See all posts in the network tagged with buildling-construction
Here is a good video from our buddy Dale Pekel. Dale has a series of great training videos. In this video, he shows some basics about size up and reading smoke.
We have to do more of this, and like Dale says, be proactive. Train hard and we’ll see you on the “big one.”
What hose stretch would you use?
Here is an example of store fronts that are off of the street. This is like an alley that runs parallel perpendicular to the main streets.
In most cases, these have a tax payer on the main level and residential units on the upper floors.
You can see that hose deployment is a priority and should be picked carefully. The wrong choice could be very detrimental. This brings up a good question: what type of hose loads do you use and deploy for non-traditional lays?
How long are they and what other uses are they good for? What sizes and configurations do you use? Where do you keep these loads and how are they loaded?
We have to remember that the atypical fire requires atypical tactics in some cases and the norm of pulling a 1 3/4 inch cross lay or speed load just isn’t going to get it done.
Train hard and be careful.
I recently was in downtown St. Louis with my family for a day with the kids before school started. We were across the street from the building in the picture.
What you see in this picture is just a row of windows, right? Well, they are labeled, which is nice because if they weren’t there could be big problems.
You can see in the second picture that the labels identify this as an elevator shaft. This is a heads up move for the building department and/or fire department for requiring this labeling.
Just imagine trying to make entry or counting dwelling/unit windows for RIT or emergency escape and finding out about this later.
This is just another example of knowing your area and the unique construction methods that are used.
Get in your buildings and be familiar. Had these not been labeled and a significant fire broke out here, this could have caused some serious problems.
Just for fun, what kinds of problems can we identify as a result of these windows not being labeled? I look forward to hearing some great ideas.
Stay safe and be careful.
I debated myself on whether I should post this video or not. I don’t like to be critical of fire departments and how they handled a call. I, and many others have made poor decisions on the fire ground over the years and we will likely make unintentional mistakes in the future. After all, we are human.
But, the more I thought about it the more I believe that there is just too much to learn from here. Notice the word learn? This video is being shared as a learning tool and to show how easy it is to fall into the trap of thinking it will never happen to me. We have all been there and done that and this video will hopefully provide as a reminder of what we need to consider on the fire ground.
So, I ask you, what is to be learned here? What lessons would you share with your crew and fellow firefighters? Be constructive and not critical. Remember, you never know when the camera will be on you and I know I am not perfect.
Let’s learn something that will keep us safe and make us better and thank the guy who filmed and posted the video for the experience.
Stay safe and be careful.
Forcible entry is an ongoing skill that must be practiced. A huge part of that is knowing your doors and construction of entry ways.
On a recent inspection we started discussing getting into these locked doors that are pass-coded for the resident’s protection.
As you can see, this is an outward swinging door that should be reasonable easy to force with the right tools and skill. Of course, in my experiences people aren’t spending as much time as they should practicing forcible entry techniques.
As a crew we started discussing how we would gain entry. One method is very simple and can be done with one tool.
Bust out the window, this one has no wire mesh, and drop the tool down to engage the panic bar.
I know this is very simple, but it can be effective if you only have one tool. You also have to have a good idea about the interior workings of the door. Showing again the importance of getting familiar with your buildings.
Stay safe and use your time out and about wisely.
We were recently going through a large senior residential occupancy. This occupancy has 7 wings and several different stairwells.
Not all of the stairwells have standpipes in them. Most were typical connections with a valve and 2 1/2 inch connection. As you can see in this picture, this one was not a typical seen in a stairwell.
At the left of riser you can see the standpipe connection. They basically put the sprinkler room in the stairwell.
If you weren’t familiar with this, a person might just start turning valves or just think that there is not a standpipe connection at all.
The point here is that not all standpipe connections are created the same. Nor are all sprinkler rooms in a closet.
Get to know your buildings and the systems that operate in them. You never know when you will need to use them.
I am a big fan of companies getting out and scoping out their response area. Just when you think you have seen it all, something catches your eye that you missed the other 100 times you passed it by. We all know what I am talking about.
