The Canyon Lake (CA) Fire Department invites you to celebrate its grand opening. The shindig will take place Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Station 1: 28730 Vacation Dr.

“Don’t forget! The City of Canyon Lake is pleased to invite you to the Grand Opening of the Canyon Lake Fire Department. The celebration will take place on Saturday, February 26th from 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. at Fire Station 1 Fire Administration, located at 28730 Vacation Dr.

Come meet our new Fire Department personnel, take a look at our new engines and equipment, and tour the station. Food will be provided by The Urban Craft Eatery.

* Non-residents must RSVP in order to be placed on the guest list at the gates to the community. Non-residents planning to attend, please contact the City directly at 951-244-8547.

When his fellow firefighters kept facing battles with cancer, St. Paul Fire Captain Mark Munson went looking for answers. He found inspiration in the hoods that firefighters use that cover the head and neck. Why not, he thought, a protective piece of clothing for other areas of the body that are quick to absorb environmental contaminants, such as the groin and underarms?

That’s the idea behind Munson’s company Under Guardian, which produces shorts and shirts designed to be worn under turnout gear. The microfiber fabric used in the product is designed to block tiny particles of environmental contaminants from reaching the skin, and hopefully reduce the risk of the cancers they cause.

With firefighters facing a 14 percent higher cancer death rate than the general population, Munson says his work will have been a success if he can just help bring that rate down a little, WCCO reports.

The Lizemore Volunteer Fire Department says its brush truck was stolen in a devious manner Thursday morning, reports wsaz.com.

Officials say the suspect crawled in via an intake hole in the station’s furnace room and stole just the apparatus, which carries most of the brush fire equipment.

The department is asking anyone with information to contact police.

The Seattle Fire Department has launched an investigation following the discovery of a noose inside Station 24 in Bitter Lake last Thursday.

Fire Chief Harrold Scoggins sent an email to department staff that said, in part:

I want to commend the firefighter for the courage to report what they found and the officer for making sure this was brought to SFD leadership. I also wish to acknowledge how this affects our Black firefighters and professional staff. I see you, and I understand.
A noose has an undeniable history in our nation as a symbol of racial hate and intimidation and historically has been used to murder Black people. As such, any instance where a noose is found in our workplace represents a direct threat. While we don’t know the intent of whoever tied the noose, there is no circumstance in which it could reasonably be considered innocent or appropriate.

Seattle had a similar incident in 2020 when a noose was found at a knot tying station in another Station, KOMO reported.

The chief also noted the Bitter Lake station experienced some controversy last year when a racist image from the department’s past was inadvertently included in a department yearbook.

By Alan M. Petrillo

The Pattonville (MO) Fire Department has a continuous problem in its fire district with a huge landfill that has burned underground for years, and it could potentially threaten an underground nuclear waste disposal site. But the department has other needs, too, such as fire suppression, rescue, and EMS (emergency medical services) responses within its district, so it designed a pumper and an aerial platform that could handle all of those disciplines.

Steve Rogger, Pattonville battalion chief, says the radioactive waste in the landfill’s underground storage area is a remnant of the country’s World War II atomic bomb Manhattan Project. “We’ve been monitoring and dealing with the underground fire for years,” Rogger says, “and wanted to get apparatus where we could set up shop and handle that scenario if it came up in the future.” Rogger says Pattonville went to Rosenbauer for a vehicle similar to its then-current rescue-pumper, “but with a massive pump, and a lot of additional discharges.”

Pattonville is a career department with 65 firefighters and seven civilian employees working out of three fire stations and one administrative/training facility. The department responded to approximately 5,400 calls in 2021, 4,801 calls in 2020, and 5,342 calls in 2019, Rogger points out.

Besides being the home to two landfills—the largest landfill in the state as well as the radioactive storage landfill—Pattonville’s district also has the busiest interchange in the state at I-270 and I-70 where 188,000 vehicles travel daily, Rogger says. The district also includes a hospital, casino, outdoor amphitheater, county park, high school, middle school, three elementary schools, a small private airport, three soccer venues, several high-rise offices and hotels, five senior living communities, and a neighboring international airport.

Brian Franz, vice president of apparatus for Sentinel Emergency Solutions, who sold the two vehicles to Pattonville, says the pumper functions as a rescue/super pumper for the department. “It has a Hale 8FGR 3,000-gallons per minute (gpm) pump, a 750-gallon polypropylene water tank, a 30-gallon Class A foam tank, and a Hale SmartFoam 2.1 foam proportioning system,” Franz points out. “The rig has IDEX Fire and Safety’s SAM™ control system on it, with two control panels, one on each side of the pumper, along with a wireless tablet in the cab.”

The pumper is built on a Rosenbauer Commander chassis and cab with seating for five fighters in a clean concept cab that has three forward-facing crew se