning. Exterior attack to start against well-involved structure, then they go inside. Video from Pippin Beard and Kristen Kingsbury.
 
 

Belatedly blogging about a fabulous five-part fire safety series called Fire Is, hosted by veteran television journalist Dr. Frank Field along with his son Storm and his daughter Allison (shown below). All three are television journalists. The series places particular emphasis on how fire isn't like what children and their parents see on television or in the movies. It was developed for older children, grades 5 - 7. After third grade, they note, most kids don't receive additional fire safety education.
 

The five clips have been made available as a DVD, and can also be viewed online. (Copies were distrubted at year's Fire Expo in Baltimore, where Mr. Blogger grabbed his copy.) Among the participants is the Charlotte Fire Department, and you'll see their PIO Captain Rob Brisley, among others. The program was created in New Jersey, and with parterships from organizations there. And here's an Instructor's Guide (PDF), produced by Everybody Goes Home.
 

 
Watch the videos, which are linked from this landing page, are available in both English and Spanish, and which include a pre-test:

• Fire is... Black (23 min.)
• Fire is... Hot (15 min.)
• Fire is... Fast (11 min.)
• Fire is... Smoke and Gas (18 min.)
• Fire is... an Emergency (18 min.)

Seen on Glenwood Avenue this morning, inbound at Lead Mine Road. Colors are both dark blue and black. Not shown, leading the convoy, was a presumed comms truck, a mid-sized two-axle box truck (if recalled correctly) with what looked like a collapsed dish/antenna tower on top. Didn't have time to retrieve the real camera(s). USSS? Homeland? Military? Posting for collective interest, or at least until the blogger suffers the consequences of [insert favorite conspiracy theory outcome]. If this posting disappears, then this was just a figment of some guy's imagination. Please remember me well. Click to enlarge:
 

Reader Randy Newman passes along the tale of another unusual firefighter fatality, which we've supplemented with documentation after a quick trip to the local library. Lt. Joseph Morris Hicks, 59, of the Henderson Fire Department died of an accidental gunshot wound on Saturday, November 7, 1970. The eleven-year veteran of the department was at the fire station, when he bent over to get a Coke from a vending machine. He was carrying a pistol which fell from its holster, struck the floor, and discharged.

Reported the next day's News & Observer, "the bullet struck him just above the bridge of the nose, almost exactly between his eyebrows." The shot penetrated his skull. Lt. Hicks was transported to Duke Hospital in Durham, where he was pronounced dead at 12:10 p.m. His death certificate lists the cause as "cerebral anoxia" and "cerebral laceration," from the gunshot wound.

Lt. Hicks was buried at Sunset Gardens in Henderson on November 9, 1970. His obituary lists that he was survived by his wife Mary C. Hicks, and his son Jimmy Hicks.

Civil Unrest

Regarding the weapon he was carrying, this was a period of civil unrest in the Vance County town. Tempers had been rising and protests becoming more heated over integration of the town's schools, the dismissal of a black teacher in late September, and the arrests of blacks involved in school walkouts. Also in the mix were reactions from a shooting death in Oxford in May, when a black man was shot by a white man.

On Friday, November 7, the violence started after police used tear gas on people protesting the school controversy. Later, a tobacco warehouse "in the black section" burned and the firefighters were met with sniper fire. The blaze was blamed on arson, which spread and destroyed several nearby frame home.

The National Guard was dispatched by the Governor, with some 300 troops arriving on Saturday afternoon. Calm conditions were reported that night, and the town manager continued a curfew which had been first ordered on Friday.

Hicks and other firefighters had also armed themselves on Friday, after being fired upon while answering fire calls. After Hicks was shot, the others stopped carrying their weapons on the advice of the police chief. After the guard members arrived, they turned their weapons in.

(The threat of violent affected nearby fire departments as well. Recalled an old-timer with the Bear Pond FD, during my recent visit to town, they carried a rifle on their original pumper, stored in the hard suction!)

Calm was reported again on Sunday, November 9, though both guard members and state troopers continued patrolling the town. As the story goes, however, riot shot guns were carried on the engines during this time, and for many years later. 

Thanks again, Randy. We'll forward this information to both the state and national fallen firefighter foundations.

Sources

• News & Observer, November 7-9, 1970
• Joseph Morris Hicks death certificate.
• Oral histories.

