When Will It Stop, Nutter???

HT to Captain America, one of the few left in Philadelphia fighting fires:

THREE MORE FIRE DEATHS IN PHILLY

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/video?id=7983311

What? Me worry?

Camden: Half as Safe and Twice as Stupid,......

You know you've f***ed up when your actions make the news all the way up in Cape Cod!!

Camden police and firefighters turn in their gear

CAMDEN, NJ -- In a solemn display, laid-off firefighters and police officers lined up Tuesday to turn in their helmets and badges - symbols of deep budget cuts that were destined to further erode the quality of life in one of the nation's most impoverished and crime-ridden cities.

Nearly half the Camden police force, including civilians, and about one-third of its firefighters lost their jobs as city leaders sought to balance the budget amid falling tax revenue and diminishing aid from the state.

On the sidewalk outside City Hall, 82 police officers lined up their work boots to show how many officers would be taken off the Camden streets, where many neighborhoods have rampant drug dealing and violence.

As officers staged the display, a woman riding by in a car yelled out the window that she was worried about the safety of her granddaughter, who catches a school bus before dawn, and her grandson, who doesn't get out of basketball practice until after dark.

"I'm 52 years old and scared to death," she said. The woman wouldn't give her name, saying she didn't want to be a target.

Advancing but Overshadowing Tradition,..

Goodbye, Nostalgia: Fire Stations Scrap Poles

Quick means of descent was major safety hazard

They may be cool, but they’re just not safe: fire departments around the country are getting rid of their classic poles, Time reports. Instead, they’re opting for stairs and slides. “The pole is something we associated with as kids," says a Seattle architect. "But the pole has been one of the biggest sources of firefighter injury”—resulting in a $13 million lawsuit in the city, which has banned poles.


Some fire stations still have poles, but the National Fire Protection Association is working on getting rid of them, or at least enclosing them “so nobody stumbles into it in the middle of the night,” says a former fire chief.

Is Detroit Philly's Future?

HT to Captain American for this one:



We shot this teaser in 5 days last fall … Distributors and networks are interested. But these things take time, and Detroit’s story is happening NOW. We need to raise the money ourselves to get back there and start shooting the actual documentary as soon as possible! Please donate $10 or more if you can. To support this important project visit documentary.org/fsp/3563 and make a TAX DEDUCTIBLE donation.
For more info visit detroitfire.org
or email us at detroitfirefilm@gmail.com Thank you,

This is the REAL Gambling in Philadelphia,.....

Philadelphia Cuts Police, Fire Services

Money problems in the city of Philadelphia could soon affect the number of police officers on your street or whether or not the fire station near home remains open.

The fire department takes an approximate $3.5 million hit. That will be accomplished by cutting back on the OT and “rolling station closures” This means up to 4 firehouses each week will take turns being closed for one day.

So, with all that tax amnesty money recently collected -why is the money going to be given to libraries as opposed to the police or fire department?

Basically, the Mayor says that everyone is feeling the pain. More cuts may come down the pipes, depending on pending labor union negotiations and if the Federal government does not come through on Medicaid funding.

Philadelphia: Broke AND on Elevated Terrorism List. Coincidence?

PHILADELPHIA ELEVATED TO TIER 1 URBAN AREA BY HOMELAND SECURITY, WILL RECEIVE SUBSTANTIALLY MORE FUNDING

Philadelphia, December 8 – Philadelphia has been elevated from a Tier 2 Urban Area to a Tier 1 Urban Area as part of the Department of Homeland Security Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grant program for fiscal year 2010. UASI grant funds are used to address the unique multi-discipline planning, operations, equipment, training and exercise needs of high-threat, high-density urban areas, and help them prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from acts of terrorism. The new designation will provide millions of dollars in additional grant funding. In fiscal year 2008, the Philadelphia Urban Area received approximately $18 million in Homeland Security Grant Program funds.

“We are pleased that the Department of Homeland Security has recognized the strategic importance of Philadelphia,” Mayor Michael A. Nutter said. “This new designation will allow Philadelphians to be better protected if and when an emergency strikes.”

Is it just me, or does this elevation, coming a day after Mayor Squidward went to DC with hat in hand, smell suspicious?

And this is a city that deactivated nearly a dozen fire companies it can't afford to maintain, but wants to be "better protected if and when an emergency strikes?" How about using that shiny, new grant money to re-open those firehouses and give them more state-of-the-art apparatus?

Politcally Correct Outrage!!

Fireman Suspended Over US Flag Decal

(Oct. 17) -- A Pennsylvania firefighter who put an American flag sticker on the front of his locker has been suspended without pay for refusing to take the Old Glory decal down.
James Krapf, along with nearly a dozen other Chester, Pa. firefighters, were ordered to remove personal items from the outside of their lockers -- a violation of department policy, MyFoxPhilly.com reported.

