Firefighters

  What's a tiny volunteer fire company in Bensalem doing with a $1 million taxpayer-funded fireboat tricked out to troll the Delaware River for blazes, bodies, terrorists, and IEDs? Nothing, besides preening for festival crowds and crashing into objects seen and unseen. The tale of how the dysfunctional Union Fire Company won a wad of Homeland Security money to buy a state-of-the-art terror-taming boat screams post-9/11 planning at its nuttiest. The volunteers' bold play to dabble in regional law enforcement has soured relations with Bensalem's paid police department.

Alma and Angel Arroya get food for Christmas from firefighters at the Norris Square Community Center. Fire Commissioner Roger M. Ulshafer and other Philadelphia firefighters distributed meals to 200 low-income families as part of the Fire Department's Outreach Program. Dinners included roasting chicken, vegetables, stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes and dessert.

Firefighters from the Merion Fire Company of Ardmore move garment racks up Greenfield Avenue to their new station house. The company had been quartered in a tent.

Five firefighters were hospitalized after suffering electrical shocks while fighting a blaze in South Philadelphia Thursday afternoon, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said. The rowhouse fire occurred near the corner of Garnet and McKean Streets around 5 p.m., Ayers said. Three firefighters were transported to Hahnemann University Hospital and the other two were taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Ayers said the firefighters would be kept overnight for observation as a precaution.

After years of debate, Willingboro will be hiring two professional firefighters to add to its volunteer staff of approximately 70. Township manager Sadie Johnson said the firefighters, who are to drive trucks to daytime calls, were expected to begin work before the end of August, as soon as they passed their physical exams. Each firefighter will receive $26,374 a year, the same starting salary as for a township police officer. That the township hire professional firefighters was "the recommendation of the fire company commissioners who came in at budget time and talked to us about the problems they were having with daytime calls," Mayor Doreatha Campbell said.

Two years ago, a Camden firefighter pulled a charred man from a Liberty Street fire, leaving blood on the firefighter's hands and face. The firefighter, who now suffers from Hepatitis B, suspects he may have contracted the disease from the victim's body fluids and blood. But, because the fire victim died, there is no way to prove that the firefighter contracted the disease on the job. And the firefighter, who declined to be identified, still has relapses of the disease, becoming jaundiced and weak.

Five firefighters were hospitalized after their vehicle overturned Wednesday night in Burlington County, authorities said. Their injuries were not life-threatening. The accident occurred at 7:33 p.m. at Route 38 and Smithville Road in Lumberton, authorities said. The vehicle was identified as Engine 1311 of Lumberton Fire Company No. 1. The firefighters were transported to Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mount Holly and Lourdes Medical Center in Willingboro. There was no immediate word on the cause of the accident.

The days of fire poles, dalmations and clanging bells are over. Today's firefighters could soon be banned from riding on the backs of the hook and ladders. In response to a federal government recommendation, West Chester's Goodwill Fire Company has bought a former ambulance and will convert it into a "firefighter transporter. " David Smiley of the Goodwill Fire Company said he expects the recommendation to be passed into a law that would require all firefighters to be wearing seat belts to and from fires.

I am a City of Philadelphia firefighter. I am writing this letter in regard to Mayor Rendell's proposal to City Council and the PICA board that all city workers take a pay freeze for four years and accept cuts in their health and holiday benefits. This letter is not the view of the Fire Department nor its employees. It is not my intention to express the department's views on this proposal, but to give a personal opinion. Why do city employees have to make the biggest sacrifices?

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A Colorado sheriff said firefighters "are getting the upper hand" on the most destructive wildfire in state history Saturday, an announcement that came as authorities gained a clearer picture of the grim landscape the blaze has left behind. No additional homes were destroyed as fire crews expanded containment lines, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said. Also, there were no new reports of injury or death, he said. The fire that exploded Tuesday outside of Colorado Springs, amid record-setting heat and tinder-dry conditions, has destroyed nearly 500 homes and killed two people, whose bodies were found inside their garage Thursday, their car doors open as though they had been about to flee.

JEMEZ SPRINGS, N.M. - Fire crews in New Mexico on Saturday fought two growing wild blazes that have scorched thousands of acres, spurred evacuation calls for dozens of homes and poured smoke into the touristy state capital. State officials said the uncontained blaze near Santa Fe had spread to 8 square miles, leaving the city under a blanket of haze. The thick smoke also covered the Gallinas Canyon and the New Mexico city of Las Vegas. The fire in New Mexico's Santa Fe National Forest is burning just 25 miles from the city, prompting the Red Cross to set up an emergency shelter at a nearby high school.

Firefighters identified HOUSTON - One firefighter remained hospitalized in critical condition Saturday, a day after a massive motel and restaurant fire killed four of his fellow firefighters. Houston Fire Department spokesman Jay Evans said Saturday that other injured firefighters had been released overnight, but he did not have a precise count. The fire broke out at a restaurant connected to the Southwest Inn along a busy freeway, and was the deadliest in the 118-year history of the department.

HOUSTON - Four firefighters searching for people they thought might be trapped in a blazing Houston motel and restaurant Friday were killed when part of the structure collapsed and ensnared them, authorities said. At least five other firefighters were hospitalized in the blaze that became the deadliest in the 118-year history of the Houston Fire Department. Flames were shooting from the roof of the Southwest Inn, along one of Houston's most heavily traveled freeways, U.S. Highway 59, and black smoke was blanketing the area as firefighters tried to extinguish the fire.

It takes just a year for sunlight to fade a flag. The dead fade, too, if they're not remembered. And so, with flags in hand, a crew of volunteer firefighters made its way early last Sunday through Medford's three largest cemeteries, honoring the graves of those who once fought the nation's wars and the township's fires. "Is that Willits?" Butch Merefield, a past chief of Union Fire Company, asked his son as the two made their way under gray skies along the south side of Odd Fellows Cemetery.

THE NUTTER administration switched gears and has now set aside $31 million to pay for a portion of the firefighters' arbitration award that it is appealing - again. Despite concerns raised by City Council, the city controller and the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, the city's fiscal watchdog, Nutter's budget proposal had not included the costs of the award if the appeal was unsuccessful. The issue has been a major sticking point during this year's budget debate in addition to the longstanding contract disputes with the city's blue- and white-collar unions.

A Camden County jury awarded $596,000 to two Hispanic firefighters who said they were passed over for promotions because of discrimination and their persistent and public complaints about discrimination against minorities within the Camden Fire Department. Andres Nieves, 48, of Medford Lakes, and Samuel Munoz, 34, of Camden, said they were unfairly turned aside for promotion to captain in 2009. On Thursday the jury found the men also faced a hostile work environment and retaliation.

AN ELDERLY MAN found dead inside his burning home yesterday morning in Southwest Philadelphia had been shot to death, police said. Authorities are investigating Grover Edwards' death as a murder and arson, said Officer Christine O'Brien, a police spokeswoman. Edwards, 74, appeared to have been shot in the head, O'Brien said. Investigators had not found a motive or suspects yesterday. The blaze was reported at 7:30 a.m. in Edwards' rowhouse on Springfield Avenue near 59th Street, said Lt. Bernard Gilliam, a Fire Department spokesman.