Question:

Which fire department was the first one organized in Wake County? Both municipal and county?

Answer:

Those milestones include...

1819 - First fire company, volunteer, Raleigh. It's municipal-affiliated, but is it "municipal" ? Let's instead cite...

1852 - Raleigh reorganizes fire companies, and forms what I would call the first real FD organization. So, that's a good year for first municipal fire department in Wake County. They were volunteers.

But what about non-Raleigh municipalities?

1908-1912 (?) - Wendell

1910s - Zebulon

Those dates are based on my research of some years ago. Maybe someone knows more accurate start years? Those were also volunteer.

What was the first career fire department in Wake County?

1912 - Full-paid fire department formed in Raleigh.

What was the first rural-era volunteer department? When Civil Defense funding was available, starting in the 1950s?

1952 - Garner Fire Department organized.

But what about the first rural, non-municipal affiliated department?

1956 - Six Forks Road Fire Department organized.

Clear as mud?

As a follow-up to my recent posting about North Carolina fallen firefighter research records, let's look look at some data and details from my database therein. The spreadsheet was created in 2006, the year the memorial was dedicated in Nash Square with 164 names. That roster has expanded with some ninety names, both those who've died in the years since, and the legacy members from prior decades. Here's a recap and expansion of some data and details from an essay written in 2006:

Multi-Fatality Fires

Three times in the state's history have four firefighters died in the line of duty at the same incident. On May 25, 1979, four members of the Shelby Fire Department were killed when a building exploded during an apparently routine fire in a clothing store. On September 7, 1982, four members of the National Spinning Company textile plant fire brigade in Washington were overcome by smoke and died in an early  morning fire. On July 1, 2012, four members of the North Carolina Air National Guard 145th Airlift Wing from Charlotte were killed when tanker crashed in South Dakota on the White Draw fire near Edgemont.

Winston-Salem's Fire Chiefs

Three Chiefs of Department and one Assistant Chief in Winston-Salem have died in the line of duty. Fire Chief Harry Nissen in 1932, in an automobile accident; Fire Chief William Hobson in 1938, of a heart attack; Fire Chief Arnold Bullard in 1980, of a heart attack; Asst. Chief John Goforth in 1956, of a heart attack.

Father and Son

North Carolina Division of Forest Resources pilot Marshall Newman and mechanic Larry Moody died after a midair collision near Kinston on November 19, 1973. Twenty-seven years later, his son also died in an aircraft accident involving the Forest Service. On September 7, 2000, forestry pilot Tim Newman and crew chief Mike Fossett were killed when their Huey UH-1H helicopter crashed near the Blue Ridge Parkway, near Waynesville in Haywood County.

Fire Alarm Systems

Three fatalities have involved personnel working with electric-telegraph fire alarm systems, which utilized low-voltage electrical wires typically strung from telephone and other poles: W. Graham Cathey in Charlotte in 1928; Oscar Hayworth in High Point in 1936; William Capps in Fayetteville in 1956.

Unusual Circumstances

In 1929, Luther Horne of Fayetteville was killed by a collapse at the ancestral home of legendary Fire Chief James McNeill. In 1931, Edgar Elliott of New Bern fell into the Neuse River and drowned while battling a riverfront fire. In 1934, Pruitt Black of Charlotte died when he tripped on his bunker pants and fell down the pole hole. In 1976, McDaniel Narron of Antioch died after suffering a heart attack while operating the pump at a fire at his own home. In 1989, Roy Bailey died when he was shot and killed while directing traffic.

Read more about these incidents in this essay from 2006.
 

Statistics

By county, 74 of North Carolina's 100 counties have lost firefighters in the line of duty. The highest counts are:

• Mecklenburg - 17
• Forsyth - 13
• Cumberland - 10
• Wake - 10

By agency, 163 fire departments and fire protection agencies have lost firefighters in the line of duty. The highest counts are:

• Charlotte Fire Department - 12
• North Carolina Department of Forest Resources - 11
• Winston-Salem Fire Department - 8
• Wilmington Fire Department - 7

Note: Five agencies have lost four members, twelve agencies have lost three members, and eighteen agencies have lost two members.

Some upcoming events to mark on your calendar. We'll have some specific postings about these at a later time...