Bitten by His Own Words

Gentle readers, I can't fully explain or adequately transfer the frustration felt by the actual workers effected by this - pardon the expression - slash and burn policy.

If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of someone who does, visit Captain America's site frequently!

Stop Mayor Squidward from Burning Down Philly!!!

From Captain America, a PFD Captain:



Click Uncle Sam for More Info!

An Appeal for Help

As many of you know, the TrekMedic is,..well,..a paramedic. Today, he received this appeal for help for a fellow ChesCo medic:


April 7, 2008

All Personnel:

We have received information this morning that Paramedic Tim Hornberger of Medic 93 was seriously injured this past weekend while working on a tire. The exact details are coming to us through a third party; however it seems that Tim was inflating a tire that exploded striking him in the face. Tim was flown to Reading Hospital, where he is in a chemically induced coma in the surgical intensive care unit. We are being told that he will be in the hospital at least 1 week and out of work potentially for the next three months.

The Fire and EMS staff here in the City of Coatesville is working on collecting money to put together a nice gift certificate for Tim and his family to help them through this tough time. Our thought was if each of us would donate $10 we can provide a bit of relief to our friend and co-worker. Any and all help would be appreciated.

Please forward any donations you would like to make to the Station 41 EMS Supervisor David Faust. Dave is normally at the station Monday through Friday. He can be reached at (717) 683-5199. We would like to send the gift by April 25.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter.





David Faust David Varner Jim Lentz
EMS Supervisor EMS Chief President IAFF L-3790
Cell (717) 683- 5199 Cell (484) 571-1793 Coatesville Firefighters
Office (610) 384-6464 Office (610) 384-6464 (610) 636 6867

Rest in Peace, Brother,....

Sharon Hill firefighter dies
By STEPHANIE FARR
farrs@phillynews.com 215-854-4225

Volunteer firefighter Michael Reagan always wanted a tattoo, but he never could decide what to get.

The 19-year-old seemed to have decades left to make that decision. But on Saturday, Rea-gan, a member of the Sharon Hill Fire Department in Delaware County, died at Crozer-Chester Medical Center from injuries he received in a fire Wednesday night.

Some young members of his department immediately knew how to honor their fallen comrade: their own tattoos.

As more than a dozen veterans of the department manned the station yesterday, young volunteers came by, peeling back their fresh bandages and showing off their permanent tributes to Rea-gan.

Some were inked on their arms, others on their calves, but the image was always the same - a black Sharon Hill shield with Reagan's name and the call number of the fire - 286 - in which he lost his life.

Reagan, of Ridley, a criminal-justice major at Delaware County Community College, joined the department more than two years ago. He became the first firefighter in the department to die battling a blaze.

The 2006 Ridley High School graduate had dreamed of becoming a police officer.

In pursuit of his dream, Rea-gan began working part-time with the Ridley Police Department last year, firefighter Michael Galli said.

"He liked to have fun, he was a good kid," Galli said, sitting behind a table overflowing with food and beverage donations from across the county.

"On top of the situation being overwhelming, the donations have been overwhelming," he said. "We've received unbelievable support from the surrounding communities."

Outside of the firehouse under a flag raised at half-staff, a make-shift memorial, replete with

Reagan's firefighting gear, teemed with more than a dozen bouquets of flowers.

Passing strangers stopped in to offer condolences, and firefighters and police officers from across the county have called or stopped by to offer assistance, Galli said.

Joanne Barbine, of Collingdale, left a bouquet of white roses and more than a few tears at the firehouse memorial yesterday. She and Reagan were in the same platoon in fire school at the Delaware County Emergency Services Training Center this year.

"He was the sweetest young guy I ever met, and he had the best smile I've ever seen," Barbine said. "He was dedicated to what he was doing. It's very rare to see young men that dedicated today, and he did it for nothing. He didn't do it for the glory, he did it just because."

The firehouse has become a temporary shrine to the fallen teenager. A black cloth is draped over the place where Reagan once hung his gear, and more than 50 pictures of him are posted throughout the firehouse.

From a photo of a recent trip to the North Carolina shore to a flattering shot of the slim 6-foot-1 firefighter in a sombrero, Reagan seems to be exactly how he describes himself on his MySpace page - "the life of the party."

"He was a goofball," Terre McCann, Sharon Hill's assistant fire chief, said. "Except when we were on a fire. Things changed when you got on the truck. All his clowning stopped, and he became very serious."

Reagan's final call was about 11 p.m. Wednesday, when the department responded to a garage fire on Coates Street.

