By Mike Ciampo
Hillsborough Township sits about mid-center in the state of New Jersey in Somerset County. Located about 55 miles from New York City, it is considered a suburb and part of the metropolitan area.
The township sits in the Raritan Valley and is located not far from the Raritan River and heavily-traveled Route 287. The township is full of single-family dwellings, townhouses, condominiums, large commercial properties and numerous strip malls and shopping plazas. In 2021, the 55-square-mile township celebrated its 250th anniversary.
The Hillsborough Fire District provides fire protection to the residents and visitors with career and volunteer staff. The career firefighters provide staffing and supplements the volunteer force Monday through Friday, 7 a.m.-5 p.m. The district also conducts all of the fire inspections according to the NJ Uniform Fire Code, manages all of the fire district’s administrative duties and conducts all of the fire cause and origin investigations. The career staff is also certified to the level of EMT or EMR through the NJ Department of Health, swiftwater rescue and extrication technicians. Many of the personnel are also certified as fire and arson investigators. In addition to the career staff, the township is served by three volunteer fire companies within the township and also contracts with the neighboring Neshanic Fire Department.
Flagtown is an unincorporated community located in Hillsborough and is home of the Hillsborough Volunteer Fire Company 1, one of the three volunteer companies serving the township. The company is the first fire department formed in Township. In 1937, seven members of the Township Board of Trade met and decided that the township needed its own fire company due to an increase of fires in the area. The following year the department received its charter and bought its first fire engine that year for $475 from another department. A used chemical engine was bought and nine years later, they bought a surplus army truck and turned it into another fire apparatus.
Like many fire departments, start up involved high costs and to build a firehouse was a difficult process, especially during the World War years. Originally, the engines were stored in a garage at the Clawson Machine Shop for the first eight years. Luckily in 1946 lumber was donated by Doris Duke, a tobacco heiress who lived in the area, and construction began on the firehouse. Over the years the building has been renovated to allow more bays for other apparatus and to meet the needs of the department. Another historic note about the company is they are known as “Mean and Green”, due to its apparatus paint scheme. Their earlier rigs used to be painted pine green and not red, nowadays the color is more of a fluorescent lime green and almost yellow, which makes them stand out.
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Posted: Nov 19, 2022
A LATAM Airbus A320neo and an Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) vehicle collided at Jorge Chavez Airport in Lima, Peru on Friday afternoon.
Footage of the incident shows the fire apparatus traveling rapidly at the airport and crossing a runway. It was then struck by an Aerbus A320 that was apparently taking off at the airport, though some conflicting reports say the plane was landing at the time.
Video shows passengers exiting the aircraft after a fire broke out, but the plane did not explode. LATAM reports that there were no casualties among the plane’s passengers or crew.
Media outlets initially reported that four firefighters died in the crash. Later reports corrected that and reported that two firefighters who were in the vehicle died.
It’s not clear why the ARFF was crossing the runway at the time of the crash.
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Posted: Nov 19, 2022
The Louisville Fire Department has a new tool – a rescue boat, WLKY.com reported. LFD’s previous frontline rescue boat was damaged in a storm in the summer of 2018.
The boat was, in part, paid for with the federal port security grant, and it arrived at the LFD port last week, the report said.
The boat comes with four water turrets that can be manned manually or electronically, according to the report. All four can shoot 1,500 gallons of water per minute. To put that into perspective, the 1976 cutter’s hoses shoot out 150 gallons per minute.
For the first time ever rescue crews will have access to a thermal camera, the report said. Previously, when conducting a water rescue, they would have to use flashlights and dive teams. Now they can locate a human or any other living object so long as their body temperature is hotter than the water’s.
Three crews are still training on it, the report said, and they’ll continue to train on it for the next few weeks.
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Posted: Nov 19, 2022
While the financial hits keep coming for a new planned Ocean City fire station, the project narrowly avoided another major snag this week thanks to a slim council majority, OceanCityToday.com reported.
At a work session Tuesday, four council members voted in favor of adjusting the city’s bond issue to cover the latest cost projection, $10.5 million, for the planned 65th Street station, the report said. The vote edged out opposition votes, who shot down the measure for reasons that ranged from wanting more information, to simply objecting to the overall price tag, the report said.
With the approval, the payments for the new station will come from a portion of a multimillion-dollar bond issue originally slated for the Baltimore Avenue utility burying project, according to the report. They also do not include a previously promised contribution from the volunteer fire company.
A new Fire Station 3 has been at the top of the city’s wish list for some time, as the current facility at 74th Street becomes increasingly less adequate to serve the paid and volunteer firefighters who use it, the report said.
Initial estimates for a new station in front of the public safety building on 65th Street came in at roughly $5.5 million early last year, but later skyrocketed to $12.7 million with inflation and high construction costs, according to the report.
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