Fire Department

400 passengers had to be evacuated from a stalled train on an elevated section of the Market-Frankford El this morning. There was no fire, no one was in jeopardy, and no one was injured, said SEPTA spokeswoman Heather Redfern. "It was a mechanical issue," she said. After the westbound train become immobile about 7:15 a.m. between the Erie-Torresdale and Tioga stations, the fire department determined that the best course of action was to use another train to evacuate the passengers.

Remember the Fire Department report that came out earlier this year, the one recommending that labor and management play nice if they want to solve their problems with the city? Bill Gault, president of Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Firefighters, may now be trying to take that advice to heart. But only after he nearly got into another public dustup with City Hall. In the aftermath of the tragic fire in Kensington on April 9 that killed Lt. Robert Neary and Firefighter Dan Sweeney, emotions were raw among members of the department, Gault said last week.

NEITHER of the two Philadelphia homes destroyed by fire Sunday and Monday, leaving three adults and three children dead, had functioning smoke alarms. In fact, 27 of last year's 32 fire fatalities occurred in buildings without smoke detectors, or with detectors with dead or missing batteries, according to the Fire Department. Anyone who can't afford a detector can call the smoke-alarm hot line at 215-686-1176 to get a free one from the city. "We ensure that our Fire Department personnel get out there and install the alarm immediately," said Executive Chief Richard Davison.

On Chancellor Street in West Philadelphia, where neighbors describe one another as "like family," one member loomed particularly large: Seneca "Chuck" McClendon, a retired postal worker who kept potted plants and flowers by his front door and swept the block clean every morning. McClendon, 75, was aware of the hazards near the 5200 block of Chancellor, residents said. He blocked off access to the alleyway next to the house so crackheads and burglars couldn't sneak into the backyard, put his grandson on a bus for day care each day, and always kept an eye out for his neighbors.

THE INVESTIGATION into the Kensington fire that killed two firefighters Monday could take more than a week, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said Wednesday. "There are tons and tons of rubble in there, beams partially burned," Ayers said of the former five-story Thomas W. Buck Hosiery warehouse, at Jasper and York streets. "All of those things have to be carefully examined. . . . It's a very arduous process. " He said that it was important to first get a crane at the site to remove hazardous material there.

Bill Gault, the leader of Philadelphia's firefighters union, doesn't yet know whom to blame for the five-alarm fire that killed two firefighters when the wall of a vacant mill collapsed on them Monday morning. As funeral arrangements were being made Tuesday for Lt. Robert P. Neary and firefighter Daniel Sweeney, questions remained about whether the city or the building's owners should have taken responsibility for its dilapidated condition. "The problem is the Fire Department gets caught in the middle," said Gault, president of Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

The neon orange notice on the front door of the Divine Lorraine Hotel on North Broad Street - declaring "repair or demolish" - set off alarm bells for preservationists. Was the city going to bring down the bedraggled, yet beloved, historic hotel? Fear not, said Deputy Mayor Alan Greenberger. It's all just an attempt by the city's Department of Licenses and Inspection to make the building more secure. In the aftermath of Tuesday's fire at the abandoned and blighted Divine Lorraine, L&I is sealing off the building to discourage vandals.

William F. Strube Sr., 96, a retired battalion chief with the Philadelphia Fire Department, died Sunday, Feb. 26, at Sterling House Assisted Living in Deptford. Mr. Strube graduated from Olney High School in 1934 and worked at several jobs until joining the Fire Department in 1940, where he served for the next three decades. In addition to his firefighting duties, he demonstrated ladder maneuvers at the annual Thrill Show to benefit families of firefighters and police officers. In 1948, when he was a lieutenant, he responded in the Evening Bulletin on the editorial page to a reader who complained that firefighters were uneducated and not worth the $3,500 a year they were then paid.