Just noticed that last week's observations about a Wilmington aerial tower was posting 6000.¹ Wow, how did that happen? This blog began on December 27, 2005. The first posting was, well, Welcome to our Blog. Actually, that was the fifth one. The first four were test posts.

We've covered quite a bit of ground in these eight and a half years. Local stuff a-plenty, from numbering schemes to incident discussions to local governance. Lots of rumors, at least in the early days. (We're more fact-based presently.) History and photography in equal parts, as well.

We've been heated at times, and then re-heated for some of the more popular dead horses. It's been a couple years, however, since we've had super-long discussions. Those were in the days before reader comments required approval. Here are those with the highest comment counts, and all are from the pre-moderation period:
 

 
What's next for this blog? Would like to upgrade the platform, to add Facebook commenting and maybe user-controlled user profiles. Might commence cleaning out the oldest postings, and removing expired event notices and fluffier stuff. The historical pieces--both local and statewide--are gold, and will be preserved somehow. Maybe re-posted on other pages. Maybe moved to another site, some day. Beyond that, it'll be same old same old. I'll keep talking until there's nothing else to say, or no one left reading. Thanks for participating.

¹ Sounds like an impressive number, but it ain't. Here's the math: 6000 divided by 8.5 years divided by 365 days equals just about two postings per day. Any fool with a lot of free time and a wardrobe of tropical shirts can pull that off.

FireNews.net this week reports on this Winston-Salem Journal story that the city fire department will no longer respond to non-life threatening medical calls effective July 1. They'll respond only to calls involving cardiovascular, respiratory, life-threatening trauma, and life-threatening allergic reactions, notes a memo from the Fire Chief. They'll also no longer respond to medical calls at facilities where medical professionals are on staff, such as medical offices, nursing homes, and assisted living centers. The change is a cost saving measure that will save the department $145,000 in fuel costs in the first year.

The fire department started responding to all medical emergencies in November 1999. (Was that the year they started their first responder program? Didn't they take a stab at one the decade before?) Their annual EMS call volume is 18,500, of which an estimated 70 percent are not true medical emergencies. Read the stories, which include a few reader comments (so far) on the Journal site.

Reader perspectives are requested. First is a contextual question, what's the norm for first responder call types, locally, regionally, or nationally? Second, a specific question. Will WSFD respond to life-threatening events at medical facilities? Or are those omitted, period? Third, what results have readers observed about changes in EMS service levels by fire departments? (What happens when you greatly cut your call volume, for example?) Should be good fodder for discussion.

May 17, 2013
Updated, adding a third slide also found for sale on eBay. Dry-chemical unit carried on a 1989 Ford. The airport currently has a pair of Oshkosh 4x4 crash trucks, one in service and one in reserve. See photos of those rigs from 2010 (scroll down the page). Click to enlarge:
 

Jun 26, 2011
Updated, adding another slide also found for sale on eBay. Crash 1, a 1954 American LaFrance, one of the "O" models used by the military.

Also found for sale on eBay, yet another 35mm slide. This is a 1975 Oshkosh 1250/1500/180 operated by the New Hanover County Fire Department. We blogged about this before, noting that there once were two Air Force installations in Wilmington, and the 48th Interceptor Squadron was protected by a crash truck at the airport.

That information was dated 1971. Betcha this truck was provided by the military, but operated by the county-run fire department. Believe this was a prior incarnation of NHCFD, that solely protected the airport. The current New Hanover County Fire Department was created 1997. [ Incorrect. See comments below. ] As for the airport, they're protected by an airport-operated department, no? Anyway, great picture. Click both to enlarge:
 

Come eat at the Zebulon Sonic drive-in restaurant, 1240 N. Arendell Avenue, and a percentage of sales will be donated to the Jacob Spain Memorial Scholarship. That's a $500 annual award awarded annually to an FFA student at East Wake High School. The scholarship was established earlier this year by Raleigh Asst. Fire Chief Garry Spain and his wife Jennifer, after their son Jacob passed away suddenly in May of last year. The scholarship will be awarded for at least the next forty years. The event on Monday includes large drinks sold for 72 cents, which was the number of Jacob's football jersey. Here's an Eastern Wake News story from February about the Spains and the scholarship. Click to see the flyer (PDF).
 

