Facebook rant burns firefighter | The Sun |News

Facebook rant burns firefighter | The Sun |News
A FIREMAN has landed in hot water after a foul-mouthed attack on people he had helped rescue appeared on his Facebook profile.

Moaning Mike Sabz allegedly wrote: "I am grumpy, tired, and so would you be if you had to put up with the sub human scum that I have had to endure this morning.

"I mean how f------ hard is it to keep your car on the road and not set fire to your house??????? Selfish b-------! Do they not know I need my sleep!"

A woman spotted the comments and complained to Sabz's senior officers at the Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service.

Disciplined

Assistant Commander Iwan Cray carried out an investigation and Sabz, 34, was disciplined.

Ceredigion area Commander Stephen Evans wrote to the complainant saying: "I have had a look at the entry and I don't like what I see."

Sabz, who is based at Cardigan, Dyfed, is said to have claimed that someone hacked into his Facebook site and posted the comments in his name.

A fire service spokesman said yesterday: "A complaint was received in relation to a fireman, which led to an internal investigation, and as a result the individual concerned was disciplined.

"We have dealt with this matter in accordance with our Service Polices and Complaints Handling Procedures and the matter is now closed."

They refused to say what action had been taken against Sabz, who has kept his job and was not on duty today.

Last month Essex office worker Kimberley Swann, 16, was fired after moaning on her Facebook page about her job being boring.

A growing number of employers have banned Facebook from the workplace because staff spend so much time on it.

At least 15 killed in Russia's building fire

NDTV.com: At least 15 killed in Russia's building fire

At least 15 people were killed and seven others injured when a fire ripped through a wooden residential building in the Astrakhan Region in southern Russia, emergency officials said on Sunday.

"The bodies of 15 victims had been recovered and seven people are still in hospital. The efforts to clear the debris are still on," prosecutor-general's spokesman Vladimir Markin was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

The fire in a three-storey residential building in the village of Molodyozhny broke out last evening and was brought under control two hours later. Fire-fighters evacuated 59 tenants to safety.

Markin said in 1997 the wooden building was found as unsafe and its tenants were to be given new housing. Vesti TV said the fire was probably caused by short-circuit in the old wiring of the building.

Fires are not uncommon in the Soviet-era wooden buildings with several residents. Last week, 23 people died in a fire that destroyed a care home for elderly in the Republic of Komi in northwest Russia.

Koala to Firefighter: I Won't Tap That! - TMZ.com

Koala to Firefighter: I Won't Tap That! - TMZ.com
After battling some of the worst wildfires ever to hit Australia, a firefighter shared his bottled water with a pampered koala on Monday.

Spending to fight California wildfires tops $1 billion - Los Angeles Times

Spending to fight California wildfires tops $1 billion - Los Angeles Times
About 1.4 million acres burned in 2008 in one of the worst fire seasons in the state's history. But no meaningful reforms are enacted at the state or federal level.
By Bettina Boxall
December 31, 2008

Wildfire spending in California continued its upward climb this year, driven by one of the worst fire seasons in the state's history.

Almost a quarter of all the wild land that burned across the country in 2008 was in California -- roughly 1.4 million acres.

The fires, fought at a huge cost to taxpayers, failed to translate into any meaningful reforms at the state or federal level despite efforts in Sacramento and Washington.

Lawmakers introduced a number of measures dealing with land use, fire prevention and protection. But the proposals stalled, or in the case of one major state bill, were vetoed.

In fiscal 2008, half of the $1.4 billion that the U.S. Forest Service spent nationally on wildfire suppression was spent in California alone. State fire expenditures topped $1 billion.

"I think we've seen unprecedented fires," said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Click the link/title above to read the rest of this story. The photo is of the Freeway Complex fire.

The 30,000-acre Freeway Complex fire in the vicinity of the 57 and 91 freeways destroyed nearly 200 residences in Orange and Riverside counties in November. It was among numerous California wildfires that burned roughly 1.4 million acres in 2008. State fire expenditures topped $1 billion.

Firefighter and teen killed in Grand County avalanche

Denver Weather Examiner: Firefighter and teen killed in Grand County avalanche

Colorado’s avalanche season claimed two more lives Saturday, killing a South Metro firefighter and a teen. The two were part of a party of four snowmobiling near Grand Lake in the bowl between Gravel and Little Gravel Mountains in Arapaho National Forest.

Brian Kopp, a 38-year-old South Metro Fire Rescue firefighter from Larkspur and 19-year-old Mark Goetz were killed in the slide. 59-year-old Chuck Goetz and 32-year-old Harry Than were also in the party but were uninjured.

The Grand County Sheriff’s Office said Mark Goetz and Brian Kopp rode their snowmobiles up the side of Gravel Mountain in an attempt to ‘high-mark,’ a popular activity by snowmobilers where the operator tries to ride as far up a steep mountain slope as possible. The younger Goetz apparently got stuck and when Kopp went to assist, he got stuck as well. Chuck Goetz, Mark’s father, rode up the slope to assist them when he triggered the avalanche sweeping all three down the mountain.

When Kopp and Goetz were dug out of the snow, CPR was performed, but both men died at the scene, according to deputies. Neither of the riders was wearing an avalanche beacon although it isn’t clear at this time if that would have made a difference.

Kopp is survived by his wife, Jennifer and twin children, son, Alan, 11 and daughter Elli, 11.

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center reports that while the avalanche danger has eased in recent days, the danger is still considerable across much of the high country. Two other notable incidents were reported in recent days including an incident near Vail Pass when a snowmobiler triggered a slide (with no fatalities thankfully) and a slide on Loveland Pass that closed the pass from Saturday until this morning.

