The Williamstown Fire Department hopes to replace its station, which is more than 70 years old and lacks space for apparatus.

“Our station is over 70 years old and too small for our growing community and ability to meet the needs as an emergency management center,” the town writes on its website. “The current station building was built in 1950.”

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In addition to the trucks being a tight squeeze, storage space is limited as well, officials say. In fact, space is at such a premium that the station men’s room serves as extra storage space—even as the laundry room, according to spectrumnews1. Any potential new facility would need to include a separate laundry room.

A new station would cost around $18 million and would take a couple of years to build, the report notes. However, department officials are calling it a necessary investment not only for health reasons but also for recruitment.

The Dumas Fire Department recently purchased a new Rosenbauer Commander King Cobra Platform Ladder truck.

It has a 101-foot reach—making the roof of every building in Moore County accessible—can carry up to five firefighters, and features a 1,500-gpm pump.

The new apparatus replaces a ladder with more than 25 years of service, which was sold to the Dalhart Fire Department.

It was delivered in mid-April.

Dancing shoes and a fire boot will help folks put their best foot forward for the La Conner Firefighters Association dance fundraiser May 21 (6-10 p.m.) at Maple Hall. Proceeds from “Stop! Dance! & Roll!” will support, most notably, the traditional community Easter Egg hunt at Pioneer Park and the recently launched grief basket project.
- PUB DATE: 5/11/2022 10:10:06 AM - SOURCE: La Conner Weekly News

An internationally recognized leader in wildland fire and fire science will visit Chelan County in May to conduct a field study that aims to better determine the origin point of wildland fires. Working in conjunction with the Chelan County Fire Marshal’s Office and the U.S. Forest Service, Dr. Albert Simeoni of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass.
- PUB DATE: 5/11/2022 9:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Leavenworth Echo

CA Gov. Gavin Newsom Friday is expected to announce plans to allocate $30 million to the Fire Integrated Real-time Intelligence System (FIRIS), reports dailynews.com, which is “a program intended to significantly improve situational awareness for first responders.”

Indeed. Planes capable of predicting the behavior of wildfires and relaying that info to crews on the ground in real time could soon see more action. The system came to be around six years ago following talks between General Atomics and Orange County Fire Authority officials.

With wildfire season nearly upon us, California is expanding our tools used to fight and detect new fires and provide mapping for firefighters. The FIRIS airplane has high-tech equipment onboard that gives fire managers real-time information to dispatch crews and equipment. pic.twitter.com/O65BFDVVSJ

— California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (@Cal_OES) May 10, 2022

The FIRIS system comprises two Beechcraft King 200 planes equipped with state-of-the-art sensors which aim to give crews the ability to detect heat and see in dark and even smokey conditions, the report says. Live updates are then sent to ground crews.

The planes cover the entire state and spend hundreds of hours in-flight each year, and they cost between $14 million and $16 million apiece annually to operate, officials say.

Prior, first responders mapping out fire progress were required to land and manually upload their data—which, of course, was not time-efficient.