Look at the picture above. As a fire service leader, what do you see? What have you learned from your years of experience and training about these types of buildings?
What is of significance?
What is of significance that you see right away but the new guy might not have a clue about?
As an officer that will be making the initial decisions on this building you have a great responsibility to know as much about this structure as you can. It will certainly help you to make the best possible decision about your tactics.
Take the time to sit with your crews and look at the features of this building. What type of construction is it? What type of occupancy is it? Why are both so important? It just might mean the difference of saving the occupants and yourself.
Stay safe and be careful.
These pictures show how buildings are altered over the years and with change of ownership and/or occupancy type.
You can see that what used to be windows are now bricked in.
This is very common on older buildings that had numerous windows and in some cases they are not very efficient. Owners will frame or brick them in just to eliminate the problem all together.
The problem is we don’t know what the inside sill and frame-out of the inside of the window is like.
This is important to note when your doing your 360 or pre-planning.
When firefighters become lost or disoriented we are taught to find a window or door on an outside wall. The inside of this building may feel like windows to the gloved hand, but in reality it has been blocked up.
A firefighter may spend a great deal of time and energy trying to get out the “window” and not move on to an actual egress point.
Keep these things in mind and get to know your area. We probably all have these buildings with these feature changes in our area and we have an obligation to point these out to our newer firefighters. Stay prudent and be involved in your jurisdiction’s building construction and occupancy types.
Stay safe and keep cool.
What size line would you take?
This was a fire I was on one night over ten years ago. It was a great learning fire and the tactics had to be changed for a successful stop.
I can tell you that a great deal went right this night and there were things that happened away from the fire that paid huge dividends.
If you are the first arriving unit and officer, explain where your going and what your doing. I’ll give you a little information to help you along.
-This is in a rural area, no hydrants.
-The house is old. Old newspaper and straw were found in the walls during overhaul.
-We had plenty of manpower.
-On side B there is a door that leads to the kitchen and the stairs go up from the kitchen on that side, just so you know.
I would like to see a great deal of feedback on this one. Please let me know what operations would be going on away from the fire. After I get enough comments, I will post what we did and why it worked.
As always, thanks for your continued support and use this however you want for your training purposes.
Stay safe and be careful out there.
Residential or commercial?
Even in this downturn in the economy, there are still very large homes being built. In many cases these homes are over 5,000 square feet of total living area.
This creates a significant problem for many fire departments, especially smaller, more rural ones, in regards to tactics.
We are fighting these fires with traditional methods and resources. In many cases it just isn’t enough. Add to the those issues that these are all built using light-weight construction, we have a recipe for disaster, as we have seen across our country.
Firefighters are falling through floors immediately after entering. Roofs are collapsing much earlier than before. Contents are causing fires to burn faster and reach untenable temperatures much earlier in the fire. The larger area requires the firefighters to search longer and further into a building than in the past.
We need to look at these structures a little differently when confronted with a working fire in them. Here are some considerations that should not be overlooked on these fires:
1. Your going to need more water, get it rolling fast.
2. A 360 is a must. You don’t know what you might have on the back side. 4 stories, victims hanging out windows, location of the fire, etc.
3. A larger line. It may be very prudent to pull a 2 1/2 as your first line of attack.
4. More manpower may be needed due to the multiple functions needed because of the size. You may treat this alarm like a commercial alarm.
5. Search lines. In these very large homes, it is not out of the question to use a search line.
These are the primary items that you can’t discount. You may need to think differently on these larger home fires to have a positive outcome. I have seen departments burn these houses down because they were using tactics for an 1100 square foot building on a 5500 square foot house.
With the open floor plans and the light weight building materials, fire develops very fast in these homes. Anticipate that and plan for it. Adjust and have back up plans. Never be afraid to regroup to get it right.
Feel free to add to the concerns, I encourage you to contribute. After all, that is what makes this so much fun.
Stay safe and stay low. Don’t forget to hydrate all day in this heat. Carry around some water and sip on it all day.