We recently wrote about the dangerous avalanche conditions in the mountains and this serves as a sad reminder that no place is safe. Extreme caution should be exercised and those traveling in the high country should take appropriate precautions.


* See our slideshow of the avalanche including a map and what the area looked like after the event.

Discomfort over L.A. Fire Department's tattoo policy is more than skin-deep - Los Angeles Times

Discomfort over L.A. Fire Department's tattoo policy is more than skin-deep - Los Angeles Times

In June, I wrote about a new Los Angeles Fire Department policy requiring firefighters on duty to cover their tattoos, whether they're out on a call or in the station.

Department brass called it a simple "grooming" issue -- a way to restore public confidence in the professionalism of a department battered by harassment allegations.

But now the policy is shaping up as a test of the department's zero-tolerance stance toward harassment, and whether it applies to guys who are decorated like comic book characters.

Dan Stark has a web of tattoos on his arms, chest, neck and head. He's an eight-year veteran, the son of a firefighter, "with nothing in my file but commendations," who suddenly finds himself odd man out.

The day the policy took effect in April, he said someone left a copy of the edict on his station's kitchen table, next to a photo of a group of shrouded Muslim women, labeled with the names of five firefighters -- including him -- who are heavily tattooed.

Then he found his station locker covered with copies of the policy, he said. That meant someone had broken into it, or used the spare key kept in the captain's dorm. Later that day, he said, someone drew a picture of a mummy and captioned it "Stark's new uniform."

When he complained about the ribbing, one captain told him to quit griping and be a team player, he said. Another suggested he get some tattoos removed, as a sort of goodwill gesture. Another official said he risked ruining his career if he kept complaining. None apparently forwarded his complaints up the chain of command.

Stark shared with me his journal -- a meticulous recollection of jokes, insults and offhand comments that he said made him feel a pariah. "Why don't these members put themselves in my shoes," he wrote July 7. "All I want to do is go to work and do my job like before.

"What happened to zero tolerance? I guess that is not written for the tattooed firefighter."

That's a question being asked more and more as complaints trickle out of fire stations.

Most of the hundreds of tattooed firefighters find it easy to comply. Their uniform shirts cover their arms and chest. But about 50 are forced to wear turtlenecks, gloves and bandages.

"These guys feel helpless," Capt. Carlos Caceres said. "Some are totally surprised. They don't want to sue, they don't want money. They just want the hypocrisy to stop."

Caceres, the only captain with a body full of tattoos, has filed grievances challenging the policy and funneled firefighter complaints to investigators. "But it looks like business as usual," he said. As in, "We don't care unless you sue us."

At its heart, this isn't about tattoos, any more than the Tennie Pierce case was about a few bites of dog food.

It's about a broken discipline system and a continuing pattern of harassment and retaliation. It's about making "outsiders" uncomfortable in the fire station.

Pierce won a million dollars in his lawsuit not because he didn't like Alpo, but because he couldn't stomach the teasing and humiliation that followed, and because the department did nothing to stop it.

And his was one of several cases. The department -- and that means Los Angeles taxpayers -- has spent $16 million in the last few years paying off claims for hazing, discrimination and retaliation.

Last year, Douglas Barry was named chief to change all that. And firefighters I spoke with believe he's trying. He's visited every fire station, made his 97-page Discrimination Prevention Policy Handbook required reading, provided more training to station captains and tried to standardize the disciplinary process.

"He's very serious about this," Fire Commissioner Genethia Hayes said. "Every firefighter deserves to be in a work site where they can be comfortable. . . . . And that includes these guys with tattoos.

"They were hired, went through the drill tower, didn't get any breaks. We accepted them, and they're here and they shouldn't be subjected to harassment in the station."

If only we could hear Barry say that.

I don't know if Chief Barry is aware of the trouble brewing. None of the harassment complaints have yet made their way to the top. I tried to get Barry's views about it all this week, but his handlers wouldn't let me through. His chief of staff didn't return several calls. And Capt. Armando Hogan, the department's public information officer, said Barry was too busy attending community meetings and giving speeches to talk.

However, Barry did manage to find time Friday to hold a news conference at a fire station near the Van Nuys Airport to show off new firefighting aircraft. By the time I got there, the cameras were gone and Barry was hunkered down with Los Angeles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman. A firefighter -- with no visible tattoos -- went to let Barry know that I wanted to see him.

But suddenly, the chief was gone. The firefighter shrugged. "Somebody said they think they just saw him leave."

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that Barry's ducking me. He won't talk to firefighter union leaders either; they filed an unfair labor practice complaint last week over the department's continued refusal to meet over problems with the tattoo policy.

But I am surprised.

Barry was brought in, after all, to bust up the department's "code of silence" culture and restore fire station dignity.

Will it take a letter from a lawyer to make him listen?

sandy.banks@latimes.com

This was written in September but I thought it was interesting and so I posted it. Below are links to other stories about tattoo policies and professionalism.

For those looking for advice, I think doughesson had the best suggestions in the Firehouse Forum:

If it is allowed to have a tattoo on your future department,I'd say go for it,but you really need to consider several items that I think are important before getting inked.If visible tattos are not allowed,then plan on not showing them at school visits(especially not the dream girl you had done while in Subic,sailor)or do not get one where it cannot be covered.
For myself,I have 4 basic rules concerning my tats that serve me well.
#1.It should be placed on a body part that can be placed on polite public display,even if it is a "covert"job.
#2.It has to mean what inspired you to get in 20 years from now,so think before getting it done.
#3.It cannot be someone's name.What if you break up and then take up with someone whose name is different?Don't need that kind of trouble.
#4.It has to be something that you can show Mom.

