RIALTO — A fire broke out at a strip mall in the 700 block of Foothill Boulevard on Sunday morning, causing about $1 million dollars in damage, according to Fire Department officials.
The 3:15 a.m. fire burned two buildings and caused smoke and heat damage in two others, said Matt Payne, a department spokesman.
The buildings were unoccupied when the fire broke out and no one was injured.
Engines from Rialto, Colton, San Bernardino and San Bernardino County fire departments responded.
“It was a big fire,” Payne said. “They did a good job.”
One building is considered a complete loss, but the other is salvageable, Payne said.
The two buildings with smoke and heat damage will have to replace a few light fixtures that melted and clean up soot and ash that entered the buildings, Payne said.
The owners of the buildings and property representatives were notified of the damage Sunday morning. Some came by to see the damage to their businesses.
The cause of the fire has yet to be determined. Fire investigators were on the scene for much of the day, Payne said.
On Thursday, October 2, at approximately 6:00 AM, units of the San Jose Fire Department responded to a fast moving structure fire in a multi-unit strip mall at 5156 Moorpark Avenue on the city’s west side.
The fire sent flames up to 40 feet above the roofline of the structure and destroyed three business occupancies including two restaurants before firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze.
Striking a second and third-alarm, Battalion Chief Robert Sapien called for firefighters to assume a defensive attack using exterior hand lines. Other crews were sent to the roof to complete a trench cut in a successful effort to quell the advance of the fire.
Firefighters were able to contain the flames before they spread to a dry cleaner, bridal shop and jeweler, but those tenants did suffer smoke damage.
One firefighter suffered a minor injury. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Story and Photos by Craig Allyn Rose, Emergency Photo
Just after 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 28, 2008 units of the Santa Clara County Fire Department responded to multiple reports of fire in a vacant commercial structure at 15400 Los Gatos Boulevard.
Upon arrival, firefighters were confronted with heavy fire and smoke from at least two sides of the structure requiring a second alarm to augment the equipment and personnel initially dispatched.
The 20,000 square foot structure, formerly home to Swanson Ford, was unoccupied . Firefighters were able to deploy multiple hand lines and an aerial master stream to bring the fire under control only minutes after their arrival.
Photo by Craig Allyn Rose
Photos by Craig Allyn Rose
There were no injuries reported and the cause of the fire is under investigation.
Story and photos courtesy of Craig Allyn Rose - Emergency Photo
At 1:33 P.M. on September 29, 2008 fire dispatchers received a call from an alarm company reporting a fire pull station had been activated at a multi-unit apartment complex located on the corner of 13th Street and Acacia in the City of San Bernardino. The first fire unit was on scene at 1:38 P.M. and reported to incoming units there was heavy fire blowing out of a second story window. Firefighters quickly deployed hose lines to the second floor to extinguish the fire while simultaneously going door to door through the complex to ensure all occupants were out of harms way.
Due to the amount of fire involvement a second alarm was called to assist in the suppression of the fire and the evacuation. The fire was under control with in thirty minutes of the first call. A 20-year-old male who was an occupant of the complex was transported to a local area hospital with minor smoke inhalation he sustained while he was self-evacuating.
City fire investigators were called to the scene to conduct a through investigation as to what started this blaze. After interviewing the occupants of the involved apartment it was determined that two small children playing with a lighter under a bed started the fire.
**The fire department would like to remind parents and child care givers that lighters and matches should be kept out of reach of children at all times and when using such devices around children they should be educated on the potential hazards these devices can cause.
Written and submitted by Steve Tracy, PIO-San Bernardino City Fire
An electrical fire destroyed a downtown Novato bar early Thursday morning.
Thick, dark smoke was pouring out of the front doors of DeSilva’s Bar and Grille at 1535 S. Novato Blvd. when firefighters arrived at 12:56 a.m. Thursday, according to Mark Heine, fire battalion chief. The two-alarm fire was contained at 1:21 a.m.
An electrical fire destroyed DeSilva s Bar and Grille at 1535 S. Novato Blvd. in Novato early Thursday morning. (IJ photo/Robert Tong)
The business was closed at the time and no injuries were reported. A passing driver reported the fire after spotting smoke.
“It gutted the entire business,” Heine said, estimating damage at $250,000.
He said the fire may have started in electrical equipment.
West Coast 911 firefighter news - story by Marin Independent Journal
STOCKTON - This is what Stockton Fire Department Battalion Chief Kim Olson does.
On July 26, Daniel Packer, a 49-year-old firefighter from Washington state, was killed while surveying a lightning-sparked wildfire in the Klamath National Forest.
Packer, the chief of East Pierce Fire and Rescue in Bonney Lake, Wash., was caught when the Panther Fire made a sudden run toward him and two other firefighters. Packer was born and raised in Montana and was a bull rider on the rodeo circuit before he was a firefighter. He died in his shelter, deployed on a ridge about 15 miles south of a place called Happy Camp. He was 49 years old.
BC Olson at the 2008 Big Sur Fire / Photo by Matt Cobb - Record Net
The other firefighters at the Klamath wanted to recover him, but the intensity of the fire made that impossible.
