The Seattle Fire Department has launched an investigation following the discovery of a noose inside Station 24 in Bitter Lake last Thursday.

Fire Chief Harrold Scoggins sent an email to department staff that said, in part:

I want to commend the firefighter for the courage to report what they found and the officer for making sure this was brought to SFD leadership. I also wish to acknowledge how this affects our Black firefighters and professional staff. I see you, and I understand.
A noose has an undeniable history in our nation as a symbol of racial hate and intimidation and historically has been used to murder Black people. As such, any instance where a noose is found in our workplace represents a direct threat. While we don’t know the intent of whoever tied the noose, there is no circumstance in which it could reasonably be considered innocent or appropriate.

Seattle had a similar incident in 2020 when a noose was found at a knot tying station in another Station, KOMO reported.

The chief also noted the Bitter Lake station experienced some controversy last year when a racist image from the department’s past was inadvertently included in a department yearbook.

By Alan M. Petrillo

The Pattonville (MO) Fire Department has a continuous problem in its fire district with a huge landfill that has burned underground for years, and it could potentially threaten an underground nuclear waste disposal site. But the department has other needs, too, such as fire suppression, rescue, and EMS (emergency medical services) responses within its district, so it designed a pumper and an aerial platform that could handle all of those disciplines.

Steve Rogger, Pattonville battalion chief, says the radioactive waste in the landfill’s underground storage area is a remnant of the country’s World War II atomic bomb Manhattan Project. “We’ve been monitoring and dealing with the underground fire for years,” Rogger says, “and wanted to get apparatus where we could set up shop and handle that scenario if it came up in the future.” Rogger says Pattonville went to Rosenbauer for a vehicle similar to its then-current rescue-pumper, “but with a massive pump, and a lot of additional discharges.”

Pattonville is a career department with 65 firefighters and seven civilian employees working out of three fire stations and one administrative/training facility. The department responded to approximately 5,400 calls in 2021, 4,801 calls in 2020, and 5,342 calls in 2019, Rogger points out.

Besides being the home to two landfills—the largest landfill in the state as well as the radioactive storage landfill—Pattonville’s district also has the busiest interchange in the state at I-270 and I-70 where 188,000 vehicles travel daily, Rogger says. The district also includes a hospital, casino, outdoor amphitheater, county park, high school, middle school, three elementary schools, a small private airport, three soccer venues, several high-rise offices and hotels, five senior living communities, and a neighboring international airport.

Brian Franz, vice president of apparatus for Sentinel Emergency Solutions, who sold the two vehicles to Pattonville, says the pumper functions as a rescue/super pumper for the department. “It has a Hale 8FGR 3,000-gallons per minute (gpm) pump, a 750-gallon polypropylene water tank, a 30-gallon Class A foam tank, and a Hale SmartFoam 2.1 foam proportioning system,” Franz points out. “The rig has IDEX Fire and Safety’s SAM™ control system on it, with two control panels, one on each side of the pumper, along with a wireless tablet in the cab.”

The pumper is built on a Rosenbauer Commander chassis and cab with seating for five fighters in a clean concept cab that has three forward-facing crew se

Seagrave—Hayward (CA) Fire Department 100-foot tractor-drawn aerial. Marauder stainless steel tractor cab; Cummins X12 500-hp engine. Dealer: Dennis Warren, Seagrave Corp, Clintonville, WI.

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Aerial operations are rare in the fire industry, but the Tolar Volunteer Fire Department (TVFD), along with every Hood County (TX) fire department, recently partook in such a response.

TVFD posted the video of its aerial tanker dropping retardant.

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“Many people saw the air tankers flying around the county today,” the department writes on Facebook. “Multiple fires popped up around Hood County and Tolar responded along with every department in the county. With continued low humidity, please no burning and watch those butts. Here is a video of one of the retardant drops.”