Would you say that these incidents are better left forgotten?
As you read about these various incidents please
consider this - "you have to break a few eggs to make
an omelet".
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May 30, 1986 - Tour bus rollover into the West Walker River near Walker, California - on Route 395 - 1010AM bus crashes / passing motorists assist - 1024AM sheriff's dispatch center receives first phone call reporting the incident / CHP, Medic 1, and Antelope Valley FD are dispatched to the scene - 1041AM Medic 1 arrives at the scene after an 11 mile trip through mountainous roads - an immediate request is made for an ambulance and engine from the nearby Pickle Meadow Marine Corp facility - 21 dead + ?25 injured
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November 15, 1987 - Continental Airlines Flight 1713 (a DC9) crashes on takeoff from Denver International Airport - 28 dead plus 54 survivors - 1416PM tower reports crash - 5 crash rigs with 12 men respond - 1421PM first alarm sent - 1433PM second alarm sent - 1500PM third alarm sent - mobile command post's radio was broken - too much noise at scene due to generators to use portable radios - not enough blankets - staff responding from local hospitals had only thin jackets in very cold weather - confusion about FD chain of command - 1417PM Engine 26 sent / was first offairport rig to arrive - at scene 1430PM - trouble with gate at Airport Station 2 (this 1417 time does not quite match the 1421 time given earlier but I am just quoting the NTSB report)
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April 28, 1988 - Aloha Airlines Flight 242 (a Boeing 737) suffers a violent decompression near Mauii, Hawaii - 95 souls on board - 1 flight attendant died; 8 serious injuries; 57 minor injuries; 29 people with no injuries - 1348PM Mauii Tower notified - no ambulance notified - Airport FD responds with 5 rigs - 1353PM pilot tells tower that assistance will be needed for the passengers - no ambulance is called - 1356PM pilot tells tower that they "need all the equipment you've got" - no ambulance is called - 1358PM plane lands at Mauii Airport - 1 ambulance is called - 1405PM 1 ambulance arrives and immediately calls for all remaining ambulances - 1411PM rest of ambulances arrive at the airport
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February 2, 1989 - 2 freight trains collide in Helena Montana at 0430AM - 0431AM Helena Area Comm Center notified - railroad says that they can handle the incident by themselves - 0441AM dangerous cars involved per train crewmembers - 0512AM Helena Comm Center notified that dangerous railroad cars are involved - 0513AM Helena FD dispatched to scene - civil defense radio repeater off the air due to power loss - no one manning Emergency Broadcast Radio station - ambulances not dispatched from local hospital until they hear (via a scanner) local police talking of an explosion - in the end : 3,500 people evacuated - homes in a 3 mile radius damaged after a massive explosion - to be honest, this sounds like a situation where a delayed dispatch saved a lot of firefighters' lives
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February 24, 1989 - United Airlines Flight 811 (a Boeing 747) suffers an explosive decompression off Hawaii - 345 on board - 9 ejected and killed - the plane returned to Honolulu International Airport which is protected by fire units from the Hawaii State FD and the Hickham AFB FD - both agencies operated on their own seperate radio nets - they did have the capability to communicate on a common channel but they had no procedures in place for putting the common channel into operation
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June 19, 1989 - DC10 crash at Sioux City Airport - Flight 232 - at 1516PM an explosion occured in one of their engines - they lost all hydraulic power - 1520PM requested clearance to closest airport - directions given to Des Moines Airport - 1522PM since they were headed towards Sioux City Airport they changed thier destination to Sioux City - 1600PM crashed at Sioux City Airport - 296 souls were on board - 111 died - 47 had serious injuries - 125 had minor injuries - 13 had no injuries (35 died due to smoke inhalation - 76 died due to blunt force injuries) - 1525PM the Sioux City Airport FD was notified - 5 airport rigs, 4 city rigs, and 1 ambulance responded - 1547PM Runway 31 was chosen for touchdown - uncertain if plane could reach the airport - 1559PM change to Runway 22 - rigs moved in a hurry - 1600PM crash - 1604PM first ARFF rig runs dry - 1610PM - second ARFF rig runs dry - 1610PM P18 tanker fails to resupply ARFF rigs - 1618PM two Sioux City FD pumpers resupply ARFF rigs - fire spreads to cabin
of plane - : 1525PM County Comm Center notified of potential crash - all available ambulances dispatched at 1604PM - eventually, 34 ambulances and 9 helos get to scene - 1730PM all injured parties have been removed from the crash site - so, no matter what the movies, books, and magazine articles say - the apparent truth is that when the plane crashed with 296 people on board there were zero ambulances at the airport!
