The Bainbridge Island Fire Department will celebrate its 80th anniversary with a party at Battle Point Park July 23 from 1-4 p.m. Fire chief Hank Teran is inviting the public. The community picnic, part of a yearlong anniversary of events, will be held in the meadow at the south end of the park near the observatory and will feature a ladder truck on display for a touch-a-truck experience along with food trucks, face painting and balloons for kids, old-fashioned games and a three-legged race with a firefighter.
- PUB DATE: 7/9/2022 1:30:00 AM - SOURCE: Bainbridge Island Review

About 30 firefighters from 10 fire department units extinguished a July 6 two-alarm Kent warehouse fire in approximately one hour. Firefighters responded at about 8:32 p.m. to Uresco Construction Materials Inc., 8246 S. 194th St., according to Puget Sound Fire spokesperson Pat Pawlak. The warehouse is used to store building materials.
- PUB DATE: 7/8/2022 12:53:00 PM - SOURCE: Kent Reporter

By Alan M. Petrillo

An Arizona electric utility is installing a series of wildland fire-detection cameras in a remote area of its transmission line corridor to allow it to identify sparked wildland fires and also monitor transmission equipment that was damaged by wind or storms.

Salt River Project (SRP), a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and the largest electricity provider in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving approximately 1.1 million customers, also provides water to about half of the Valley’s residents, delivering more than 244 billion gallons of water (750,000 acre-feet) each year, and manages a 13,000-square-mile watershed that includes an extensive system of reservoirs, wells, canals, and irrigation laterals.

SRP is piloting a Smoke Detector Pilot Project that will act as a camera and smoke detector early-warning system for wildland fires that occur near the utility’s transmission line towers in the Tonto and Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests. The project, which is expected have an impact on wildland fire preparedness and protecting a portion of the Valley’s watershed, is the first of its kind in Arizona.

The smoke detectors and cameras, which have been used in CA and Europe, are SmokeD models, made by a manufacturer in Warsaw, Poland, says Floyd Hardin, SRP’s fire management officer. Besides detecting the initiation of wildland fires, the SmokeD units will capture physical changes on the utility’s 500-kilovolt (kV), transmission towers that transmit energy to the Valley from power plants located in eastern AZ.

About 120 miles of SRP’s high-voltage power lines are located on U.S Forest Service land located in the northeastern part of the state. SRP is setting up two test areas with 12 cameras to capture images of a portion of the 500-kV transmission towers every 10 minutes, Hardin points out. The solar-powered infrared cameras can work at night and capture images up to 10 miles out with a 360-degree view.

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI), the cameras can learn their surrounding environment, report changes, and provide alerts when identifying smoke from wildland fires or changes to structures, Hardin says. The cameras can also alert SRP to issues such as downed lines, downed towers, or damaged equipment.

“Today, if a fire impacts our lines, we may not know until we get an ale

The US Coast Guard’s Toledo Marine Safety Unit responded to a massive fire at the Son Rise Marina in Sandusky on Thursday. According to the Coast Guard’s Great Lakes division, they responded to a pollution threat caused by the fire. Officials said multiple boats went up in flames. The Coast Guard said it is working with port partners to mitigate environmental impacts and to oversee the removal of the boats.
- PUB DATE: 7/8/2022 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTVG-TV ABC/CW 13 Toledo

A report of a bomb threat Thursday afternoon at Dodge City Community College is the latest among similar threats made to campuses across the U.S., investigators confirmed. On the all reporting a bomb in the Arts classroom at Dodge City Community College, no suspicious device was located. The Dodge City Police Department said the call said the bomb was located at the back of a classroom and that it would detonate in a little more than one hour.
- PUB DATE: 7/8/2022 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KWCH-DT CBS 12 Hutchinson