This is a good video on operating a typical elevator. I understand that there are many different types of elevators and different operating methods, but most are very similar to this. You can have different types of keys but the systems should be pretty standard.
Now some of the older elevators can have less options and safety features, so get familiar with the elevators in your jurisdiction. This is something I have seen firefighters struggle with, believe it or not, because they have never had any hands on experience with them.
Get out and use some of these and no how to use them before you have to.
When this pulls up on YouTube, you can subscribe to the creator, dieselducy, and he has additional videos of different elevators. Pretty interesting stuff.
Stay safe and be careful.
Car lifts.
Although we all have these in our areas, we need to occasionally take a look at these occupancies and discuss and prepare for the hazards contained in these buildings.
As we can see in this picture, the car lift is holding a vehicle in the air. We know that when they close, these cars remain elevated.
Most of the time this is not an issue, but when a fire happens or if the area fills with smoke, it can be dangerous for firefighters entering the building.
Floor level hazards.
There are also floor level and pit hazards that need to be identified and planned for. These should be identified during inspections and pre-planning surveys.
Be aware and stay familiar with your area and the buildings that you will be responding to.
Stay safe and look at these buildings before they burn.
What do you see that makes you say, Hmmmm?
Take a look at this picture and tell me what you see?
It isn’t the operations, necessarily, that I want you to see here.
This is why the officer/s need to be aware and not get tunnel vision.
Too many times I have seen new and veteran officers take the nozzle from the back stepper and go barreling in without any regard for what is going on around him. His days on the nozzle are over for the most part. His job now is to see the conditions and to take a look at the big picture.
So, what do you see?
Stay safe and be careful out there.
When I first saw this picture one particular characteristic caught my attention.
In my area, and I am sure it is the same in many other jurisdictions, people are trying to do more with what they have.
We are finding more families living together and they must make some accomodations for those added individuals. What I am referring to is the garage being converted into living space.
I understand that this is not unusual and the practice can make a really nice family room or large master bedroom. The difference we have been seeing is that they still look like garages from the outside. When’s the last time you searched the garage as part of your primary search?
Just be aware and consider this on your next fire. This also is a reason you need to stay familiar with your area. And, the next time your on a “routine” residential fire, you might just want to check the garage.
Stay safe and be careful.
With the fire service and others taking this day and weekend to remember the Charleston 9, along with other high profile LODD, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to look at how we can specifically apply the recommendations that were listed in the report on the Charleston Super Sofa Fire.
I am going to do this just one at a time and I will likely take several weeks to cover them all. It is very likely that some will intermingle with others, and will be covered together.
Today I want to look at pre-incident planning. For me, this starts with when the building is being built. In reality, it is a combination of both, during construction and visits and regular intervals.
conduct pre-incident planning inspections of buildings within their jurisdictions to facilitate development of safe fireground strategies and tactics
Light weight, engineered floor joists.
Today, we stopped in on a new restaurant. As you can see from the photo it is all light weight, engineered construction.
The comment was made that we need not enter this building if it burns. Well, in an ideal world that is correct.
The fact is is that we just don’t know what we will be tasked with doing if this building catches fire. We can’t predict what time of day or who will or will not be in it. What we can do, however, is know what this building is made of and the hazards associated with those materials and products of construction.
We also must be prudent in our tactics when arriving, like lifting ceiling tiles before we get too far in the building, looking for fire running above us.
This visit provided some great information aside from the type of construction and those hazards associated with them. First, the building is completely sprinklered. That is a plus. We located the FDC and the nearest hydrant. Both good things.
Concealed spaces over the booths.
We found that this concealed space had sprinklers dropped down to the ceiling level, but none were in the space or immediately above it. An easy place for fire to spread quickly.
As we discussed earlier in the post, most would say we don’t need to enter this building. In theory I agree, but we never know what we are facing when we arrive.
Something that we learned was that there is an area on the east side of this building, Side D, that is built with dimensional lumber and is sprinklered as well. The roof construction is not truss and the walls are all dimensional studs. What can we take away from this?
