STATter 911

(Update at 12:09 PM)

Up a tree: From Nassau County, FL on November 15th. Click the image above to hear a hunter's call to 911 as he is hanging upside down from a tree stand. He was that way for 3 hours until rescuers could find him and get him down. Details, here.

Note: Things are happening in pairs today, by evidence of the following 3 stories.

Second 4-alarm fire of the day in Houston

Right now (11:30 AM EST) there is fire showing from the fifth or sixth floor of a Houston hi-rise for senior citizens. Rescues have been made and the fire has gone to 4-alarms. Watch live streaming while it lasts from KRIV-TV.

Around 11:40 AM, you could see the fire being hit from a ladder pipe and it appears to be knocked down. Minutes later there was what appeared to be an elderly woman removed through a window (image is below)

Overnight Houston had a 4-alarm fire at an apartment and townhouse complex. Read details and see video of that fire, here.

Two suspicious fires in Woodbridge

Fire investigators in Prince William County are busy after two fires break out at neighboring businesses on Route 1 in Woodbridge. The initial call was around 11:45 Sunday night after police officers responding to a burglar alarm at the Meadow Farms Nursery in the eleven thousand block of Jefferson Davis Highway saw the building was on fire.About 45 minutes later a second fire began a short distance aways at the Playtime Pools & Spas.

Hazmat crews were brought into the second fire because of the chemicals inside the building. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries battling the fires. Emergency crews were forced to shut down Jefferson Davis Highway between Longview Drive and Village Drive for several hours overnight. The highway re-opened just before seven this morning.

Click the image above to see a live report from the scene.

Two fires on Druid Hill Avenue

Baltimore firefighters handled two rowhouse fires, a block apart, overnight. One in the 2100 block of Druid Hill Avenue and while that one was being handled, the second one came in for the 2000 block. The second fire went to three alarms. The image above from WBAL-TV. Click here for details.

Flea house "burnt to a crisp"

One of the homes destroyed in the weekend fires in Malibu belonged to Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. Here are the details on the $5 million home that was destroyed.

Ohio arson string

In Columbus, four fires since Wednesday are being looked at closely. Details, here.

FFs electrocuted installing antenna

Two firefighters in the Philippines, excited about the new firehouse, volunteered to install a TV antenna. Read the story, here.

Bit of a close call in PA

Good video as firefighters in Landsdowne, PA move to an exterior attack at a house fire on November 8th. It appears one firefighter had to be helped from a top floor window after being unable to use another means of egress. More info on the fire, along with pictures, can be found at Landsdownefire.com

Good water supply

No details with this one. Yacht burns, somewhere.

Klondike, MD fire

A brief video from a house on Saturday night in Allegany County, MD. Details from the Cumberland Times-News.

Second due in Marion County, FL

Marion County, Florida Station 18 is second due on a house fire on November 16th. Details from Firehouse18.com.

Trbovlje, Slovenia

I have enough problems understanding and explaining the fire politics here, so I won't begin to tell you anything about what goes on in Indiana. But I thought this was an interesting video recently posted on YouTube. Here is the description that goes with it: Found on Terre Haute city website from 6-27-06. Ex-Mayor Kevin Burke trying to fool the public on what really was going on during contract negotiations in 2006.

Painted Post

I'll admit I'm a sucker for old fire pictures. There are quite a few of them from this history of the Painted Post fire department in New York.

Speaking of old pictures


This is one of a series of pictures from a derailment and fire posted on thewatchdesk.com by OldTimer13. He says he doesn't know much about them, other than they show firefighters from Riverdale Heights (Company 13) in Prince George's County. One would think this could be on what used to be B&O's Metropolitan Branch that runs through Hyattsville and Riverdale (Now CSX and MARC uses it as its Camden Line). I've been checking the Internet and newspaper archives and haven't found anything that fits this. Anyone with info, I'd love to know more. I think I do see "DC FD" on a jacket in one of the other pictures.

Update- My old friend Bert Shaffner writes the following:

Check with the U of M fire service, in the old basic book they had a picture of a train wreck that preceded one of the chapters and I believe this is the same one. I think it was in College Park.

Bert may be onto something. In various newspaper archives there are stories from Monday, May 12, 1952 reporting an 82 car freight train that had a derailment and fire near College Park over the weekend. Here is the lead to the Washington Post article:

Traffic on the Baltimore and Ohio was restored at 3:30 p. m. yesterday, 17 hours after 21 freight cars were derailed near College Park, Md., setting off an all-night fire visible miles.

# posted by Dave Statter @ 12:09 PM