Other stories:
Brad Pitt Protests Los Angeles Fire Department Tattoo Policy
The Fire Department, the Mayor and Fallout over the "No Show" Tattoo Policy
Army Changes Tattoo Policy
Too Tattooed to Work?
Discussion and advice for future firefighters
9-11 Memorial Tattoos
Thoughts? Comments?

For Los Angeles Firefighters at Collision, Heroism and Reality Collide

For Los Angeles Firefighters at Collision, Heroism and Reality Collide - Firehouse.com News ROBERT J. LOPEZ, GARRETT THEROLF and SCOTT GOLD
Los Angeles Times

There was spaghetti on the stove at Fire Station 96 when the loudspeaker crackled. Right before dinner. Typical.

"Possible physical rescue," the dispatcher said. In firefighter-speak, it was a run-of-the-mill call that gets the emergency response rolling but usually translates into little more than a car wreck. The voice was cold, detached -- numb from the job, perhaps, but also trained to keep emotion at bay.

Los Angeles Fire Capt. Alan Barrios, a brawny, soft-spoken man and a father of three who has been in the business for 32 of his 54 years, climbed aboard his rig with two firefighters and an engineer, his entire engine company. Among the four of them, they'd been on the line for 77 years.

Four minutes after the call, just before 4:30 p.m. Friday, they pulled up to the Chatsworth house where a resident had called 911, at the end of Heather Lee Lane. Barrios could see the smoke now. He sprinted to the back of the house and stared through a chain-link fence. This was no car wreck.

"We are on scene," Barrios barked into his radio. "We have a train collision."

The rescue effort that would unfold from that moment would involve hundreds of firefighters, law enforcement officers and others and would shock the senses of even the most hardened veterans.

By Saturday, as the death toll rose to 25, two parallel narratives had emerged from the mangled cars.

There had been moments of astonishing heroism. An off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who survived the crash helped numerous victims get out, despite a broken collarbone, a collapsed lung, a puncture wound in his thigh and a broken hand. Deputy John Ebert, 54, a court bailiff, was in critical but stable condition Saturday evening.

There had been moments of heartbreaking reality, too -- when rescue workers trying to tunnel their way through the wreckage encountered industrial-strength metal that broke their cutting tools; when firefighters were forced to face the fact that for some trapped inside, there was no hope.

And hope, Barrios would say later, "is what keeps us going."

First on the scene

Barrios and his crew cut through the fence and raced for the wreckage. The captain was on his radio as they approached.

The scene started to come into relief. Send five ambulances, he said at first. He got closer and saw the flames. Send 30 firetrucks, he added. Then he was there. The Metrolink engine seemed to be missing. In the head-on crash, a Union Pacific engine had shoved it violently inside the first passenger car, which was lying grotesquely on its side. Two dozen passengers had emerged from the wreckage; some, dazed, were walking in circles against a curtain of black smoke.

Barrios made his last request: Send every heavy search-and-rescue unit in the city.

Kevin Nagel, one of Barrios' firefighters, had helped lug in 600 feet of hose. He had his eye on two 1,000-gallon diesel tanks from the Union Pacific engine. "If those things blow," Nagel told himself, "we're going to lose a lot of people." He and another firefighter began beating back the flames.

Barrios began racing from car to car. More passengers were trying to climb free.

"I had a lot of people yelling at me -- about the fire, about the dead," he said. "They wanted to get out."

Barrios pleaded with them to stay inside. It will be easier to establish a triage center, he told them, if all victims are in one place. But there was a concession, too, in his message; he knew that until the cavalry arrived, he would need to enlist passengers who were relatively unscathed to assist with those who were worse off.

'Help me'

Battalion Chief Joe Castro, a 30-year veteran, arrived several minutes later. He was relaying his initial impressions on his radio when he felt a tug on his leg. It was a victim who had crawled out. Part of his skull was crushed. "Help me," the man said, and Castro did.

"It was the worst thing I'd ever seen," Castro said later.

With the fire under control, Nagel, now joined by several firefighters and a sheriff's deputy, found a door of the front passenger car, the one that absorbed the worst of the impact. "We didn't know what to expect," he said. He shouted inside: "We're right here! We're going to get you out!"

Nagel was no rookie; in his 18-year career he had responded to the Northridge earthquake in 1994, to the Glendale-area crash in 2005 that was, at the time, the deadliest in Metrolink history. But what he found inside, amid the smoke and crumpled metal, was devastating. He began to make dismal calculations. Two or three could be extracted quickly. Six or seven were dead.

"About eight or 10," Nagel said, "were alive but weren't going to make it."

Barrios lives in Moorpark; many of the crash victims, he figured, lived in his community. One man screamed for help; all they could see was his hand sticking out from under another passenger's body. Others were shouting: "Get me out! Get me out!"

"You know these people were going home to their families," Barrios said. "But they're not going home."

On one level, it wasn't a complex mission. "You've got to get them out of there and you've got to get them to the hospital," Barrios said. But he knew it would be more complicated than that.

'Organized chaos'

Rescuers pulled the first two victims out of the front car relatively easily, by throwing aside seats and pulling away wreckage with their hands. Saving anyone else -- even getting to anyone else -- would prove more difficult.

Only one other victim was even partly accessible, a man in his late 40s, his brown boots sticking out from the mangled seat that had trapped him. The man was able to speak, albeit softly because of the pressure on his chest. It took half an hour for rescue workers to cut through an air conditioning unit and a table to get him out, but that man was expected to survive.

