Volunteer Firefighter

The three members of the Black Flag Family gang - including a former volunteer firefighter - knew exactly what they were doing when they allegedly tried to burn down a 237-year-old piece of Bucks County history, police said Tuesday. Fortunately, they didn't succeed. While the interior of the unique Croydon Lodge - once home to a Revolutionary War-era British officer - is damaged, the outside of the structure is still sound, said Bob Pritz, president of Holland Enterprises, a developer.

For 15 years, volunteer firefighter Chris Russell has battled blazes and helped fire victims recover after their losses. Yesterday, Russell, his wife and three children lost everything when fire swept through the Fairless Hills ranch home they had been renting. The 7:41 a.m. blaze was blamed on a clothes dryer in the rear room of the first floor, Falls Fire Marshal Ed Copper said. "Just what occurred, we don't know yet. But it definitely was caused by the dryer, which had been running," Copper said.

A volunteer firefighter accused of heading an arson ring that terrorized Burlington County's river towns for almost a year pleaded guilty yesterday to setting 15 fires that ravaged homes, stores and factories and resulted in more than $2 million in property damage. Chris Hatcher, 28, of the 400 block of Bridgeboro Street in Riverside, said in Burlington County Superior Court that he instigated the string of blazes in March, 1990, shortly after he and two friends joined Delanco's Washington Fire Company.

Richard L. Gibb, 83, of Lower Makefield Township, a retired executive in the reinsurance field and a volunteer firefighter, died Monday at St. Mary Medical Center, Middletown Township. He retired in 1981 after many years with American Reinsurance Co., based in New York. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Gibb attended schools in the New York City area and graduated from Pace College in New York. He served in the Army as a chief warrant officer in the Panama Canal area during World War II. A 45-year resident of the Levittown/Lower Makefield area, he had been active with the Capitol View Fire Company, which serves Morrisville and Lower Makefield, and had been treasurer of the company's relief association.

Harold M. Smith, 93, who served for nearly six decades as a volunteer firefighter in Moorestown, died Tuesday at his home. "He loved the trucks, he loved the noise, the excitement," said Karl Shelley, the township's fire district commissioner. Mr. Smith had been the township's oldest volunteer firefighter, serving 59 years with the Relief Engine Company before kidney disease forced him to curtail his activities several years ago. He still remained on the company's active-member roster, however.

On Feb. 20, after 40 days of investigation and more than 2,000 hours of surveillance, Horsham Township police were confronted with a bizarre twist: Could a volunteer firefighter who had battled more blazes than any other in the township also be setting fires? Relying on a description provided by a witness to one of nine suspicious blazes, police began following Anthony McDonald, a 23-year-old volunteer firefighter for the Horsham Fire Company. Nine days ago shortly before 11 p.m., a police stakeout team parked an unmarked car outside a vacant barn on Babylon Road.

After 45 years as a volunteer for the Huntingdon Valley Fire Company, Frank Burkard has retired from the firehouse and has been awarded $25,000 by his fellow firefighters. Burkard, 73, was honored in a ceremony at the firehouse last week for his years of service to the Lower Moreland community. He is the first firefighter in Pennsylvania to receive money from the newly created Service Disability Fund. Craig Colbert, company president, said the company voted to give Burkard the award, using state money that was not needed to buy protective fire equipment.

Thomas C. Elvins III, 88, a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Hammonton, N.J., for more than 60 years, died Friday, July 27, at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City after being injured in a July 13 car accident in Egg Harbor Township. Mr. Elvins was born in Hammonton, graduated in 1941 from Hammonton High School, and worked on his father's fruit farm before serving in the Navy from 1942 to 1946, mostly as a shipboard turret gunner in the South Pacific. He was a member of Operating Engineers Local 825 for more than 60 years, driving bulldozers and road graders on jobs across South Jersey, his daughter, Bonnie Lou Petruzzo, said in an interview.

