Police are expected to charge an alleged drunk driver after she slammed into the back of a Niagara Falls (NY) Fire Department apparatus at Pine Avenue and 10th Street yesterday afternoon, reports Yahoo.com.

Officials say the 30-year-old driver was traveling north on 10th Street when she drove into the back of Truck 1, which was returning to the 10th Street station after responding to a call on 19th Street.

No firefighters were injured in the crash, officials say, and the driver and a 5-year-old child inside the vehicle were also uninjured.

Police officers conducted field sobriety tests on the driver and indicated that she had failed those tests; she briefly resisted arrest. An open bottle of liquor was recovered from the suspect’s vehicle.

The driver is facing charges of driving while ability impaired by a combination of drugs and alcohol. She also faces potential Leandra’s Law charges and a charge of driving with a suspended license.

Montrose (CO) City Councilors voted to place Montrose Fire Department’s Station 1 on the city’s register of historic places, reports kjct8.com.

The station—built in 1910—is the third city property to be added to the registry since the city created the program in 2019.

The station features a stepped parapet wall with a stone identification panel. Below that is a decorative brick cornice. A similar cornice is found over the original truck bay.

By Alan M. Petrillo

Dawson County (GA) Fire and Emergency Services needed better fire and emergency medical services (EMS) coverage on the west side of the county, so it came up with $1.56 million to design and build what would become the county’s eighth fire/EMS station.

“That part of the county is a pretty mountainous area and we had pretty extensive response times out there,” says Danny Thompson, Dawson County’s chief. “We needed to reduce our response times for fire and medical calls and the way to do that was to add a new station out in that area.” Dawson notes that the $1.56 million allocated had to cover site improvements as well as the work done through a design-build contract.

Dawson County is a mostly rural county with a population of 27,000, located an hour north of Atlanta. “We have a lot of urban/rural interface with some mountainous territory,” Thompson points out, “and cover 214 square miles.” He adds that the new station houses an engine with a 1,000-gallon water tank, a 3,000-gallon water tender (tanker), and an Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulance.

“This is the first station we’ve built in 11 years, and a lot of things have changed in the fire and EMS service in that time,” Thompson observes. “We wanted to be sure that the new station had a number of safety features in terms of removing contaminants from the apparatus bay

The Columbus City Council recently approved a $1.5 million contract for the remodeling of and additions to the Charlie Louis (NE) Fire Station, located at 424 8th St., reports ColumbusTelegram.com.

The funds will come out of the 2022 fiscal year’s sales tax with a small portion from this year’s, if necessary, the report says. The cost breakdown would include more than $1.3 million for the renovations itself while site work would cost $192,000.

A presentation by WSKF Architects, which has been contracted for the work, Principal Owner Rick Kuhl showed what was going to be added to the station, as well as current features of the building that need to be retouched: more parking, storage space, and servicing equipment, safety and health improvements, exhaust filtration, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, a fitness area, and dormitories.

All in all, the new digs will have 3,500 additional square feet, including an office for the Columbus Police Department.

The Calera (OK) Fire Department is working to bring home “The Spirit of Oklahoma,” an up-for-sale fire truck sent to New York City to help with 9/11 recovery, reports newson6.com.

The bond between New York and Oklahoma began 26 years ago when 10 New York firefighters came to the rescue following the Oklahoma City Bombing; those same 10 men lost their lives in the September 11 attacks.

Following the latter attack, students at a Fort Gibson school raised nearly half a million dollars to buy a new truck, which was named the “Spirit of Oklahoma” and sent to New York City to aid. However, it was recently sold at auction.

Officials now want to buy the truck from its current owner in Massachusetts. He gave the department two weeks to raise the $25,000 to buy and transport the truck to Oklahoma. As of this posting, the Calera Fire Department is up to $2,303 on its GoFundMe page, which has a deadline of June 15.