It only got harder from there. At one point, the cutting tips of one crew's "jaws of life" broke as firefighters cut through sheets of high-density metal. They had to bring in special saws with diamond-tipped blades.

Not far away, officials were turning a school parking lot into an instant airport, with heliports, fuel trucks and the equivalent of an air-traffic control center.

Helicopters ferried dozens of people to hospitals as others landed with search-and-rescuers carrying "go kits" -- bags packed with lights, devices that allowed them to listen through walls for struggling victims, crowbars and hand-held jacks designed to peel apart distended metal.

The air was thick with the stench of fuel and the noise was deafening -- helicopters, trucks rumbling through the hills. Dogs scoured the cars, trying to find survivors. Rescuers hung powerful spotlights from cranes at dusk.

"It looked and sounded like it came out of a movie," said Searcy Jackson III, a firefighter who reported to the scene from Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks. "It didn't look real."

Rescuers went on "autopilot," said Los Angeles Police Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell. He described it as "organized chaos."

"There was so much to do in such a short time frame," McDonnell said. "The thing I'm left with is a tremendous tragedy, of course, but also an acknowledgment of the training and the relationship that exists among first responders. It was critical. And in this case it saved many lives."

Feverish work

They could not, of course, get to everyone in time.

Jackson, the firefighter from Sherman Oaks, arrived about half an hour after the crash and joined a crew that worked feverishly to free a man. At first, all they could see was his hand and part of his torso. Using saws, cutters and spreaders, they were able to wiggle him free.

"It seemed like it was going fast," Jackson said. "It was probably going slow."

When the man was finally freed from the wreckage, it was clear he was going to survive. He thanked the rescuers, but few other words were exchanged. The team moved on. Though Jackson was at the accident site for seven more hours, that man was the only survivor he helped extract.

"You never think you're going to come to a call like this," Jackson said.

Within a few hours of the initial call, the moaning inside the cars had faded away. The Engine 96 crewmen started thinking about their own families; Nagel thought of his wife and three kids.

"It puts a lot of perspective on the little world you're living in," he said.

On Saturday, part of the crew was back at the site, still searching for victims.

"Everybody's numb," Barrios said. "It takes a few days to know what you went through."

Related: California Train Crash Leaves 25 Dead, 138 Injured

WTC 102 Minutes that Changed America

This interactive map presents unfiltered video captured by nine
different eyewitnesses from 10 locations around the World Trade
Center on the morning of September 11th.

Special Premiere
Thu. 9/11 @ 9pm/8C

In this commercial-free special, discover rarely seen and heard archives that document the 102 minutes between the first attack on the World Trade Center to the collapse of the second tower.

>> Watch a preview

Listen to radio broadcasts from regional radio stations as the events occurred on that tragic day.
Fire chief, Richard Picciotto, shares his amazing story of rescue and survival.
What is the master plan for Ground Zero? Hear what Daniel Libeskind envisions for the site.

Family of man burned in car seeks apology from fire department

by John Tunison | The Grand Rapids Press HASTINGS -- The sight was horrific to Johnny Montes -- his father-in-law's scorched remains in the blackened shell of a burned car.

He cannot fathom how Hastings firefighters missed making the grim discovery when they extinguished the driveway car fire Friday morning, then cleared the scene after leaving a note on the door advising about insurance notifications.

"You couldn't miss it," an incredulous Montes said Tuesday. "There was no way of overlooking (the remains). There was no possible way."

The remains of Paul E. Bailey Sr., 62, were discovered in the driver's seat of a Monte Carlo by his daughter about 2 1/2 hours after the Hastings Fire Department left Bailey's home on Far Away Drive in Rutland Township.

Michigan State Police at the Hastings post are investigating the death as fire officials conduct an internal review of the incident, trying to determine how the remains were missed.

Fire Chief Roger Caris, who was not at the fire, defended his department Tuesday. He said a badly burned body, particularly one exposed to extreme heat and flames, might be difficult to recognize.

"The car was totally destroyed," Caris said.

Caris was told that firefighters did examine the car before leaving the scene and even tried to find the vehicle identification number. He believes they opened the car door to look inside.

"We always check everything over to make sure the fire is out," he said. "They looked in the windshield."

But Montes, who is married to Bailey's daughter, Renee, said he could see Bailey's skull and other bones inside the car. The disturbing mental images have caused sleeping problems, and Montes said both he and his wife are on medication.

"It's killing us," he said.

Autopsy results were not available Tuesday, but Montes questioned whether Bailey might have suffered a heart attack and dropped a cigarette inside the car. The vehicle was parked near the house and the fire melted the siding.

Bailey, who operated Bailey's Concessions and owned several concessions trailers, was the only one home when the fire started. Montes was waiting for Bailey to arrive at a Gun Lake restaurant that Bailey was trying to sell. They planned to show the restaurant to a prospective buyer that morning.

"He had those people coming, and I know he wouldn't have missed it," said Montes, who eventually went looking for Bailey.

He believes fire officials should apologize.

"They haven't even said they made a mistake," Montes said. "They are making excuses."

Should they apologize? What do you think?

California neglected to save for a fiery day

California neglected to save for a fiery day

Seems to me they are funding the wildland fires with the Reserve account. Un-freakin-believable. Click the link above to read the whole story and look at the difference between what they are funding and what they are actually using! For last two years the budget for firefighting was $82 million...costs however were $392 & $206 million, respecively. And those weren't unusual years! Seems to me the State has a case of "It's Not Going to Happen to Me"...even though it does happen to us, year after year!