At first, Theodore Kristiniak Jr. set four fires while on patrol as a security guard for revenge because he didn't get time off. But then the 22-year-old realized he was earning overtime pay for helping fight the fires this summer at the USX plant here, so he ignited three more blazes. That was the testimony of law-enforcement officials yesterday at Kristiniak's preliminary hearing before District Justice Jan Vislosky. At the hearing, Michael P. Clarke, Kristiniak's defense attorney, pleaded not guilty for his client.

The three members of the Black Flag Family gang - including a former volunteer firefighter - knew exactly what they were doing when they allegedly tried to burn down a 237-year-old piece of Bucks County history, police said Tuesday. Fortunately, they didn't succeed. While the interior of the unique Croydon Lodge - once home to a Revolutionary War-era British officer - is damaged, the outside of the structure is still sound, said Bob Pritz, president of Holland Enterprises, a developer.

Steve Tyszka was at home Saturday afternoon in Mount Ephraim when his entire house shook. His girlfriend typed a status on Facebook: "Wow, what was that?" A firefighter friend answered her: An apartment building had exploded at 101 White Horse Pike in nearby Haddon Heights. Tyszka started his car. That, he said, was where his daughter Emily lived. He called her on the mile-long drive to the building and learned she was out with her boyfriend, far away from White Horse Pike - but for an excruciating two minutes, he said, "I didn't know what to think.

A Delaware County firefighter was injured Sunday in a blaze that destroyed a house in Colwyn. Fire departments in the southeast part of the county received a call about 6:30 p.m. for a fire at a twin on the 200 block of Walnut Street, according to Chief Chris Caruso of Darby Fire Company No. 1. A 24-year-old volunteer firefighter whose name was not released was using a hose in the house when he received two electric shocks, possibly from live...

A volunteer firefighter died after battling a house blaze in Chester County, authorities said Wednesday. Capt. Chris Good of the Good Will Fire Company in West Chester reportedly died of a heart attack at home Wednesday. He had responded to a fire Tuesday in West Goshen. Good was a volunteer at Good Will since 2002, according to the fire company's website. It listed his nickname as "Goody. " - Robert Moran

Aviation officials are trying to unravel the mysteries surrounding a helicopter crash Wednesday morning in Bucks County that killed a pilot who had been flying for at least 25 years and had been teaching others to fly. Douglas Ward Brigham, 52, was a retired state police corporal and a great-grandson of President Herbert C. Hoover. He lived in Erwinna, Tinicum Township, where he served as a volunteer firefighter. The cause of the crash is only one of many unknowns. Because helicopter pilots usually do not have to file flight plans, officials were unsure of the purpose and route of Brigham's flight.

Officer Montess Trapp of the Upper Darby Police Department didn't think about what could happen to him as he raced into a burning home while on patrol five months ago. As Trapp arrived at the fire scene in April, the sound of a little girl screaming triggered his "instincts as a parent, instincts as a human," compelling him to run into the smoke-filled house on the 3800 block of Marshall Road and save the 4-year-old. Trapp and Officer Kelly Seace, who joined in the rescue, were among 45 police officers, firefighters, and corrections officers honored Thursday evening at the Awards of Valor Ceremony at the National Liberty Museum in Old City.

Thomas C. Elvins III, 88, a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Hammonton, N.J., for more than 60 years, died Friday, July 27, at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City after being injured in a July 13 car accident in Egg Harbor Township. Mr. Elvins was born in Hammonton, graduated in 1941 from Hammonton High School, and worked on his father's fruit farm before serving in the Navy from 1942 to 1946, mostly as a shipboard turret gunner in the South Pacific. He was a member of Operating Engineers Local 825 for more than 60 years, driving bulldozers and road graders on jobs across South Jersey, his daughter, Bonnie Lou Petruzzo, said in an interview.

On a clear spring morning almost silent save for the sound of birdsong, the firefighters - hundreds and hundreds of them on Rhawn Street in Fox Chase - stood like a dark-blue wall of solace waiting for the casket of fallen Firefighter Daniel Sweeney. Across the street, outside St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church, students from Bishop McDevitt High School decked out in blue uniforms of their own were also waiting. Sweeney, 25, had attended their school and followed in the footsteps of his father, retired Fire Capt.