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October 1991 Oakland CA - a huge wildfire burnt up 3500 single family homes and 450 apartment units - this fire was a total disaster in every sense of the word - just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong in this incident. I went over the major fire reports in detail this weekend and a couple of items caught my eye in a big way - the Oakland FD dispatch office had 6 consoles - only three were staffed on the day of the fire - with additional telephone sets and two dispatchers on each of the three radio channels, they probably could have had 12 or 15 people working in the dispatch office before the fire even got started - it would have been crowded and hot, but it would have probably made the incident go a lot smoother - the onduty Oakland chiefs knew that they were facing a very serious fire threat that day - they even made comments to that effect over the FD radio system before the fire -
they tried to get additional firefighters to report to work but they had no luck - I am surprised that the fire did not burn down 5,000 or 10,000 homes
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July 1998 - disaster drill - Logan International Airport - Boston Massachusetts - 2 minute delay in dispatching BFD units - 4 minute delay in dispatching Boston EMS units - 20 minute delay in notifying hospitals - can you imagine what is going to happen when a jet landing with 500 souls on board has a huge failure of some sort and crashes into 2 or 3 planes waiting to take off - do you think that the city of Boston can handle 2,000 critically injured/burnt patients????
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Greetings again and welcome to another edition of
"As the World Burns". Today is Feb 20, 1999.
My name is Peter Szerlag. All opinions are those of my right hand but not necessarily my left hand.
Harump!
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Malibu 1993 - Fire commanders were aware that fire weather was bad. All on-duty fire prevention staff from the LA City FD were assigned to reserve pumpers. The pumpers were formed into two strike temas of 5 pumpers each. I think that there were 4 firefighters on each pumper. The strike teams were staged at Sta 88 and Sta ?106 in the San Fernando Valley.
At some point, around noon, LA City Fire and LA County Fire dispatchers got a report of a brush fire above Topanga. LA County sent in about 10 engines and LA City sent in about 15 engines (5 regular engines + the 2 special strike teams). Somewhere along the line, the LA City Fd dispatchers called the LA County FD dispatchers and asked if their assistance was still required. Since the fire was in LA County, and since some LA County units were already at the scene, apparently the LA County dispatcher told the LA City dispatcher that the City FD units could be cancelled.
So they did!
A little while later, the LA City dispatchers were relaxing in their chairs and turned the TV on. To their complete astonishment, they say live pictures of a huge conflagration raging in Malibu. They immediately called LA County FD Dispatch and offered their services. LA County immediately requested ?15 engines.
It is quite possible that I do not have all my facts totally correct because I do not have my source materials in front of me. My source materials are the LA City FD Official Report and the LA County Fd Official Report. Now, when I was trying to research this story about a year ago, I contacted the US Fire Academy Library and requested copies of these reports. Guess what - they did not have them! This one fire burnt 300 houses and the US Fire Academy did not have a copy of the investigative report. I finally got the LA County report from them. I bet that they still dont have the LA City report on the incident.
There are other aspects of this story which are still indeterminate (fancy word huh).
I swear that I read somewhere that the first due LA County was on a simplex channel instead of the repeater radio channel. Therefore, we he called for the 2nd alarm, the dispatchers did not hear him. Can anyone confirm this? (Yeah - like thats gonna happen.)
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Altadena CA - 1993 - LA County gets call for brush fire in hills above ?Arcadia at ?0400 in morning. From what I read in the LA County FD Official Report on this fire (which burnt 300 homes), apparently the fire stayed at the one alarm level for 2 or more hours and then burnt up 300 homes. Very odd!
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Chicago - ?1886 - The Great Chicago Fire - This country has a great tradition of lousy fire dispatching! When Mrs OLearys cow kicked over the lantern after a hard night of drinking, the neighbors ran to the local store to have the store-owner pull the hook on the locked fire box. The store-owner told the RP (reporting party) that he had seen the fire rigs already go by. Sadly, they were heading for a different location. Then the fire alarm operator in the tower spotted the OLeary barn burning but the wrong box was transmitted. So units went to the wrong location. Then when units finally got to the scene, and the chief's aide was directed to go to the store and transmit the second alarm, he did so incorrectly and the fire alarm operators neve sent out the 2nd alarm until it was too late. (Again - I am probably not 100% correct in my recollections on this stuff - but I am in the ballpark).
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The point of all this - Jeez - I dont know - Pay attention to detail - Never eat spinach with a blind man - What do I know?
