Alex Wood
New Haven Register, Conn.
(TNS)

Apr. 11—NORWICH — The city’s main fire department was delayed by four or five minutes to the fatal blaze on Otis Street where a woman and her 8-year-old daughter died early Thursday because of a malfunction in the local dispatching system, an official said Friday.

Norwich police on Friday identified those who died as Carmen Vizcaino, 44, and her daughter, Skylynn Owens, 8.

Lt. Thomas Lazzaro, a spokesperson for the Norwich Police Department, said the city’s dispatch center received the 911 call reporting the fire at 12:57 a.m. Thursday. Lazzaro and Marc Benjamin, battalion chief for the Norwich Fire Department, said the first dispatch went out at 12:58 a.m.

The dispatch center, which is located in the Police Department, sends an alert to one of the local fire departments when those agencies need to respond to a call, Benjamin said. He said the alert opens an audio frequency so the fire department personnel can hear further communications.

For some reason, the audio frequency failed to open after the dispatch center learned of the Otis Street fire, Benjamin explained. As a result, he said, messages were being transmitted over radio waves, but were falling “on deaf ears.”

But volunteer with the East Great Plain Fire Department were returning from a call at the time and did hear the radio transmission in the fire truck, where the radio was “live,” Benjamin said. That is why they arrived first at the Otis Street fire scene, he added.

Benjamin said the Norwich Fire Department learned of the fire four minutes later, at 1:02 a.m.

That happened, he explained, due to an email system designed to alert people who ordinarily would not be part of the initial response once a fire has been confirmed. Those alerts would go to the fire chief, the department’s training officer, the building official and public utilities, among others, he said.

Benjamin said that alert woke up a fire department lieutenant, who alerted the battalion chief on duty.

In a news release, Norwich Fire Department Battalion Chief Michael Dziavit had said the East Great Plain Fire Department was the first to arrive at the scene around 1:08 a.m. Benjamin said the battalion chief who was on duty at the time told him he arrived in a command vehicle about a minute behind the East Great Plain volunteers with the Norwich Fire Department’s fire engines immediately behind him.

If the dispatch system glitch had not occurred, Norwich Fire Department personnel would likely have arrived four to five minutes earlier than they did, Benjamin said.

Benjamin said radio companies were at the fire station Thursday testing the system. As of early Friday, he said, he did not have a clear answer as to what had caused the problem.

Aside from the problem that caused the response delay, he said, the system worked fine on Wednesday and Thursday.

The reason an alert is needed to activate speakers in a fire station, Benjamin explained, is that leaving the speakers open at all times would result in those departments receiving numerous radio messages that have nothing to do with them, creating the possibility that important messages would be missed.

In addition to the professional Norwich Fire Department, the city has five volunteer fire departments.

Benjamin said Norwich has been working to upgrade its dispatching system for two years, adding that the new system should be operational soon.

Benjamin said there has been an “ongoing issue” with the dispatch center for years and he’s heard of other local fire departments having radios

The Department of Natural Resources will be turning over 15 surplus wildfire engines to fire districts in wildfire-prone rural communities across Washington state this spring, part of the agency’s annual effort to help strengthen fire response at the local level, the department said in a press release.

“Local fire districts are a critical first line of defense against wildfire,” said George Geissler, DNR’s State Forester and Deputy Supervisor responsible for Wildland Fire Management. “They’re an invaluable initial attack resource, able to reach ignitions early and keep them small. That rapid response time in turn benefits DNR by reducing the potential for larger, more severe wildfires that require multi-jurisdictional response. It is truly a win-win situation.”

These engines were made available through one of DNR’s Fire District Assistance Programs, which offer a variety of ways fire service members in high-risk areas can obtain wildfire-specific engines and other equipment. In 2017, the state Legislature authorized DNR to transfer ownership of surplus engines to qualifying districts in need at no cost to them. This gets vital resources into the right hands to build and maintain a strong first line of defense.

Meanwhile, the Federal Excess Property Program – which DNR facilitates – is a similar program on the federal side that allows fire districts serving frontline communities to acquire Forest Service engines and equipment on loan, again at no cost. DNR then uses House Bill 1168 funding to customize those federal resources to the specifications of the local fire department, making the equipment better suited their specific needs.

“Strong working partnerships across the local, state and federal levels are so critical when it comes to fighting wildfire,” Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove said. “Suppression efforts are interconnected, often in ways many people aren’t aware of. I’m committed to ensuring Washington’s towns continue to have the tools they need to be prepared to defend against wildfire.”

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Livonia — Livonia plans to put a $150 million bond issue before voters in August to build a new police station, renovate the city’s five fire stations and hopefully pave the way to create a downtown in the city.

The Livonia City Council is set to weigh ballot language later this month for a 1.43 millage that voters would decide on during the Aug. 5 primary to pay for the bonds. The measure would cost a homeowner $1.43 per $1,000 of taxable value of property.

City officials say their public safety facilities need to be updated and don’t meet the modern needs of both agencies.

Tours of Livonia’s current police and fire headquarters, both of which were built in the 1960s, reveal aging, cramped facilities. Fire trucks are taller and longer than they were when the stations were built, leaving about an inch of clearance in the garages for the current trucks equipped with ladders to pull in.

“We have just been trying to pack more and more and more into the space that we’ve had for 50, 60 years,” said said Fire Chief Robert Jennison. “And I can’t see where we can make it any more efficient that we have. We’re busting at the seams.”

The fire stations, which would stay in their current locations but be renovated if the millage is approved, also don’t have facilities specifically designed to accommodate women firefighters since the department had none until about 17 years ago, said Jennison. And there aren’t enough showers for a whole crew to use at once, meaning some firefighters have to wait to rinse off hazardous materials when they come back from a fire or EMS call.

Livonia Councilmember Rob Donovic, who chairs the council’s capital outlay and infrastructure Committee, said the city intends to build new municipal buildings that will last well into the future. He believes the council has worked hard to make the planning process for a new city center transparent and responsible with taxpayer money.

The buildings “need to do their job,” he said. “…We need to make sure we’re doing a good, efficient job on something that’s going to last 100 years into our future,” he said.

At the Livonia Police Department at Farmington Road, south of Five Mile, Capt. Eric Marcotte with the Livonia Police Department said the department’s disjointed layout has been a function of just putting things where they fit as the department has grown.

The current police department complex is 55,000 square feet, according to Marcotte. It includes one part that originally housed the city’s water department and another segment added on to connect it with the original police headquarters.

Records for major cases are housed in a dingy room in the building’s basement, with a crumbling ceiling and dangling electrical wires. A few of the department’s special teams have large lockers to fit their gear, including the honor guard members and officers who are part of the regional Western Wayne County SWAT. But rank-and-file offices have narrow metal lockers, reminiscent of a high school.

“There just comes a point in time where the men and women that work here deserve better. They’re out there risking their lives; they’re out there for 12 hours a day,” said Capt. Eric Marcotte.

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Washington — U.S. Air Force airmen with the 62nd Aerial Port Squadron (APS), 446th APS, and the 709th Airlift Squadron from Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, loaded a pumper onto a C-5M Super Galaxy at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, April 8, 2025, according to a story in mcchord.af.mil.

A donated pumper arrived at JBLM via flatbed truck to be shipped to Guatemala in support of the Denton Humanitarian Assistance Program.

The Denton Program is managed by U.S. Transportation Command and allows U.S.-based donors to send humanitarian aid at little or no cost using available space on U.S. military aircraft.

The air shipment demonstrates how Team McChord executes today’s global airlift mission by enabling rapid support to humanitarian efforts.

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