“They had pulled all the crews off the fire, because the fire was just nuking,” Olson said. “It was just burning everything in sight.”
The next morning, Olson, who was working another fire in Siskiyou County, went to his boss, Mike Dietrich, and volunteered to retrieve the fallen firefighter.
Olson and Safety Officer Jim Walker took three engines and a team of timber fellers into the Klamath. They drove 21/2 hours from base camp to a place called Drop Point 16. The fire roared all around them but couldn’t be seen through the smoke.
So Olson and Walker decided to go on alone, on foot. After about an hour’s hike, they found pieces of Packer’s gear, which he had shed as he fled the fire, and then his body, inside the remnants of his shelter. The fire around them began to surge again.
“You could hear it and feel it,” Olson said.
From the sky above, an air attack supervisor warned Olson that he and Walker were nearly surrounded by flames. Concerned that the fire’s movement would close off his escape route, Olson called in a helicopter to make targeted water drops but eventually was told it couldn’t hold off the fire’s advance.
“OK, see you tomorrow,” Olson replied, settling in for an overnight stay inside a 250-acre wildfire.
But a reprieve came in the late afternoon, when the fire broke long enough for Olson and Walker to be retrieved, along with Packer’s body.
As a division supervisor with California Incident Management Team 5, Olson spent almost the entire summer battling wildfires around the state. The team is one of 17 in the nation that is called to respond to the worst disasters. Before the Panther and Siskiyou fires, Olson was in the Carmel Valley fighting the Basin Complex Fire, which burned more than 162,000 acres and 26 homes before it was contained.
It’s a job he has been doing, in addition to his regular duties in Stockton, for the past three years.
That experience, coupled with an adult lifetime spent fighting fires, has granted Olson expertise in an unusually broad range of firefighting.
“He’s got vast experience in wildland fires and emergency management,” Stockton Fire Chief Ron Hittle said. “He’s the first guy you put at the top of the list.”
Olson, 51, has been a firefighter since he was 18, when he joined the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. He joined the Stockton Fire Department on Aug. 4, 1980, and has spent his entire career on the fire ground.
Over the course of that career, the walrus-mustached veteran has earned a reputation for invincible composure in the firehouse and in the flames, many of his colleagues said.
“He’s quiet, reserved; he speaks up when he needs to speak up,” Hittle said. ” And he’s extremely calm on a fire.”
When Hittle was a newly minted captain, Olson often reminded him to keep his composure.
Capt. David Macedo said Olson’s cool is appreciated through the ranks. It’s a virtue in a leader of firefighters, he said.
“If he’s amped up or spinning around in circles, your crews are going to get that way,” Macedo said.
Dietrich, chief of the San Bernardino National Forest’s Fire and Aviation Management, said every fire has four fronts: operational, political, fiscal and public. A good team is well-rounded. Olson’s expertise is in operations - choosing tactics, placing firefighters and equipment - and Dietrich can count on him to do the job right without oversight.
“I rely on my field generals, if you will, to make good decisions,” he said.
Experience is vitally important in fighting wildland fires. If a structure fire is a mystery, a box to be opened, then a wildland fire is a book. Every year, wildfires break out in the same places. Too strong to fight directly, they have to be contained and allowed to burn out. To do that, a firefighter has to know the terrain, how the fire moves and what has worked before, Dietrich said.
“In the last few years, that has been the nature of (wildland) firefighting - looking at the fires of the past,” he said.
Olson, who with Incident Team 5 has led firefighters twice in the Los Padres and Klamath national forests, is invaluable, Dietrich said. It would take 10 to 15 years to train a replacement.
“If we were to go on the fast track,” he qualified. “You can train fighter pilots faster than division supervisors.”
On Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 9:41 AM, 16 Companies of Los Angeles Firefighters, 7 LAFD Rescue Ambulances, 1 Arson Unit, 2 Urban Search and Rescue Units, 1 Hazardous Materials Team, 3 EMS Battalion Captains, 7 Battalion Chief Officer Command Teams, 1 Division Chief Officer Command Team, Emergency Air 1, 5 Glendale Fire Department Companies, LAPD, L.A. Co. Health Haz Mat and Union Pacific Railroad, under the direction of Assistant Chief Daryl Arbuthnott, responded to a Major Emergency Structure Fire at 4178 E. Chevy Chase Dr. in the Atwater Village area.
Firefighters arriving on scene found a 1 story, 50 foot by 100 foot, commercial building with heavy smoke showing. As firefighting companies deployed 2-1/2 inch handlines, the roof top team initiated an aggressive ventilation effort and indicated heavy fire progressing from the front to the back of the building. At 0956 hours, the intense fire burned high voltage wires adding an additional hazard, prompting the IC to withdraw the ventilation and interior fire attack teams and shift to a defensive attack at 1007 hours. Union Pacific Railroad was contacted and a request was made to shut down potential train traffic because of the close proximity of the tracks to incident, Firefighting personnel and apparatus.