Good morning Raleigh. Warmer weather has finally and perhaps regrettably arrived. Loved this unusually cool spring, but then this Minnesota-born boy has never tolerated the heat particularly well. At least as his age and, ahem, body mass has climbed in recent years. Anyway, here's some of the news and fire news that's passed across my reading table. Now passing onto your reading table...

• Seven Carteret County fire departments fail to meet standards - FireNews.net story from the Carteret County News-Times about the results of a state inspection in March and April. They have one year to meet the requirements of the OSFM, which defines their abilities to adequately respond and maintain the minimum equipment and personnel to operate as a "basic, rural fire department." The OSFM will work with the departments, to help them meet their requirements, which were primarily due to problems with "staffing, paperwork and having outdated equipment." Click through to the News-Times story, to read their reader comments as well. Guessing this is not uncommong state- and nation-wide, among rural department serving small or day-transient populations.
   
• Five DC firefighters discplined for Facebook posting - Fire Law story that's also been covered by Statter911. The five were placed on desk duty, after the first one posted an inflammatory comment about a DC police officer. Four others added their thoughts. See the Statter911 story for numerous reader comments, which include the expected pile-upon upon the Fire Chief. (That's been a reader trend for some time, and in the context of numerous news stories about DCFD.) But what about this story, and the social media angle therein? Well, it's still the same thing we've talked about before. Just because you're off-duty and maybe not even identified as a firefighter doesn't mean you can't be disciplined for things you say that your boss doesn't like. (That's one or two double negatives in that sentence?)
   
• Thirteen Cleveland firefighters indicted for paying co-workers to cover shifts - Statter911 story that's also been covered by Firegeezer. The practice is called "caddying" says this Cleveland Plains Dealer story. They also speculate that this is the first time anywhere in the country that firefighters have faced such charges. Correct? The charges are the result of a six-month probe by a city-hired special investigator, hired after city auditors exposed payroll abuses in fire department records from 2006 to 2010. The Plains Dealer story has 102 comments so far, and probably growing.
   
• Thirteen Boston deputy chiefs express no confidence in Fire Chief - Another Statter911 story, this one time from Beantown. The thirteen direct reports to the Fire Chief sent a letter to the Mayor, expressing their displeasure that their boss didn't take command at the Boston Marathon bombing. Their letter has also criticized other actions of the Chief. Based on the many reader comments in this Boston Herald story, a couple things appear to be factors: he's the first Fire Chief hired from outside the ranks of the department, and upon his appointment, changed a rule that required the Fire Chief to take command at incidents he arrived at. Call this the modern fire service leadership dilemma. Do you want your leaders raised through the ranks, and presumably operationally oriented? Or are the best administrators trained and practiced as administrators? Can you have both?
   
• Man almost dies trying to rescue kids who pretend to be drowning - This KIRO-TV headline caught my eye out of Renton, WA. The rescuer, a disabled man, wasn't breathing by the time he was rescued. He was revived and in intensive car. No word on what will happen to the kids. If the byline of the reporter looks familiar, that's my cousin Chris Legeros, a veteran television journalist in Seattle. (The story appeared in my inbox courtesy of Google, which, ahem, does a daily search for the keyword "Legeros." Also have a daily search for "Raleigh Fire Department." Technology is good.)

May 15
Update. Added another dozen-plus death certificates, from 1978 and 1979. And redacted social security numbers where present in the documents. Also updated the database with fallen firefighters from 2011 and 2012. Also added as data and narrative details throughout the database. Notable are added burial dates and locations. Also added a PDF version of the database, for alternate/easier format for reading. (Might alter the web page version of the database in the future. It's a little slow to load.) Watch this space for some stats about the data therein.

April 30
Specifically, digital scans of death certificates newly uploaded, of our state's fallen firefighters from 1911 to 1977. Eighty-seven of the things, copied from microfilm or online databases at Olivia Raney Local History Library in Raleigh. They were compiled beginning some eight years ago, to assist the North Carolina Fallen Firefighters Foundation with their historical records. The documents offer a surprising wealth of information, including vital statistics, family information, and burial location. Occupations are noted, as are causes of death. The latter vary in their levels of detail. Some are simple medical notes, others describe the accident or situation that caused the death. They've been stored in a single web folder, and are linked from my fallen firefighters history page.