Don Worley, a local resident of Warren (VT), proudly drives a staple of Warren’s 4^th of July yearly parade. The 1928 American LaFrance fire truck has been in the parade since the 1980s. 

According to an erienewsnow.com article, the truck served the Bradford (PA) Fire Department until 1952 and then spent two decades at Bradford Airport. Worley found the truck in 1977 in a field, and it was in bad shape. The wheels were wood and the truck had a chain drive, and Worley decided he had to have it. After five years of restoration, the truck has been a staple of Warren’s parade.   

Don Worley’s passion for restoration has brought joy and intrigue to the local residents of Warren.  

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GENE ZALESKI
The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, S.C.
(TNS)

Calhoun County is taking steps to equip its newly constructed Sandy Run fire substation in preparation for when the station becomes operational in about two months.

Calhoun County budget includes tax hike

Calhoun County Council approved a budget that includes a tax increase.

County Council unanimously agreed Monday to the purchase of extrication equipment for $52,637 from Spartan Fire.

The equipment will go on the pumper tanker and the ladder truck to be housed at the station, County Administrator Richard Hall said.

“An invoice was submitted to be processed right at the end of the budget year for the Sandy Run Fire District,” Hall said. “It is something that we use. It is a county standard extrication gear. Spartan Fire is the vendor, so it matches our other items.”

The new Sandy Run station is currently under construction. It will be used to stage equipment in the next four to five weeks and be completed in about eight weeks, said Hall.

The procurement for the county’s future Sandy Run substation comes as the Sandy Run fire department has stopped responding to fire calls, citing its inability to reach a fire service contract agreement with the county by the July 1 deadline.

Calhoun County says the Sandy Run area continues to have fire service coverage provided by surrounding departments.

The Sandy Run Fire department has always operated under a special purpose tax district and never as a part of the county.

An ordinance passed April 28 by Calhoun County Council dissolved the existing fire districts and consolidated them into one district.

The Sandy Run department has consistently opposed the formation of the consolidated fire district, saying it will undermine the autonomy and community-focused service that the fire district has provided for decades.

The fire department has operated as its own fire district and has never needed a contract with the county to provide fire services.

“Calhoun County officials are actively reaching out to recruit our volunteer members for the new fire station just miles from ours,” the fire district said in a statement earlier this month. “This is a direct overreach and an absolute insult to a department that has proudly served Sandy Run and Calhoun County since 1977 — built by the community, for the community.”

“Instead of working with us to find a way to support a proven, equipped local department, the county is preparing to spend hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars to equip a new station, while residents continually face rising taxes,” the department continued. “This decision is particularly concerning given the recent substantial tax increases imposed on Sandy Run and county residents.”

“This isn’t at all about safety. It’s about control,” the district said.

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The Sandy Run Fire Department says negotiations with the county have stalled primarily over equipment ownership.

The department says with the exception of the new ladder truck, the new tanker truck curr

Virginia Bridges
The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.
(TNS)

Capt. Marty Pearce saves people for a living.

He saves them from cars swept away by floods. He saves them from glitching elevators. And he even helped save a man found unresponsive on a crane towering above downtown Durham.

Pearce is part of the Durham Fire Department’s Rescue 1 company, which specializes in rescuing people from complicated situations, from crumpled cars to collapsed trenches. Pearce and his crew’s job just got a little easier and more efficient, he said, as the city recently rolled out a brand new rescue truck that cost more than $2 million. New Rescue 1 truck bigger, better

Acting Division Chief Josh Sloan explained where the new truck fits in the fire fleet. Fire engines are mainly used for fire suppression. The ladder trucks help pull people from windows or cut holes in a roof to ventilate a fire.

Rescue 1 is a carefully designed life-saving toolbox on wheels to help firefighters overcome challenge after challenge to pull someone from a dangerous situation, fire officials said.

Behind one of the truck’s red doors sit baskets that carry people from fires and rivers. Behind another are tools to help firefighters shore up an escape route in a collapsed home or trench. Other compartments hold powerful tools that can cut people from a modern plastic car or blow up a bag that can lift up about 90 tons.

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“Pretty much anything that anybody would ever throw at us. The rescue truck has some form of tool to help start that mitigation process,” Sloan said. Rescue 1 decommissioned

The Rescue 1 company was first commissioned in the 1960s, responding to emergency medical service calls before ambulances were around, CBS 17 reported in 2019. The city decommissioned Rescue 1 in 2000, but brought it back in 2019 using a 2006 model that was much smaller, fire officials said.

The new truck carries double the equipment and gives firefighters easier and faster access to a compartment of chains, two blow up boats and many different kinds of saws.

The goal is to get anyone who experienced trauma to the hospital within one hour, Pearce said, as time can be the difference in someone’s survival and recovery. Firefighters dissect a car

On Saturday morning, Pearce and other firefighters stood before Rescue 1 preparing to demonstrate how efficient their teamwork can be.

The men stood covered in their heavy turnout gear before the new truck in a parking lot at a Saturday Cars & Coffee event along Page Road. In front of the men sat a blue Dodge Caliber, with its front smashed in.

Tim Mckoy, a Durham firefighter recruiter, explained through a microphone to the watching crowd that the firefighters would demonstrate how they extract someone aft

Caitlyn Freeman
The Seattle Times
(TNS)

One person is dead and another is critically injured after a car collided with a Seattle fire ladder truck early Saturday.

The 29-year-old driver was killed, and an 18-year-old passenger was injured in the crash around 5 a.m. near the intersection of North 128th Street and Aurora Avenue North, Fire spokesperson David Cuerpo said in an email.

The ladder truck was returning from a call at the time of the crash.

Susan Gregg, a spokesperson for Harborview Medical Center, said the 18-year-old passenger is in critical condition as of 9 a.m.

No firefighters were injured, Cuerpo said.

Seattle police officers are investigating the crash.

We are deeply saddened by the loss of life and serious injury of the two vehicle occupants involved in this morning’s collision with a Seattle Fire ladder truck,” Chief Harold D. Scoggins said in a statement. “Their families and loved ones are in our thoughts during this difficult time.

© 2025 The Seattle Times. Visit www.seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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