Firemen

Fifteen volunteer firemen and several residents walked out of Tuesday's West Conshohocken Borough Council meeting when Council President Joseph L. Costello refused to allow their unsolicited outburst to continue. Earlier in the meeting, Jim Smith, vice president of the Geo. Clay Fire Department, submitted a letter to the council requesting that occupancy of Tower Bridge One and the Four Falls Corporate Center be delayed past the July opening until the fire department received funds promised by the developers.

It is a small, obscure footnote in Philadelphia history, but the attempt by a group of black men to form a volunteer fire company in 1818 illustrates the deep prejudice, animosity and strange mind-set that characterized whites' attitudes toward the black community in that era. During the 19th century, volunteer fire companies were a major source of male-bonding, recreation, competition, community service and pride for thousands of Philadelphia men....

I HAVE TO CONFESS that I have always resented firemen. They never have to do those unpopular things that cops do. They never seem to embarrass themselves. They never shoot anyone. It is all saving people, looking good, driving around in cool red trucks. A while ago, I met a pretty girl at a party who grabbed my arm and asked, "Are you really a police detective?" "That's right," I said, puffing up my chest and fixing her with a manly smile. "Great. Do you know any firemen?"

Three firemen suffered minor injuries in a four-alarm warehouse fire in the Holmesburg section last night. In another fire, more than 100 residents were forced from their homes early today by a five-alarm blaze at a factory in South Philadelphia. The three fireman were injured fighting a blaze at a large paper-products warehouse on State Road near Decatur Street in Holmesburg owned by Royal Pioneers Industries Inc. Heat detectors in the block-long, one-story building set off an alarm at 8:10 p.m. More than 100 firemen brought the blaze under control at 11:50 p.m. The injured firemen were treated for smoke inhalation at Hahnemann University Hospital and released, officials said.

Frustrated fire commanders listened helplessly yesterday as three men lost and trapped inside the burning Meridian Plaza building pleaded for help. "We had an urgent call from them," said Fire Commissioner Roger Ulshafer. "They said they were trapped on the 30th floor and were running out of air. They asked for permission to break a window. " Within seconds of that call, Ulshafer ordered rescue teams helicoptered to the roof of the inferno in an effort to reach the stranded team.

The heat's finally on. Too bad it took the Meridian fire disaster and the loss of three lives, but Philadelphia might finally place fire safety inspection and enforcement where it belongs - with the Fire Department. Today's inspection system is irrational, redundant and sometimes deadly. Fire Department inspectors visit nearly every block of the city annually to check commercial and multi-family buildings. The purpose of these visits is not a formal fire- or building-code inspection.

At one time, Jack Karpowicz worked in some of the busiest fire stations in the city. A 21-year veteran of the Fire Department, Karpowicz loved the thrill of the job, the camaraderie of his brethren and the personal rewards that came with saving lives. Then he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C and nearly died. Eight years and one liver transplant later, Karpowicz was out of sick time. And he had a choice: his medical benefits or his career. Today, Karpowicz still has his medical benefits and a small pension.

The bickering began with a screeching siren that alerts firemen to trouble and, at the same time, rattles the police chief's eardrums. "It's a health issue," Police Chief Ken Barnes said, his fingers plugging his ears. "It's absolutely necessary," Fire Chief Frank Farry responded. In a Bucks County town that spans a mere half-mile square, a growing feud between its two top uniformed men has hurt feelings and tested tempers far and wide. A snit over a siren. A tiff over a toilet.

Firemen sit exhausted by their equipment this morning after battling a blaze in a Rhawnhurst rowhouse that claimed the life of an 80-year-old woman. Firemen found the body of the woman, whose identity was not immediately released by police, in the living room of the home on Longshore Avenue near Large Street. The 8 a.m. fire was extinguished in 17 minutes, but not before causing heavy damage.

Radnor and Bryn Mawr firemen work to extinguish a fire at a house on Hillside Circle in Radnor yesterday. The late-morning fire began as a painter was burning paint off a home. The heat ignited roof shingles. No one was hurt in the blaze. Damage to the home was estimated at $100,000.

YOU COULD feel it, lurking there in the charred, smoldering remains of the Thomas W. Buck Hosiery building, mixed in with the bricks and ashes and the blood of firemen. Anger. The pure, unbridled anger of a community in East Kensington that reached out to the city months ago because it was worried that something terrible would happen in the enormous, vacant factory that had loomed over Jasper and York streets for an eternity. Their fears were realized early Monday morning when a five-alarm fire consumed the five-story building in a matter of hours.

