STATter 911

(Updated at 6:50 PM)

Update: Second FF goes home. Panel to look at MD fire. New pictures, raw video of Rockville fire. Interview with incident commander.

The Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service reports Firefighter James Heikka was released from the hospital on Wednesday. Captain Dwayne Dutrow is more seriously injured and is expected to be in the Burn Unit at the Washington Hospital Center at least through the week. Capt. Dutrow remains in fair condition. Firefighter Mark Mechlin was released on Monday.

Chief Tom Carr announced Tuesday a panel will review Saturday's fire in Rockville that killed a resident and sent the three firefighters tumbling into the middle of the burning apartment after the floor above collapsed.

We have new pictures showing the collapse area, new raw video of the fire and interviews with Chief Carr and incident commander, Volunteer Division Chief Alan Hinde.

Click here for our coverage.

Riley will release report. Gets praise from Schaitberger.

Above is the video of the live announcement and press conference from noon on Tuesday when Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley said he will release the Routley report. The video is from WCBD-TV's noon report with Brad Franko and Dee Dee Sharp.

The mayor's decision is 180 degrees from his announcement late Friday that the report would not be made public until federal reviews of the tragic Sofa Super Store fire were completed. On Monday the mayor denied our report that his earlier decision was based on advice by lawyers concerned about liability.

The IAFF, which has been very critical of Mayor Riley since the June 18 fire, had high praise for the mayor's latest decision.

The report is now scheduled to be released on May 15.

Read more in the Post and Courier

The Franko Blog

The Colbert report

From Barton, AL in Colbert County a restaurant fire early this morning. From TimesDaily.com:

Firefighters from Barton, Cherokee, Locust Shores and Highway 247 departments were dispatched to the Kuntry Kafe at 12:56 a.m.

The restaurant is at 12558 U.S. 72 in Barton

“When we pulled up, flames were coming through the roof,” said William Hogeland, fire chief with the Barton Volunteer Fire Department.

“The entire building was involved (with fire),” he said. “The fire had burned through the roof on the southeast corner and once it got through the roof, there was no stopping it. All we could do at that point was try to contain it and keep it from spreading.”

No one was inside the building at the time and no injuries were reported.

Texas school fire

Click the image above to see raw helicopter video of a fire Tuesday night in San Antonio. Details from Chron.com:

Smoke smoldered from the roof of the Main Building on the campus of Our Lady of the Lake University Tuesday night hours after crews put out a fire.

Everyone was evacuated from the building and no injuries were reported, officials at the Catholic university said in a brief news release on the school's Web site.

The fire broke out after 7 p.m. Aerial television footage showed the flames against a backdrop of spires along the roof of the building.

Firefighters had contained the blaze before 10 p.m., university officials said.

The building houses human resources, cashier services, the sociology department and campus ministry.

The Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence founded the university in 1895, according to the school's history on its Web site. The school has offered classes since 1911, initially only for women.

Texas crash and burn

Click the image above to see raw traffic camera video From Dallas yesterday as a tractor-trailer went partially over the guard rail on I-35E and burned. The driver was not seriously injured. Read more from he Dallas Morning News.

Ohio crash video

This video is from the fire truck crash in Massillon, Ohio that killed two civilians and injured four firefighters. Read more at:

GA fire

Early video and radio traffic as first crews arrive on Dover Bluff Road in Camden County, GA on Monday.

Jackson's first black firefighter and chief dies. Took over department after 1996 shooting rampage.

A firefighter who can claim a number of historical firsts in Jackson, MS has died. Joseph Graham took over the Jackson Fire Department after one of its most tragic moments. From FortMillTimes.com:

Joseph Graham, who broke the color barrier at the Jackson Fire Department in the early 1970s and became the city's first black fire chief in 1996, has died.

Graham died Tuesday at Mississippi Baptist Medical Center. He was 68. Services are pending.

Graham died from a possible stroke or aneurysm shortly after he was in a minor traffic collision Sunday night, said his brother, Hinds County Supervisor Robert Graham.

Joseph Graham was Jackson's first black firefighter. He was named fire chief in 1996.

Graham, then assistant chief, took the job after Chief Joe Donovan resigned on the heels of a shooting rampage. Then-firefighter Kenneth Tornes walked into Central Fire Station in April 1996 and fatally shot four top fire officials.

Joseph Graham found himself in a position to put the Fire Department back together and make it better and more unified, and that's what he did, said City Councilman Kenneth Stokes.

"Anyone but Chief Graham could have divided this city forever," Stokes said. "But he brought it together."

Graham retired in 1998 after 26 years with the Fire Department.

Geezer on Wednesday

A day after he let Mike Ward shake things up by questioning whether 50 is too old to hold a hose, FireGeezer is back to somewhat less controversial topics (as if there is any topic you couldn't get a couple of firefighters to argue about). Bill Schumm has a look at FDNY's growing dispatch experiment and a fire that spread through the open-cockloft of a Michigan shopping center.

PGFD video

From West Lanham Hills VFD (Station 828). As always, with any videos we post from YouTube and LiveLeak, the language may not be suitable for the easily offended (in this case it is from a movie and not the firefighters).

# posted by Dave Statter @ 11:35 AM