February 26,1999
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?1995 - Metheun MA - $300 million fire burns up fabric factory and critically burns ?12 employees - Metheun FD erases tape of all radio traffic on the fire within 31 days - perhaps it was because the Lawrence snorkel took 45 minutes to travel 1 mile to the scene and to get into operation - perhaps it was because the ambulance helos were popping up on the Lawrence FD radio channel looking for directions and no one could give them any - perhaps there is another reason - perhaps the most expensive fire in all of recorded history in the NorthEast is not important.
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?1997 - Medford MA - 6 people die in a apartment building fire across the street from a manned fire station - all victims are found within 10 feet of the front door - 2nd alarm is wrung in 5 minutes - 3rd alarm is wrung 20 minutes later - the 2nd closest fire station sends only 1 unit out of 3 manned units in the station - radio tape of the incident is never released in spite of an order from the Secretary of State's Public Records Office to do so.
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Lynn MA - February 1999 - 5 people die on top floor of 2.5 story house fire - TV news reports show no ground ladders raised to the building and only 1 aerial tower in operation (the 2nd due ladder) - there were multiple power lines strung across the front of the house and the adjacent buildings were only ?10 feet away.
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?1998 - Winchester MA - house fire claims life of 1 disabled man and critically injures his brother - electric power cord run under rug - no working smoke detectors - closest fire station responds with the 2 onduty firefighters - 2nd closest firestation responds with only 3 of 7 sleeping firefighters - paramedic/ambulance station, 1 mile away, does not respond for ?20 minutes.
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?1997 - Arlington MA - three alarm fire does extensive damage to an apartment building - closest pumper does not roll for 20 minutes - at that time it goes past the fire and 2 miles to west to cover vacant fire station (and is subsequently sent to the fire). A police officer's radio report from the occupant of the apartment of origin concerning oxygen tanks in the apartment is never relayed onto the fire radio channel by the police/fire dispatcher.
5 minutes hence, companies are blown out of apartment of origin - luckily, no injuries are incurred by the firefighters.
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Would you believe that I have heard at least 2 mayday messages over fire department radio channels that were never acted upon? Both of the messages were genuine - both of the messages were rebroadcast loud and clear by the radio repeater system - 1 of the messages was even acknowledged by a fire radio dispatcher (but she forgot to tell anyone about it).
On the other hand I have also heard other incidents where several firefighters were jumping out of windows and there were absolutely no radio messages concerning it.
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Do you doubt my veracity? Do you think that I have my facts wrong? Do you think that I am making this up? Of course you do not! You know better than I what problems occurr on a daily basis. The million dollar question is - why isn't anyone doing anything about it? Is it a good thing to sacrifice a few civilians and firefighters every once in a while? Is the USA truley a disposable nation/economy - in each and every sense of the word???
Why has not ISO in New York City replied to my 2 month old Email note requesting the statistical or scientific basis for their Public Fire Protection Ratings? Why do insurance companies charge more for a house equipped with sprinklers than without sprinklers? Why does the fire insurance industry have a built in ?5% profit margin every year? (Remember the report - "Fire Insurance - The Secret Bankers"?) Is there anyone out there doing an excellent job at protecting life and property? [Since CNN is not live with conflagrations in 20 of the USA's largest cities; then I guess that the answer is yes!]
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Have I missed anybody? - anyone want to volunteer any facts or figures. As a note of interest - in the ?9 months that I have had this site on the Internet, I have received only 3 comments about it (outside of family members) - 2 comments were positive and 1 comment was very negative - so I consider myself Presidential material!!!
I do not for a moment pretend to have all the answers. But, sadly, I do have many questions.
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Point Reyes National Seashore - ?1995 - brushfire blows into Marin County CA homes "unexpectedly" - the National Park Service review of this fire blasted their own staff for not having a fire behavior expert assigned to the fire - and this was one of the major policy changes instituted following the multiple death fire on Storm King Mtn in Colorado. Fifty expensive homes bite the dust - no deaths are caused.
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In case I forgot to tell you - I do not know anything. I am just thankful when I wake up in the morning that I am not dead and no one is firing rockets at my house.!!!
I have read that all bad news must be delivered with humor and a smile - so here goes - "A little humor is a dangerous thing" - :-) :-) :-) :-> :-> :-> :-] :-] :-]
You probably will not believe this - but as I sit here finishing up today's ?harang, there is a broken down aerial
ladder truck right outside my window - transmission trouble - cannot move the rig - that aerial had a major overhaul about 2 years ago - maybe all my negative vibes flew out the window and possessed it as it rode by!!! (Alas, Hook and Ladder 2 rode off into the sunset on the backside of a big purple Kenilworth hook.)