A 21-year-old Delaware County volunteer firefighter was clinging to life yesterday with burns on 49 percent of his body after being trapped in a burning townhouse in Parkside. Officials at Crozer-Chester Medical Center said Chase Frost, 21, was in critical condition with second- and third-degree burns on his arms, legs and torso. He was trapped when the ceiling of a burning townhouse fell on him and rescuers were unable to pull him quickly from the blaze. A second Parkside firefighter, Daniel Brees, 20, whose burns were less serious, was on a ventilator for treatment of smoke inhalation in the critical-care unit at the same hospital.

Like an Escher drawing come to life, Pig Iron Theatre Company's nearly silent, balletic Love Unpunished creates a seemingly endless loop of stairs from the three visible flights onstage. The austere set suggests the 90 flights of stairs in the World Trade Center and the evacuation of the North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001. Nine actors portray a sampling of the more than 1,000 people who got out. Instead of the iconic photographic images of the WTC, Love Unpunished goes indoors, beginning before people inside the building knew what had happened.

BRIGHT ORANGE flames, visible as far away as Wilmington, lit up the sky around the Gulf refinery in South Philadelphia that night. On Sunday Aug. 17, 1975, an hour before dawn, a tanker was off-loading crude oil at a Gulf dock in the Schuylkill River when vapors ignited. Flames spread quickly into the tank farm, threatening to ignite some of the 600 massive steel drums, each with a capacity of up to 80,000 gallons of crude oil. But more than 500 firemen fought all night to avert a catastrophe.

RE THE GOOD people out there: I have something good to say about some recent news. I live on Delmar Street in Roxborough, and my young neighbor Chris ran into a burning building to save a neighbor's dog. During the horrific storm last week, a woman went from car to car opening doors for trapped people instead of just worrying about herself. College kids lift a truck from the woman in East Falls who got trapped waiting for the bus. Sadly, as we know, she died. Wow!

Capt. John Taylor was the type of man who would stay with a fellow firefighter until the end. And on Friday night, at a fire in the basement of a Port Richmond home, his fellow firefighters believe that's exactly what he did. "Believe me," said Capt. Bob Bowman, of Engine 45 in North Philadelphia, who knew Taylor for nearly 30 years, "Johnny died saving Rey. " Taylor, 53, of Northeast Philadelphia, and firefighter Rey Rubio, 42, of North Philadelphia, died from asphyxiation after they were trapped in the basement of a home in the 3600 block of Belgrade Street.

Susan Zazulka thought she was one of the lucky ones. Her husband, New York City firefighter John Zazulka, survived the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. But a year later, she lost him to the widow of a firefighter killed that day, part of what appears to be an ugly trend within the New York Fire Department. "I loved John and I just can't believe that this could happen," Susan Zazulka said. "I don't know who he is anymore. " The city's firefighters - 343 of whom died - were the heroes of 9/11.

A convicted arsonist was lucky he did not face murder charges, a Chester County fire chief said yesterday. Addressing the court at the sentencing of Kin Lam Cheng, West Whiteland Fire Chief George Turner said that when firefighters entered the Hong Kong King Buffet about 2:30 a.m. on June 18, 2001, they were inches from numerous gas cans, any one of which could have exploded if disturbed. Acknowledging the danger that Cheng had created, President Judge Howard F. Riley Jr. ordered him to spend four to eight years in prison, followed by seven years' probation.

FIRST YOU HAD a ridiculous "expose" on horny firemen ("Pants on Fire"), then another on best bathrooms for public sex - and now whips and chains and a discussions of sex acts ("Queen of Pain," Aug. 27). How bad is business that this passes for news? Has Larry Flynt become the managing editor? You can keep your smut rag out of our home. Robert Siddall Philadelphia A question of race & jobs Where are you, Mayor Street? Hanford Jones should get a pat on the back instead of being criticized.

The bickering began with a screeching siren that alerts firemen to trouble and, at the same time, rattles the police chief's eardrums. "It's a health issue," Police Chief Ken Barnes said, his fingers plugging his ears. "It's absolutely necessary," Fire Chief Frank Farry responded. In a Bucks County town that spans a mere half-mile square, a growing feud between its two top uniformed men has hurt feelings and tested tempers far and wide. A snit over a siren. A tiff over a toilet.