It took approximately 126 LAFD Firefighters 39 minutes to call a knockdown on the fire. The cause of the fire to Systems Trade Printing, a well established Atwater business, was determined to be electrical. The significant dollar loss, mostly confined to the contents, was estimated at $3,800,000 [$300,000 structure, $3,500,000 contents]. One female was treated and transported by Glendale Fire to an area hospital.
Written by by d’Lisa Davies, Los Angeles Fire Department
A light rail train slammed into a bus near downtown during Friday morning’s commute, injuring at least 13 people, fire officials said. The Metro Blue Line train was headed to Long Beach carrying passengers while the bus was out of service. As many as two dozen people were hurt, but none of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening, Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said.
“We had an out-of-service bus turn in front of the train,” said Marc Littman, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates both the train and the bus. “We don’t know who had the right of way.”
The impact knocked the front car of the electric train off the track. The other cars remained on the track. Littman said they were investigating the incident.
Modesto Mayor Jim Ridenour’s plan to shrink an $8.7 million budget gap includes a proposal to temporarily shut down a fire company when firefighters miss work instead of using overtime to keep the city’s 10 stations running at full force.
That change would save Modesto $400,000. It would lead to reductions in staffing 70 percent of the time from December through July at one of two fire stations.
Engine 21 at Station No. 1 parked inside the facility. Modesto is proposing another $6.4 million in budget cuts. One of the big decisions to "brown out" Engine 21 or Engine 11. Engine 21 is downtown at Station No. 1 and Engine 11 is at Station No. 11 in north Modesto. The engine crew will fold up when firefighters call in sick or miss vacation. /photo by Modesto Bee - Bart Ah You
It’s part of a slate of budget cuts Ridenour is sending to the City Council’s Finance Committee on Monday. He’s proposing $5.2 million in spending reductions and efforts to collect about $1.5 million in new revenue.
The package does not include revenue from the tax-sharing agreement the city approved for General Petroleum on Sept. 9, or from two similar deals for Modesto fuel distributors that are scheduled to appear before the council Tuesday night.
The mayor’s proposal won’t go into effect unless the City Council approves it. And there’s a chance Ridenour will propose more spending cuts before the city’s budget year ends in June to protect reserves.
“By the end of the year, we’ll be where we need to be even if I have to come in again,” he said.
The mayor also wants to save $100,000 by reducing trash pickups in city parks to twice a week instead of three times. Another budget cut calls for the city to eliminate part-time positions, saving $213,000.
The two fire stations that could be affected by the staffing reductions are:
Station No. 1 on 11th Street, which could lose Engine No. 21 at times. The company is the first responder to calls in the airport neighborhood.
Or Station No. 11 at Carver Road and Pelandale Avenue could give up a rescue truck.
Fire Chief Jim Miguel said the department would choose between the two companies based on risk to residents.
“We know where it’s likely to have the least impact,” he said. Continue reading →
Firefighting knows no borders, whether it’s battling a blaze in Sacramento or Mexico.
The mission is the same: Rescuing people from fires and accidents. Preventing flames from destroying homes and businesses.
In the spirit of brotherhood, 25 Mexican firefighters were in the Sacramento region last week, picking up training and tricks from their local counterparts.
On Sept. 9, they spent the day at the Cosumnes Community Services District Fire Department training center in Elk Grove. There, they donned protective gear and equipment, some of it unfamiliar. They worked on fire suppression techniques and teamwork in a training tower and battled propane fires.
Most instructors were bilingual, but some of the bomberos spoke English and helped with translation.
“Stick together with your teams,” Cosumnes battalion chief Sean Stumbaugh told them. “Stay hydrated.”
Other training topics included removing people from crashes, safety, emergency medical service, and engine and truck operations.
In addition to Cosumnes Fire, the area departments providing training were Folsom Fire, Lincoln Fire, Sacramento City Fire, West Sacramento Fire, Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District and the Sacramento County Airport System.
José González, a firefighter with the Mexicali Fire Department, said he likes learning new techniques and tools.
“It helps out a lot,” he said.
The Bombero Program is a partnership between California and Mexican fire departments that started more than 40 years ago when Turlock firefighters invited bomberos to visit their department, said Al Meraz, a Cosumnes firefighter who helped coordinate the Sacramento area program. Departments throughout California take turns hosting the bomberos, with the Sacramento region stepping in every three years, he said.
Mexican firefighters have helped fight past blazes in Southern California, so the program benefits both sides, Meraz said.
The bomberos were housed by the area fire departments during their visit. Those departments also solicited donations to help defray program costs, which were close to $15,000, Meraz said.
Departments here also give surplus equipment to departments in Mexico. In February, Cosumnes Fire donated an aerial ladder truck, equipment and protective clothing to firefighters from Tepic, just north of Puerto Vallarta.
The donated equipment no longer complies with Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, but is better than most Mexican firefighters have, said Fernando Vallejo of Sacramento City Fire.
Cosumnes Deputy Chief Tracy Hansen said the hope is that the bomberos will take what they’ve learned back to their own departments.
“We’re like one big family,” she said. “We want to make sure we share our knowledge and our resources with them so they’re safe and trained.”
