Tuesday, April 22, 2014  The New York City fire commissioner said on Monday that ambulances were dispatched later than they should have been to a Queens fire that killed two 4-year-old children and injured three other people late Saturday night.

Roughly eight minutes elapsed between the time firefighters confirmed the house was on fire and the time ambulances were called. Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano said the cause of the delay — a delay noticed by frantic neighbors and firefighters — had yet to be determined by the Fire Department’s investigators.

“We’re listening to tapes, we’re looking at timelines and at the end of the investigation, we’ll see what actions need to be taken,” Mr. Cassano said at a news conference in Brooklyn.more ]

Tuesday, April 22, 2014  We regret to advise you that a 52 year old Fire Chief has died in the Line of Duty in Texas. At around 2300 hours last night, a dwelling fire was reported in Damon, Texas (Brazoria County, SW of Houston). The Damon Volunteer Fire Department responded and while on the scene, during suppression, the Fire Chief was assisting and establishing water supply and he was discovered down by other members as he had collapsed at the scene. Immediate attempts to save his life were started but were not successful.
We regret to advise you that Fire Chief Hugh Ferguson, 52, was treated and then transported by Life Flight to Memorial Hermann Hospital, where he died. Our condolences to all affected. RIP.
We'll post more as it becomes available.

Monday, April 21, 2014  A Memphis firefighter was attempting to extinguish tractor-trailer fire when he looses control of the hose line while standing on the ladder.  It appears that the fire was in a fifty-three foot semi-trailer and had extended through the roof. The firefighter lost control of the hose line, flipped over on the ladder and had slow decent to the ground hanging up side down. After reviewing the footage this could have been a “close-call” seeing how fast and close the Interstate traffic was moving past the scene.

Sunday, April 20, 2014  A retired city firefighter who went on to become the head of a specialized team that assisted residents ravaged by disasters died Monday. He was 59.

Luis (Pepe) Fragoso, formerly of Ladder 53 in Harlem and Engine 83 in the Bronx, died of a heart attack at his home, according to friend Lt. Rico Diaz.

The heart attack stemmed from a 9/11-related lung ailment that caused Fragoso to retire in 2002, Diaz said.

But he never stopped helping people.

Fragoso co-founded the FDNY Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART, a humanitarian force of active and retired FDNY firefighters who render assistance across the United States with the Red Cross. The team's work began in the 1980s, following Hurricane Hugo.

Since then, Fragoso and his team raced to assist people suffering in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, Hurricane Katrina and other disasters.



He ... [ more ]

Sunday, April 20, 2014  One of the 31 Syracuse firefighters who battled a blaze at a vacant house on the South Side Saturday morning was treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

The firefighter was taken to Upstate University Hospital to be evaluated for burns on his face, said deputy chief Todd Milton.

A neighbor of the vacant two-and-a-half story house at 126 Clyde Avenue called 911 around 8:15 a.m., Milton said.

Firefighters arrived shortly after to a heavy volume of fire on the first floor of the house, he said. It rapidly spread to the second floor and the attic.

An electrical wire that was connected to the house lit up shortly after the first fire engine arrived on scene. The power line fell onto the engine, causing complications for firefighters because they were unable to use the engine or a nearby hydrant until the wire was under control.

National Grid was on scene to assist.

"The live wire is dangerous to us," Milton said. "We b... [ more ]

Saturday, April 19, 2014  Eight people were displaced from a duplex at 182-184 Newark Pompton Turnpike Thursday afternoon and two firefighters injured, one seriously, when a blaze tore through the two story structure, leaving the porch and roof collapsed, authorities said.

The seriously injured firefighter from Great Notch Fire Company No. 4 was hurt when the front porch of the home collapsed on him, Assistant Fire Chief Ronnie Cordero said. Responders rushed him to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson for treatment as he was reporting pain below his legs, he said. Officials later said that he broke his leg.