The fire was almost extinguished when the roof collapsed, trapping Rea-gan under a door. Two other Sharon Hill firefighters also were trapped. Both suffered second-degree burns and were released from the hospital by Saturday. In addition, another firefighter and two police officers suffered minor injuries, for which they were treated and released.

While Delaware County residents mourn the passing of one volunteer firefighter, their prayers remain with Chase Frost, 21, a Parkside firefighter who is in critical condition at Crozer-Chester Medical Center since an Aug. 11 blaze.

Frost was burned on more than half his body battling a townhouse fire.

Fellow firefighter Dan Brees, 20, spent 10 days in the hospital before he was released.


The TrekMedic mourns:

All too often we concentrate on those who give their lives overseas to maintain our security and forget those at home who selflessly give of themselves to maintain our safety without consideration of reward or financial gain! Rest easy, bro!

Time to Help Your Neighbors

Who will fight the fires?
Despite a patriotic upsurge after 9/11, membership in volunteer fire units is declining.

By Walter F. Naedele
Inquirer Staff Writer

Richard Hedrick works at his home office in East Vincent Township in northern Chester County, a self-employed computer programmer. And several times a week, he rushes out to fight a fire or help out at some other emergency.

But unpaid volunteer firefighters like Hedrick have been disappearing as surely as the black-and-white dalmatians that sat on engines roaring to fires a century ago.

After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the decades-long decline of volunteer firefighters might have reversed in Chester County.

But only briefly.

Glenn Allison, 46, president of the Chester County Fire Chiefs Association, who owns a parking lot maintenance business in Downingtown, said in an interview that, "there was a steady increase shortly after 9/11, because everybody was in the spirit of the thing.

"And then it just steadily declined."

Justin Fleming, a spokesman for Pennsylvania Fire Commissioner Ed Mann, said that a 2005 state legislative report documented the decline.

"In 1976," Fleming said the report showed, "there were roughly 300,000 volunteer firefighters statewide. In 1985, that number dropped to about 152,000, and in 2005, about 72,000."

The Chester County decline "was pretty pronounced," said Allison, a volunteer firefighter. "It was obvious to see," but he added that he had no hard numbers showing how many volunteers there are in the county.

And Fleming said he knew of no year-by-year figures for volunteers on a statewide basis. Allison said he knew of no Chester County numbers.

At the all-volunteer Avondale Fire Company in southwest Chester County, Chief Michael P. Decker said that active membership of 40 to 50 in the 1980s, when his father, James, was chief, has declined by almost half.

But that has not affected the quality of firefighting.

"It's the same 15 to 20 guys per incident," Decker said, the same number as turned out for house fires in the 1980s.

The well-reported nationwide decline in volunteer organizations was highlighted by Robert D. Putnam in "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community," published by Simon & Schuster in 2000.

Bowling Alone's Web site states that at least since 1975, "we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently and even socialize without families less often. We're even bowling alone."

What has been hurting volunteer fire companies?

There's lack of time.

In his 31 years as a member of the volunteer West Bradford Fire Company outside Downingtown, Allison said the primary factor, as in much else today, is "the time constraints people have on their schedules."

Then there's location.

Many people don't work near their homes and therefore don't live near the firehouses in their hometowns.

Then there's ignorance.

"It's possible a lot of people don't understand what we do and how we do it. People move out here from the city, they're used to having paid fire departments and think it's the same as in the city." Some suburban departments have even hired a few paid firefighters to supplement their volunteers.

In East Vincent, Hedrick seems a bit harsher.

"It's becoming a problem because people don't want to commit. It's a lot of hours."

On the day when he was interviewed, he was distracted from the computer work that pays his grocery bill.

"I went out today three times on calls, because I work at home," Hedrick said. "People who can do that are becoming fewer and fewer."

His Ridge Fire Company covers all of South Coventry and East Coventry, he said, and pieces of three other townships.

In the three years that Hedrick, 56, has been a firefighter, membership has been "pretty static" at about 30.

He speculated that "you go back 30 years, you'll probably get 30 people out to a call. And now you're lucky if you get six or seven."

The quality of firefighting has not declined, he said. "Not yet. But it's one of our fears, as fewer and fewer people volunteer."

In Avondale, Chief Decker, 31, who works for a mushroom farm, is seeing no youth movement among his volunteer firefighters.

"We don't have a lot of junior members, like we used to," Decker said, referring to those between 16 and 18 years old.

Though they can't go into a burning structure until the fire is under control, Decker said the juniors learn the nuts and bolts at emergency scenes.

"A lot of people we have, like myself, are second- and third-generation firefighters."