California spent a record $392 million fighting fires across the state in the fiscal year that ended Monday, burning another hole in the state's already strained finances and forcing officials to dip into shrinking cash reserves to pay firefighting bills.

The amount is by far the highest in the past decade, and it will likely get worse with wildfires in 27 areas of the state already burning early in the fire season.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared emergencies in 11 counties, including Monterey, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara, a necessary move to free up more state funds to fight fires.

"We always will be in a position to aggressively respond to any disaster in California regardless of the cost," said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the governor.

In the past decade, however, the state has not budgeted enough funds to fight wildfires. In every year but one, the state has had to dip into cash reserves to pay firefighting costs.

"That's what reserves are for," said Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee. "We always make sure that there's enough money for firefighting regardless of what's in the rest of the budget."

Newport/Mesa Firefighters Provide Southern Support

Daily Pilot - Serving Newport Beach & Costa Mesa, CaliforniaAnother local strike team undergoes training before heading to Butte County, where they will help its firefighters battle flames.

More than 20 Orange County firefighters stood Wednesday at the base of a burnt-out fire training building across the street from Angel Stadium with a week’s worth of supplies at their feet, less than a day from being thrown into the fight that has occupied thousands of their coworkers for the last week across California.

Five of them, Costa Mesa firefighters, joked and jawed with Del Taco breakfast burritos in their hands and sleeping bags, sacks full of clothes, and a pile of firefighting jackets and helmets curbside, waiting for the bus that would take them 500 miles north to Butte County.

The men are part of a county strike team — a group of more than 20 firefighters and five trucks sent on a mission. Costa Mesa firefighters have been traveling up and down the state for nearly a month now, ever since the Humboldt Fire started up there in early June. It seemed that the Humboldt Fire was nothing but a warm-up for what firefighters across the state have had to deal with since hot, dry weather and lightning strikes ignited virtually all of Northern California.

The men said they’re not fazed by the scale of the fight. After all, they’ve trained for this, they said.

“It’s a 12-hour drive,” said Darren Desluiter. “We’re sleeping on cots. Then a 12-hour drive back. It’s no vacation to go through all that. But it’s not scary or anything.”

“You have a little bit of anxiety going into a situation you haven’t been in. Once you get into base, once we understand what the divisions are going to be, where we’re going to be, we go out the first time, the area we’re going to work in, you’ve got to have heightened awareness,” said Costa Mesa Battalion Chief Scott Broussard.

The men work in 24-hour shifts — one day on, one day off, officials said. Once they arrive in Butte County, they’ll receive their assignments, most likely protecting homes and buildings in the Chico and Paradise areas, Broussard said.

Newport-Mesa firefighters already in Butte County were relieved Wednesday and were expected to return home sometime at night.

The Butte County Complex Fire has burned more than 17,000 acres and was 30% contained as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Firefighters have had favorable weather for the last few days; but the layer of cool, moist air is expected to dissipate this weekend and leave hotter, drier weather that could fuel the fire, Broussard said.

Los Angeles Fire Department tattoo coverup muddles real mission - Los Angeles Times

What do you think???

Fire Department tattoo coverup muddles real mission - Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles
I might be a little nervous walking past Carlos Caceres on the street, tattoos covering his beefy arms and the back of his hands and creeping up his neck from beneath his shirt.

But what would I think if Capt. Caceres rolled up to my burning house in a fire truck?

That question is at the heart of a new controversy in the Los Angeles City Fire Department -- one that is rekindling smoldering tensions by making tattooed firefighters the butt of jokes.

At issue is a policy the department announced this spring, requiring firefighters with tattoos to cover their body art whenever they are on duty.

For many that's an easy order to follow; their uniform sleeves reach to their elbow creases.

But for hundreds of firefighters like Caceres, that means wearing long-sleeved shirts, turtlenecks, long pants, even gloves, around the clock. It's not just when the fire bell rings, but inside the fire station when they train, eat, exercise and sleep.

It's a "grooming issue," said Capt. Armando Hogan, spokesman for Chief Douglas Barry. "We need to make sure we're professional-looking. We've got an image to uphold."

Image?

This is a department that recently cost the city $16 million in payoffs to firefighters who've been insulted, harassed and discriminated against on the job. And they're worried that people will think they're unprofessional because a guy has his kids' names inked on his arm or flames crawling up his neck?

Give me a department full of guys like Caceres, an 18-year veteran who has his entire body inked with family names and faces, images of fire and comic book characters.

"I don't care what the guy next to me looks like," he told me. "Can you go into a house and pull a body out? Can you tie the right knot to get a guy off a cliff? That's what matters."

Or John O'Connor, a 20-year veteran whose forearms are covered with tattooed tributes to other firefighters. "When I show up on an emergency call, I don't think anybody's saying, 'I don't want the tattooed guy to touch Grandma.' "

I think he's right. When I see tattoos on a firefighter, I'm inclined to think "strong and bold," somebody who'll rescue me or my daughters from danger.

The LAFD brass and firefighters' union have been haggling over tattoo proposals for years.

The union and an independent fact-finding panel backed a ban on profane or offensive tattoos, or those that might imply gang ties and threaten fire crews' safety in the field. That makes sense to me.

But the department instead required that all tattoos be covered all the time.

The union has filed a grievance because the policy is being enforced haphazardly. Some battalion chiefs are patrolling dorms, making sure tattooed firefighters sleep in shirts and pants. Others, said union vice president Jon McDuffie, "are using common sense."

