On Thursday, a Fairfax County Fire and Rescue truck was involved in a collision with three other vehicles that sent eight people to the hospital, fox5dc.com reported.

Fairfax County police believe one of those victims has life-threatening injuries, while the other seven wounded are expected to live, the report said. Fairfax County police on Twitter said later, “The critical patient’s condition at the hospital has improved and is no longer life threatening.”

Car parts could be seen on the roadway late into the evening after the crash. Around 5:19 p.m., the Fairfax County Police Department said its officers were called to the intersection of Richmond Highway and Memorial Street in Groveton for the report of a crash involving a fire truck and three vehicles, according to the report.

FCPD’s Crash Reconstruction Unit detectives are looking into the incident and closed off Richmond Highway at Memorial Street while they investigate, the report said. 

Mar. 23—Hoses, helmets and vintage pumper trucks dating from as early as the 1800s bear witness to the legacy of volunteer firefighting in Greensburg.

The equipment can be seen in the Greensburg Volunteer Fire Department Museum, behind City Hall on South Main Street.

Select items from that collection will temporarily have a new home at the Westmoreland Historical Society Education Center at Historic Hanna’s Town in Hempfield. The firefighting artifacts are being loaned as part of the celebration of Westmoreland County’s 250th anniversary.

The Greensburg museum is providing an 1875 hand-drawn hose cart for inclusion in the historical society’s exhibit, “Westmoreland 250! Celebrating our Story with 25 Objects,” slated for April 14 through the end of the year.

“It will be in the ‘service and sacrifice’ section, to honor volunteer fire departments throughout the county,” said Lisa Hays, executive director of the historical society. The local Adam Eidemiller company provided transportation of the cart in a box truck Wednesday.

The hose cart originally was deployed in an industrial setting and was donated to the museum by fire equipment collector Dave Shafran, a Cook Township resident and former Unity firefighter.

The Greensburg museum also is sending the historical society a leather helmet worn by a West Newton firefighter in the late 19th century and, from the same period, a megaphonelike bugle.

“It was used at the fire scene by whoever was in command,” said Michael Hartung, the museum curator. “If there was a lot of noise, his voice could get amplified.”

The museum has two early pumper trucks dating from the mid-1800s, but Hartung said lighter hand-drawn hose carts took advantage of an innovation that occurred later in the century: installation of the first municipal water lines in Greensburg.

“The hand carts were more easily pulled,” he said. “You could hit the hydrants as opposed to bringing in a pumper.”

The museum features two restored 20th century pumper trucks: a 1932 Mack truck and a 1949 Seagrave model. There also are displays of firefighter and fire department band uniforms through the years.

More than 1,100 model emergency vehicles were donated by North Belle Vernon firefighter Charles Horan and his wife.

The Greensburg Fire Department dive team was among emergency units that assisted at the scene of the 2002 Quecreek Mine rescue in Somerset County, and the museum has retained a camera that was used in dropping a cage down a shaft to reach the nine miners trapped underground, according to Hartung.

“They used that camera to determine the stability of the shaft,” he said.

Jeff Himler is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jeff by email at jhimler@triblive.com or via Twitter .

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The relocation and rebuilding of Wheeling Fire Station 42 was officially approved and fully funded by trustees with a maximum price tag of $7,699,244, journal-topics.com reported.

At their Monday, March 20 meeting, Wheeling trustees unanimously approved construction for Fire Station 42 to be rebuilt at 135 McHenry Road.

A village official said the $7.7 million is the worst case scenario, the report said. The project was introduced with a budget goal of $5 million, but flood detention fix costs exceeded the $5 million, prompting a higher than expected cost, according to the report. 

This is not a new fire station, but rather new construction of a relocated fire station, the village official said. 

According to the village, construction on the 10,700 square-foot building is hoping to break ground this spring and take a year to complete.

Fire crews at Fire Station 14 will see $84,000 worth of upgrades to their facility very soon, kristv.com reported. Recently, the City of Corpus Christi approved a renovation project to the fire station facility.

Firefighters have been in the building off South Staples for more than 45 years, the report said.

The kitchen has already been renovated, according to the report. Other changes include replacing ceiling tiles, additions to the bathroom, new LED lighting fixtures, and flooring.

City council approved an $84,772 budget for the project. Many of them are hoping this will make the fire station more comfortable.

Market pressures have driven up the price of a new fire truck for Nanaimo Fire Rescue, nanaimobulletin.com reported.

The new apparatus, a Pierce fire truck being ordered for Fire Station 2, is the same basic vehicle as other Pierce trucks already in service with the fire department, but the cost of this vehicle has jumped to nearly $1.6 million from the previously budgeted $1.2 million, the report said.

A Nanaimo fire official said, in his report to the city’s finance and audit committee March 15, that market pressures are skewing prices. Factors he cited include supply chain issues, new emissions standards and global industrialization that has triggered a boom in demand for fire trucks internationally, according to the report.

Of the total $341,000 extra cost for the new fire truck, $141,000 will be needed in 2023 to cover the deposit required to place the order for the vehicle and the remaining $200,000 will be needed in 2024 before the vehicle is delivered in January 2025, the report said. The extra costs will be drawn from the strategic infrastructure reserve fund.

The fire official mentioned that two other trucks already on order, also to be delivered in January 2025, are within their original budgets, the report said.