The other firefighter, a deputy chief, burned his hand while working a hose line and was treated at the scene for... [ more ]

Friday, April 18, 2014  A firefighter was injured Thursday when burned cargo from a tractor-trailer stopped on Interstate 77 fell on him.
The incident was reported at approximately 5:55 p.m. near mile marker 14 just north of Exit 14 on Athens Road. A helicopter ambulance was initially planned, but it was later canceled, according to a dispatcher with Mercer County 911. The Princeton Rescue Squad was dispatched. The firefighter’s identity could not be confirmed Thursday evening.
The Bluestone Valley, Green Valley-Glenwood, Oakvale, East River Volunteer and Princeton Fire Departments were alerted at approximately 3 p.m. when a tractor-trailer fire near mile marker 14 was reported. Fire responders soon learned that bales of cardboard hauled by two truckers were burning.
Traffic was reduced to one lane from the Camp Creek to the Athens Road exits for several hours while firefighters contained the blazes and extinguished fire on a neighboring hillside.
The tractor-trailers’ dri... [ more ]

Friday, April 18, 2014  It took a minute for the man standing on the front porch of the West Pullman home to realize what was going on when his neighbors started yelling to him that his house was burning.

“I’m telling him, man, your house is on fire!” said Bernard Jones, 52, who lives near the home in the 11600 block of South Michigan where eight people, including a two firefighters and a police officer, were injured Tuesday evening.

The man opened the front door as flames leaped from the side of the house toward the second floor, Jones said.

"We look up," Jones said. "There's kids in the window."

A pair of police officers in the area had spotted the burning home, too, and had called it in on their radios about 6 p.m.

Seeing two boys in the upstairs windows, the officers shouted instructions to break the windows and jump into their arms, Police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said.

It was a team effort, with Jones and other people nearby helping d... [ more ]

Thursday, April 17, 2014  A motorist was killed Thursday morning after their vehicle was struck by a Comstock Township firefighter who was responding to a head-on crash on Sprinkle Road, Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller said.

Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller on the Sprinkle Road fatal accident.

The fatal crash, which occurred between East Michigan Avenue and East Main Street, was reported five to 10 minutes after Comstock firefighters received a report of a serious head-on crash near the intersection of Sprinkle and East Main.Fuller said the initial crash, which was reported at 8:25 a.m., caused traffic on Sprinkle Road to back up and a line of vehicles formed in the northbound lanes.

Fuller said the motorist, whose name, age and gender has not been released, was in the line of northbound traffic and attempted a U-turn to go south on Sprinkle. At tha... [ more ]

Thursday, April 17, 2014  Months after surviving the fertilizer plant explosion, which rocked the small town of West, volunteer firefighter Robert Payne has started going out on calls again. He took his first call in January.

Payne said he was one of the closest firefighters to the blast who survived. “Your heart starts racing at a different speed right now,” said Payne.

Coping with the loss of his fellow firefighters out there with him that night is still a challenge. “It’s something you go through one day at a time.”

Even though one year has passed, time hasn’t healed all of the emotional wounds. “Just the guilt of being here, someone else losing their life trying to protect you and protect others, that’s the first hurdle you got to get over,” said Payne. It’s a huge hurdle he said since he knew the five fallen heroes from West all their lives.

“These guys were the cream of the crop, some of our best. The guys you could count ... [ more ]

Wednesday, April 16, 2014  A space heater is to blame for a fire that displaced seven people early Saturday morning in Stuyvesant Falls, but the family is safe thanks to a quick-thinking girl.

A fire at a house at 920 Route 25 in Stuyvesant Falls owned by the Cowan family was reported to Columbia County 911 at 12:28 a.m. The Stuyvesant Falls Fire Department responded to the scene and was joined by fire companies from Stuyvesant, Stockport, Niverville, West Ghent, Valatie, Chatham, Ghent, Stottville and Kinderhook.



The fire was extinguished at 5:04 a.m. and the scene was cleared at 5:07 a.m. but Columbia County 911 later reported the fire had rekindled and that light smoke conditions were observed at the scene at 7:45 p.m. Saturday. The scene was cleared by Stuyvesant Falls firefighters a second time at 9 p.m.


more ]

Wednesday, April 16, 2014  A woman charged with buying guns for a convicted felon who later used them to kill two volunteer firefighters in an ambush was convicted Tuesday of falsifying business records.

A state Supreme Court jury in Rochester found 25-year-old Dawn Nguyen, of the town of Greece, guilty because she lied when she said on a gun purchase form that she was buying the weapons for her own use. She also faces federal charges.

Prosecutors say Nguyen bought a semi-automatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun at a Gander Mountain store in 2010 for her neighbor William Spengler Jr., who was prohibited from owning weapon because of his felony record. Spengler had been released from prison in 1996 after serving 17 years for killing his grandmother with a hammer.

Spengler set fire to his Webster home early on the morning of Dec. 24, 2012, then shot at responding firefighters, killing Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka and wounding Joseph Hofstetter and Ted Sca... [ more ]