"You've got a guy who's been in the Marine Corps, has the tattoos, has been on this department for 20 years. And now all of a sudden he looks unprofessional? In Los Angeles . . . where you've got doctors with dreadlocks, earrings and tattoos?"

Honestly, I'm not a tattoo fan. I'm still wrestling with my teenage daughters over the issue, trying to persuade them not to permanently mark up their bodies with literary quotes, flowers and Tinkerbells.

But the Fire Department's coverup decree strikes me as impractical, unsafe and imposed so ham-handedly, I can almost smell the lawsuits brewing.

When Chief Barry was promoted to the top job last year, his mission was to restore the department's good name and calm internal hostilities.

Instead, his new policy could reduce the pool of recruits and has already trashed morale among veterans and sparked a new round of hazing.

Stories of crude jokes and pranks targeting tattooed firefighters are making the rounds.

"It's frustrating," one firefighter told me. He has to wear long sleeves in the station to cover his arms. "Guys come over and say, 'Boy, it sure is hot, isn't it? I hear it's going to be hotter tomorrow.' You hear a lot of that, and after a while it gets to you. You feel like you're being singled out, made fun of."

Hogan said he hadn't heard about the allegations. "It's a little uncomfortable for some folks in the field. I understand that," he said Thursday from his air-conditioned office. "The policy will be reviewed to see if it's as impractical as people are claiming."

So, while the city was baking in record-breaking, triple-digit, tinderbox heat, he was contemplating whether forcing tattooed firefighters to wear long sleeves is "meeting the needs of the citizens."

As a citizen, let me tell you what would meet my needs: A fire department that focuses more on firefighters' competence than the ink on their skin.

The Associated Press: Water pressure blamed for Universal Studios damage

The Associated Press: Water pressure blamed for Universal Studios damage
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. (AP) — Authorities will try to determine Monday whether the blaze that destroyed some of Hollywood's most famous backdrops was made worse by low water pressure and an overwhelmed sprinkler system.

At one point, Sunday's fire at Universal Studios was two city blocks wide, and low water pressure forced firefighters to get reserves from lakes and ponds on the 400-acre property. The blaze was contained to the studio's back lot, but it took firefighters more than 12 hours to extinguish it.

"The water pressure situation was a challenge," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman said. "This fire moved extremely fast."

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said authorities would investigate the water problems to see if they reflect a larger shortfall in the area.

"There's no question that there was a lack of adequate water pressure at least in the perception of a lot of firefighters," he said. "We're going to find out what the problem was."

In addition, the sprinkler system on the outdoor sets was nearly useless, Freeman told the Los Angeles Times for Monday's editions.

The cause of the blaze had not yet been determined.

Universal Studios Fire

Click here to watch the video

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. - A massive fire raged on a back lot at Universal Studios early Sunday, devouring several movie sets, including mock New York and New England streets. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Daryl Jacobs said at least one building had burned and as many as three blocks of movie facades were destroyed. Though the fire was contained, it was still raging, Jacobs said.

"The facades are constructed of heavy timber and they tend to burn quite freely," he said.

The blaze broke out just before dawn on a sound stage, fire Capt. Frank Reynoso said. A thick column of smoke rose thousands of feet into the air. For a time, firefighting helicopters swept in to drop water.

More than 100 firefighters were trying to prevent the flames from spreading to nearby brush, Reynoso said.

Universal Studios spokesman Elliot Sekuler said the theme park would open Sunday, though the studio tour would be affected by the blaze. He said filming was going on when it broke out, but had few other details about the fire.

Filming might have been going on at the time the fire broke out and there was at least one explosion, Reynoso said.

5th Fire Inspector fired for running personal errands, filing false reports.

Five Children Die in Ark House Fire

Five children who were asleep in the upstairs of a small Bentonville home died early Tuesday in a fire that swept through the home.

Fire Chief Dan White says the children's parents were in a downstairs bedroom and were awakened by a smoke alarm, but could not reach the children because of the smoke and flames.

The parents escaped from the blaze, which was reported at 1:22 a.m.

White says the fire appears to be accidental, but police served a search warrant on the home later today based on items officers saw during the initial call. Among the items seized were a space heater and a small amount of suspected methamphetamine. Officers say there was not enough meth on hand to indicate there was a lab in the home.

The children were identified as 13-year-old Kristan Frazier, 11-year-old Kimberly Frazier, 9-year-old Katelyn Mahmens, 8-year-old Kaila Frazier, and 5-year-old Kiya Frazier.

Authorities identified the father as 33-year-old Jamie Dale Frazier, and the mother as 27-year-old Kerry A. Mahmens Frazier.

The bodies of the children were being sent to the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock for autopsy. Police say the items seized during the search will also be sent to the lab to be analyzed.

Fire officials described the house as 11/2 stories, with a very narrow stairway leading to the upstairs. White says he had to turn sideways to get through to the second floor.

Spring Breaker Raped, Tossed From Balcony

ABC News: Spring Breaker Raped, Tossed From Balcony
A Panama City, Fla., hotel security guard was arrested Tuesday afternoon and charged with raping an 18-year-old student on spring break and then throwing the woman off a sixth-floor balcony, police told ABC News.

The woman survived the harrowing ordeal and is in stable condition at an undisclosed area hospital, authorities said. Her name was not released because she was the victim of a sexual assault.

Click the link above to read the rest of the story...the roofs below are probably what saved her life.

Durango Blaze Recap/Video Shows Firefighters in Explosion

The explosion was caught on tape. It happens at about :59 into to the video. It keeps running and they show them loading 2 of the firefighters into ambulances.

... fire and explosion ripped through the historic district of downtown Durango on Friday afternoon, injuring as many as seven firefighters who were on the roof of the building when it exploded.

