Posted on 05/06/2005 11:18:21 PM PDT by kingattax
OREGON CITY, Ore. (AP) It may have been the quickest fire response ever—when Oregon City firefighters found flames coming out of their own fire station.
The Clackamas County Dispatch called the fire station this morning to tell them an alarm was coming from their own station.
Captain Jamie Karn says they found one of the fire engines had caught fire. They used another engine to put out the flames.
But not before hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage was caused to the fire engine—and the station.
Three firefighters suffered minor smoke inhalation, but they’ll be OK.
Karn says the flames appeared to come from the engine compartment of the fire truck. It was destroyed
I have been waiting for someone to post this!
I was in the car when I heard about it.
I'm glad this wasn't in the South. ;o)
Thanks for posting it. ;o)
youre welcome :)
The local news reports are not discussing causation. How does a major fire start in a fire house without arson? How do Oregon law enforcement authorites shut up the Laimstream Media on this subject? When is obvious arson a non-event? Never happened, time to move on people, resume lomg snooze. Tom Potter is on the side of all right thinking Americans and there are no al Qaeda operatives in our beautiful state.
Oh, well . . . Not for me to worry. They have told me to roll over and go back to sleep. I'm too sick from the "Oregon Crud" and too drowsy to care anyway.
Have you never heard of a car fire?
Auto engines catch fire with a surprising regularity. I'm a Firefighter-EMT with my local fire department. We respond to car fire calls often. Generally, they are minor fires contained under the hood. However about a few months ago, we responded to a car fire where the owner was warming up his car and a fire started. It quickly grew - spreading to the side of his house and was so hot it melted the tar surface of his driveway.
Something similar probably happened in Oregon. Fire departments have protocols to do regular "starts" on all vehicles not being used daily. Ours is every other day. A couple crew members open the bay doors, start all the rigs, and let them run for a while. This helps keep the engines "warmed up" and ready to go. So, while they had their rig running, something obviously failed in the engine and a 'car fire' started.
Unfortunate luck for the fire department but no conspiracy needed to explain it.
Maybe someone spilled some of that fire house chili on the engine block.
Now THAT'S a "fire truck"!
I thought the same thing, any number of things could have happened.
So much so that they are contemplating outsourcing the fire service.
I bet some disgruntled employee that is gonna lose his volounteer job dropped a match.
A city I worked for recently broke up its tri-city volunteer FD and the three cities now outsource to West Bloomfield Township. I never heard so much griping from volunteers (some of them my friends) losing a volunteer job. Turns out some of them made thousands a year off the per-call stipend.
Probably many of them at night, in the cold or for long hours on a brush fire. Most stipends dont go by the hour, but by the call.
BTW the city I work for has had firestations catch fire in the past. Mostly due to being called out while cooking and some ding dong forgot to turn off the oven!
Not too many brush fires in Keego Harbor, but they did respond to a lot of accidents, heart attacks, etc. and, yes, in all kinds of weather.
When I was a kid I remember the fire trucks had one red light on top.
Ooops!
No smoke alarms and automatic sprinkler systems in the firehouse?
Sorry to hear you are sick.
Hope you are feeling better very soon.
"No smoke alarms and automatic sprinkler systems in the firehouse?"
I thought it to be pretty ironic, too. ;o)
I just *HATE* it when that happens...
Well I know that a V-12 Jaguar will go up in flames very easily.
The idiot engineers put the distributor in the middle of the engine and then ran the fuel injection rails down both sides with short curved rubber lines that went to the injectors.
The heat would dry the lines and the bend would get cracks and spray fuel out at 40PSI- right on to the distributor cap that was full of sparking contacts.
POOF!!! BBQ'ed Jag.
Hey, jaydubya, sorry for not responding earlier - my online time is pretty irregular from that 48 on and 48 off schedule. ;-)
The schedules vary. Most do a 24on/48off and some others 24/96. The 48/48 is used less. Some departments split into a day shift/ night shift arrangement. NYFD does this, I believe.
As to why firefighters and many EMS services work 24 hour shifts, there are many reasons. Foremost is that it has worked out the best of all the combinations. Surprisingly, 24/48 schedules are less stressful on family life, provide more rest, and result in more alert, tighter knit crews than the other combinations. 12 hour shifts wear people out after a while. Straight three 8 hour shifts had manpower difficulties which resulted in the rotating day/night schedules which caused to much instability in private life, and threw off the body rhythms (the body never catches up to what part of the diurnal cycle it should be in - it's like having jet lag for a whole week) so crews were actually less alert.
A 24 hour shift simply works the best for the amount of work required to get done each shift - maintenance, chores, doing drills and training, etc - all in between calls as well as keeping crews rested and fed. A 24 hour shift does not mean being awake for 24 hours, although I have had shifts that I've been lucky to get an hour of sleep, as there is down time. There's only the nasty ability of the alarms to go off just when you sink into a deep sleep.
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