An infant was left in a Michigan City Safe Haven Baby Box late Tuesday night. Emergency responders were dispatched to the Coolspring Township Volunteer Fire Department at 10:24 p.m. after receiving an alert from the box. Coolspring Fire Chief Mick Pawlik arrived at the station within five minutes and found the newborn infant.
- PUB DATE: 11/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WNDU-TV NBC 16 South Bend

A former Travis County firefighter who sought employment with the Austin Fire Department is now suing the city of Austin and Austin Fire Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr, arguing that he wasn’t hired because of his role in negotiations to expand AFD’s jurisdiction. Andrew Garcia, the former union president for the Travis County Emergency Services District 4, claims in his lawsuit he was discriminated against because of his input in Austin City Council discussions regarding a possible merger between ESD 4 and the Austin Fire Department.
- PUB DATE: 11/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Austin American-Statesman

VIDEO - When Terry Sanders saw the glow on the horizon on Oct. 8, and felt the heavy wind in his face, he knew there was trouble. But the Santa Rosa resident and Oakland firefighter didn’t realize the magnitude until he headed a few hundred feet down the road from his home to talk to the only man left at Fire Station 5.
- PUB DATE: 11/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

By Peter Ong

 

With a population of around 1,400 and a size of 2.2 square miles, the small coastal city of Long Beach, Washington, has a Main Street and “The World’s Longest Beach.”

“What keeps us busy is [that] we have two miles of drivable beach to our west and the most developed and tourism-friendly portion of south Pacific County,” says Chief Matt Bonney, Long Beach (WA) Fire Department (LBFD). “In the summer months, our population increases to near 5,000, not including the people who drive into town from the outlying areas or daytrippers and event/festival goers, which can reach well over 10,000 people.”

Long Beach’s fire station consists of two buildings. The main one is a 2½-story building with four front bay doors and two doors in the back for apparatus to drive through. A separate detached four-bay garage is off to the left side for housing additional apparatus. “The LBFD was formally established in 1934, 12 years after the incorporation of the Town of Long Beach (later City of Long Beach),” says Bonney. “At the time, it operated with a single engine and roughly 20 members. Today we have a complement of 10 pieces of apparatus in total and currently a roster of 32 volunteers. We have maintained all-volunteer status to the present day and manage to keep response times within National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards—even with an unstaffed station. We currently are in the trial period for our first formal shift work in which we staff at least one firefighter on call 24 hours per day, adding a 12-hour shift on weekends and for big events. This trial period began on Memorial Day weekend and continued through the ‘Rod Run to the End of the World,’ which took place the weekend after Labor Day. So far it has been quite successful.”

The beach itself has 1,000 to 1,500 feet of dune grass and a smattering of beach pines created by a jetty of new sand. The dune grass burns fastest during the hot summer months but is still a danger year-round. Most of the houses have yard shrubbery and are intermingled with grassy vacant pine tree fields, creating an “urban interface” situation. There’s increasing housing development going west toward the beach and the dune grass.

The “Sludge Truck”

The 1985 Engine 11 (redesignated as Brush 88-51 by the LBFD in the early 2000s) started life as the city’s Caterpillar AG Gator sewer truck, part of the “sewer plant package.” The city paid $105,000 for the truck in 1985. The idea for the Sludge Truck was that the sewer plant separated the water from the solid waste, and the solid waste had to be transported and removed to some distant location. Enter the Sludge Truck and its 1,600-gallon tank. “The truck ran probably five to 10 days a month hauling sludge about three miles outside city limits,” says David Glasson, city administrator. “As the summer population grew, a higher-capacity truck was needed for sludge hauling, so the city purchased a used Kenworth truck for that purpose.”