Dave Abercrombie, spokesman for the Durango Fire and Rescue District, said the firefighters were standing on top of the Le Rendezvous Restaurant when it blew up about an hour after firefighters arrived.

David Bruzzese, spokesman for the Mercy Regional Medical Center in Durango, said seven fire and rescue personnel were brought to the hospital.

He said six were in good condition and one was in fair condition. Bruzzese said the hospital planned to admit three.

He declined to say what types of injuries the seven received.

The fire was reported about 1:39 p.m., and three buildings were ablaze when the firefighters arrived two minutes later, Abercrombie said.

In flames were the Seasons Restaurant, Le Rendezvous Restaurant and Half-Price Tees, a shop that sells T-shirts, said Abercrombie.

"We had a crew on the roof of Le Rendezvous - between six and seven firemen - when it exploded," Abercrombie said.

For the rest of the story click on the link above.

Student Paper's Fire-Alarm Article Leads Santa Ana College to Begin Hourly Patrols

Student Paper's Fire-Alarm Article Leads Santa Ana College to Begin Hourly Patrols - Chronicle.com

Student Paper's Fire-Alarm Article Leads Santa Ana College to Begin Hourly Patrols
Santa Ana College has begun hourly fire patrols in seven buildings because their fire alarms are not working — and in some cases have been broken since 2005, according to the Orange County Register.

Problems with the alarms were revealed last week by the community college’s student newspaper, El Don. Subsequently the board of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, of which the college is a part, met in emergency session to begin the process of buying a new central alarm system for the campus. In the meantime, the college is seeking parts to repair the existing alarm systems in individual buildings. Repairs are expected to take about a month.

El Don reported that alarms in some buildings had been switched to a “silent” mode, rather than getting needed repairs, and that in the gym alarms were not working and water lines leading to fire hoses had been disconnected. College officials said the general counsel’s office had begun an investigation aimed at finding out who is to blame for the alarm failures.

But why stop there???

Fire alarms broken at Santa Ana College: Some officials knew of problem for two years.

SANTA ANA - Fire alarms are not working at seven buildings at Santa Ana College as part of a longstanding problem that was known but not addressed, officials confirmed this week.

Until the alarms are fixed, the buildings are on manual "fire watch" during which a security guard manually patrols looking for problems at least once an hour while people are in the buildings.

College trustees were not told about the broken alarms which in some cases date back to 2005 and originally involved as many as 11 buildings, said John Hanna, president of the board of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, which operates the college.

"We're furious about this," Hanna said. "People in management were informed and nothing was done."

The seven buildings on manual fire watch are the Cook Gym, Hammond Hall, Phillips Hall, the Library, and the Administration, Fine Arts, and Security buildings, officials said.

The issue became public this week only after the El Don college newspaper published an investigative story about the system. The district board held an emergency meeting Tuesday night to approve a request for bids for a new alarm system which could take as much as two years to install.

Meanwhile, parts are being sought to fix the antiquated, standalone, bell-type fire alarms and they should all be fixed in about a month, officials said.

"Everything will be functional within the next 20 to 30 days," college President Erlinda Martinez said. "Each building will have 100 percent of its alarms functioning."

Martinez said she only found out about the problem "a few weeks ago" during a meeting of the campus facilities committee.

The problems came to light in 2005 and 2006 inspection reports, but there are no records that anything was ever done with the information. Campus safety officials told the El Don campus newspaper they had reported the problems but repairs were not made.

Minutes from previous facility committee meetings over the last two years do not show any mention of problems with fire alarms, despite written reports about them.

In some cases, problems with the bells ringing caused officials to simply disable them instead of repairing them.

A May 2006 inspection report shows not only rusted and non-working alarms, but also many panels that had dead batteries and other routine maintenance that had not been performed.

The El Don reported that alarms in two buildings had been switched to "silent mode" rather than having been repaired.

The paper also reported that alarms inside Cook Gymnasium, scene of large athletic events attended by hundreds, are not working and its fire hoses were disconnected from water lines.

An investigation by the college's general counsel's office is underway to determine what happened and who is at fault, officials said.

The college had money to make the repairs from hundreds of millions in bond money that the district had acquired for building construction and renovations. Thirty million dollars of that pool was used to build a new sheriff's academy that recently opened.

The problem seemed to have been related to a decision to replace the standalone ringing alarm bells with a new technology that will allow all the buildings to be connected to a central panel in the campus security building.

Instead of repairing broken alarms, campus staff apparently did nothing because of plans to install the new system. However, no bid requests ever went out for the new system until this week, Hanna said.

"It boggles the mind why that wasn't done," Hanna said. "Had someone come and asked us for money to get that done, we would have given it to them."

Santiago Canyon College, also operated by the same district, used deferred maintenance funding to repair its alarm system in 2005 and 2006, Hanna said.

Even in the October facilities meeting in which the issue came to light, Hanna said no mention was made of the broken alarms until a concerned faculty member brought it up.

Martinez said that the college has hired Pyro-Comm of Huntington Beach to make temporary repairs on the standalone system and will seek bids to install a modern system called "Notifier."

It is against state law for classroom buildings to not have working fire alarms.

Santa Ana Fire Marshal Lori Smith said the city is aware of the problem and that the college voluntarily proposed the plan to have a security officer patrol buildings hourly whenever students are present.

"They are under notice to repair the existing system and get it working," Smith said.

Martinez said that college officials are also looking into reports there may be problems with sprinkler systems and water hydrant pressure. "We are following up on everything that was brought up," she said.

