Don Sweeney – The Charlotte Observer
A driver ran over a fire hose at a Los Angeles blaze, knocking down and injuring a firefighter, California officials reported.

Firefighters were called to a fire outside Synthetic Grass Depot in Tarzana at 4:49 a.m. Monday, March 13, the Los Angeles Fire Department said in an alert.

While they fought the blaze, a civilian vehicle ran over a 4-inch hose in the street, knocking down a firefighter, the alert said. The firefighter suffered minor injuries.

“Due to the location of the nearest fire hydrant to an incident, it is sometimes necessary (we avoid it whenever possible) to cross streets with the large diameter supply line,” firefighters wrote.

The alert warned drivers never to cross a fire hose, saying “the potential for life-altering injuries is very real.”

Firefighters were expected to remain at the scene through the morning to finish mopping up the blaze, the alert said.

Tarzana is a neighborhood about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

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Muncie (IN) Mayor Dan Ridenour on March 2 declared two new city fire stations among his goals for this year, thestarpress.com reported.

The new stations replace Fire Station No. 5 along Tillotson Avenue next to Christy Woods and Fire Station No. 6 along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at McCulloch Park, according to the report.

Ridenour told The Star Press that the combined cost of the two new stations was about $15 million to be paid for by a bond issue, the report said. The bond would be paid back with Economic Development Income Tax, or EDIT, money, which is under the control of the mayor.

However, Muncie City Council would have to approve the bond issue in the coming weeks for the funding plan to work, the report said.

Fire Station No. 5 will be a two-story building and will be larger than Fire Station No. 6 to accommodate a ladder truck needed to reach upper stories on the tall buildings at nearby Ball State University, the report said. IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital is also located near Fire Station No. 5.

The city of Springfield, together with the Springfield Fire Department, announced Friday the addition of a brand-new fire engine and a new ladder truck to the fleet, the city said in a news release.

Both have arrived and will be serving the Springfield residents in the next few weeks. The community got to see the new ladder truck Saturday during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. It was featured with the Springfield Fire Department’s parade entry.

“The Springfield Fire Department is recognized as ISO Class 1. That achievement is not possible without the continued support the department receives from the residents of Springfield,” Mayor Jim Langfelder said. “Modernization and citywide coverage has been a
strong focus for the city and its first responders. This new equipment is one more piece to ensure that the Springfield Fire Department has the necessary tools to operate at its highest level.”

“The men and women of the Springfield Fire Department work hard to provide the best in service and quality care to the residents of Springfield. This addition to our fleet, along with the fire engine, is something we take great pride in. We are excited to show the residents what they have helped provide our department and we wanted to say thank you,” said Springfield Fire
Chief Brandon Blough.

These new apparatuses will be designated as Truck 1 and Engine 1. After the parade, Truck 1 will return to the city of Springfield Fleet Garage to have specialized equipment and tools added. Both will then be entered into service and reside at Fire Station 1, which is located
downtown on Ninth Street and Capitol Avenue, by the end of this month.

Vivienne Aguilar
The Modesto Bee
(TNS)

Mar. 12—Modesto Junior College’s School of Public Safety is trying to get back to the days when it had everything it needed to train firefighters and emergency medical services students on modern equipment, said Ron Cripe, MJC’s director of the Regional Fire Training Center. Federal funding is helping it do so.

The center recently was awarded $2 million, said Cripe, and a fully equipped fire engine alone can cost over $1 million.

The Yosemite Community College District applied for federal funding to get new equipment for MJC’s training center, which is used for continuing education by fire departments across the Central Valley and Mother Lode areas.

The $2 million, from the Federal Consolidated Appropriations Act, has been “earmarked” for MJC’s Fire Academy, said Yosemite Community College District Chancellor Henry C.V. Yong. Fire Academy courses are taught at the Regional Fire Training Center, which is on the MJC College of Public Safety campus. This is the first time the district has looked into funding this way; normally, it applies for grants.

Pedro Mendez, MJC’s dean of career technical education, said Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Josh Harder helped secure the federal money. Harder “was a part-time instructor at MJC before he ran for Congress. Not too many people remember that,” Yong told The Bee. And as a congressman, he has visited the fire training facility.

The money “will support state-of-the-art training for students enrolled in MJC’s Fire Academy and Fire Science degree and certificate programs, as well as for working firefighters who depend on MJC for continuing education in the latest fire-suppression techniques,” according to a press release.

The training facility is shopping around for two main pieces of equipment for students, Cripe said. First, it’s reached out to vendors hoping to find a fire engine.

“Most engines (when they’re very stripped down) are going to be somewhere between $200,000 to $700,000. It depends on all of the uniqueness that they have to have,” Cripe said. “I need something that’s going to pump (water), take equipment from point A to point B out on the grounds and be able to function with everything that we need to, reliably.”

Second, it’s hoping to find a training prop for fire and EMS students to practice potentially life-threatening scenarios without being in danger. “The primary prop is going to be the design of a building that will incorporate all of the rescue type techniques: search, rescue, breach, etc. We need to teach (things like) how to break through a wall to get from one room to another,” Cripe said.

“They definitely need new (training) props,” said Max Raymond, a 19-year-old MJC student who operates the Code 3 Emergency Instagram account. Raymond is enrolled in the Emergency Medical Responder 350 course within the School of Public Safety. In his free time, he listens to local emergency scanner channels and photographs firefighters in action for the 12,000-plus followers on the social media platform.

The training facility currently has a five-story, concrete prop with rooms that are able to be fully engulfed in flames, beds and stoves that can withstand fire and last up to a decade of use, plus more, to give students the space to practice the techniques they learn in the classroom.

“We probably have about 75% get employed in the fire service in some way. Now that may be working for an ambulance company, and going through that process, and then maybe later, jumping into a fire agency,” Cripe said.

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