But wait! There is more!

Faulty fire alarms at Santa Ana College put thousands at potential risk:

The alarms have been broken since 2005, according to contractor reports. 'Something's rotten, trustee board president said, 'and we're going to find out about it.'
Seven buildings at Santa Ana College, including the administration offices and the library, have faulty fire alarms, placing thousands of students, faculty and staff in potential danger.

The alarms have been broken since at least June 2005, according to reports given to the school at that time by a contractor the college hired. Some have broken handles, others do not ring, and at least one was turned off because it would not stop sounding.

The Rancho Santiago Community College District has hired a law firm to find out why nothing was done for more than two years after reports documented the problems.

"It is an unacceptable practice to compromise the safety of our students or visitors," said Board of Trustees President John Hanna, who called an emergency meeting Tuesday for trustees to pass a resolution to repair the alarms. "Inspectors don't issue reports just for the fun of doing it. Somebody knew about this and made a conscious decision not to do anything about it. Clearly something's rotten in Denmark, and we're going to find out about it."

Inspections completed in 2005 and 2006 revealed widespread problems with the college's 1960s equipment, citing several buildings that lacked working fire alarms.

In some of those cases, campus security would not have known if there were a fire because the system makes noise only in the building where the alarm is pulled and does not alert authorities. The campus security building is one of those where the alarms don't work.

The college district in 2003 earmarked $400,000 in state maintenance funds to go toward replacing Santa Ana's nearly obsolete fire alarm system, but four years later, the overhaul has not been started.

The problems came to the attention of top district officials last month. Short-term repairs approved at the board meeting, expected to cost $68,000, should be completed in about a month. Meanwhile, security guards at the college have started a fire-watch program and hourly are patrolling buildings without alarm coverage. Other buildings without working alarms include the gym, the fine-arts building and the theater.

Three portable classrooms also had broken alarms, but they recently were fixed.

"I'm not sure whether it was a communication thing, a process thing, or an individual person thing," district Chancellor Eddie Hernandez said. "This should not have taken this length of time to solve it. There are plenty of people in retrospect that dropped the ball." Santa Ana Fire Department officials, who annually review the college for fire code violations, do not inspect fire alarms but rely on the college to hire a contractor to ensure they are working.

The college's fire alarms date to about 1966, making replacement parts nearly impossible to find, according to a contractor's report this month.

Officials said the district will replace the old alarm system with one that will notify security staff of fires and include loudspeakers and strobe lights.

It could take as long as two years before the new system, expected to cost between $1.5 and $2 million, is installed.

Santa Ana College President Erlinda Martinez said she did not learn of the broken fire alarms until inspectors brought it to the college's attention again last month. She declined to state which college officials had known about the broken alarms in 2005, saying only that reports about the alarms "didn't rise to the level to where we took action."

Hernandez , the district chancellor, said he was certain some school administrators knew about the problem. "This is a classic case of something falling through the cracks, but safety should come to the top of everyone's list."

Santiago Canyon College, which is part of the same community college district, finished replacing its alarm system in 2005, after two years of construction at a cost of $247,000.

Mandatory Drug Testing Considered for Boston Firefighters

Mandatory Drug Testing Considered for Boston Firefighters - Firehouse.com News
Wow!! What do you think about this???

All Boston firefighters should undergo random drug and alcohol testing and be pushed to get and remain in shape, according to recommendations by a panel formed after two firefighters died in a restaurant blaze, according to a draft copy of the report obtained by the Herald.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino is expected to discuss the 22-page report during a briefing at 10:30 a.m. today at City Hall.

Autopsy reports revealed West Roxbury firefighter Warren Payne had traces of cocaine in his system and Paul Cahill had alcohol in his system, according to officials briefed on the results of the autopsies. Cahill and Payne died battling a fire Aug. 29 at the Tai Ho Chinese restaurant in West Roxbury.

The mandatory drug testing recommendation would have to be negotiated with the city's firefighter's union, which in the past has blocked such testing.

The panel, convened after the autopsy results were made public, wrote that fire department cooperation is crucial.

"We can design the most effective drug and alcohol testing policy imaginable, but it will be worthless if it is not actively supported by the department," they wrote.

Perhaps the most unique recommendation is that a committeee, including union, city and fire officials would be tasked with implementing the seven recommendations.

Firefighters Local 718 president Ed Kelly was unavailable for comment this morning.

The following are the seven recommendations contained in a draft report provided to the Herald:

1. Establishment of a "strategic planning committee" made up of fire department, city and union leadership to implement recommendations

2. Reorganize and augment the fire commissioner's civilian staff so the commissioner has three deputy commissioners focused on administration and finance; planning and organizational development; and labor and management

3. Institution of "accepted management and oversight practices" by the commissioner and fire chief

4. The department should establish a "credentialed professional development academy" program with specific curricula developed for company and chief-level officers

5. The deapartment should offer classes to help department members prepare for promotional exams as a way of nurturing new leaders and promoting a "diverse departmental leadership."

6. Immediate steps should be taken to improve the health, fitness and wellness of Boston firefighters by establishing a "comprehensive health, fitness and wellness program."

7. Random drug and alcohol testing for all Boston Fire personnel in "safety-sensitive positions" from the commissioner to entry-level firefighters.

The panel reviewed the department's policies and procedures dealing with supervision, accountability and "substance abuse and impairment," among other things, according to the report.

Panelists were James M. Channon, president and CEO of the National Fire Protection Association, Dr. Sheila Chapman, Boston Medical Center addiction and medicine professor, and Craig P. Coy, president and CEO of Homeland Security Group.