Side D construction was different than the rest of the building.
We discussed that if there needed to be an attempt to make entry, it would be best to try to take a stand from this area. It is not part of the rest of the roof system and will likely hold up a little longer with the dimensional lumber.
Another idea was that RIT would be staged near this entrance if there would happen to be interior crews making a rescue or knocking down what was perceived as a small fire. They know that there is a straight shot to the middle of the building through a more secure type of construction.
With all that being said, accessibility to the building needs to be looked at; where will multiple units be staged? Where will you place ladders and are there overhead dangers?
It is important to look at all of these factors to make a good decision based on prior knowledge. We also understand that Plan A doesn’t always work so have a Plan B ready based on the planning you did on the building.
There are many other components about pre-incident planning that I didn’t mention, but hopefully you get the point. Get out and visit these sites. Be involved and have discussions about how you would perform at a fire here.
Above all, don’t let the lives lost at any LODD be lives lost in vain. Learn from their mistakes, but don’t be critical, we have all screwed up and been lucky enough to get away with it. Be constructive and train on the recommendations so that you don’t repeat history.
Stay safe and please, never forget those lost in the line of duty. We owe them our promise to train hard and to learn from them.
Three days of ball busting training evolutions on acquired structures!
If you missed FDIC, you have to make this training event.
I have had the opportunity to spend some time with Nate and Kevin and they are the real deal.
The training is real and practical. It is stuff you will use in real life, on real calls.
You just can’t afford to miss this. The price is right and the location is in the middle of the country. I just can’t say enough about the classes and teaching style of the Brotherhood Instructors.
Even if you can only make one day, it is worth the travel. But, beware, you will be whooped by the end of the weekend.
Get to the Brotherhood Instructors Facebook page and look at their videos, blogging and pictures for an idea of what they do.
See you soon and train hard with The Brotherhood!
This video was suggested to me by a buddy of mine. It is a good video showing some different methods of forcing doors. This is a skill that too often gets overlooked. I will posting some more videos of forcible entry soon. In the meantime, if you have a method or technique that you would like to share, post or send it to us to post.
Stay safe and happy forcing.
If you pulled up on this store front or one like it, what is your first course of action?
With a fire or just a haze, one of the first things that needs to be done, with an attack line ready, is to start looking above the drop ceiling. Even if it is drywall, you have to see what is above you in these occupancies.
These types of occupancies are found in fast food establishments, sit down restaurants and strip mall type buildings. Most of these new commercial buildings are all light weight, truss, engineered lumber construction.
By lifting the tiles and breaching the ceiling, we know how far the fire has advanced before committing people into these buildings. The concealed spaces are important for initial fire attack in these situations. It might indicate that the front door is as far as you go.
You have to consider, however, that the overhang outside the front door could be compromised if fire is found in the void spaces of the ceiling. Fire could be racing through the soffit of the overhang out front. Additional weight of signs will also cause early failure of these building features.
Remember to think on your feet and be sound in your decisions. These decisions come from experience and training. So, train hard and often.
Stay safe and be careful.
Photo from the Fillmore Gazette
The Beverly Hills Supper Club was remodeled and upgraded and opened in 1971. It had previously gone through many changes and the original building had burned in the late 1930′s.
It had changed hands, sat vacant and been an off and on hot spot for several years until it was the primary club for top notch entertainment and high class amenities.
On May 28th, 1977, the place was packed with visitors that were expecting a night of glamor and star entertainer John Davidson. It is uncertain exactly how many patrons were in attendance that evening, but estimations put the number at approximately 3,000 at the entire facility with 1300 in the Cabaret Room. There were multiple events taking place in multiple rooms which were all filled to or over capacity, according to reports.
In the Cabaret Room alone, people were squeezed in and sat in aisles and ramps that would be exit pathways. Some of these ramps led to the stage and people were placed there in order to get as many people into the room as possible.
Smoke was first noticed in the Zebra Room by two waitresses sometime around 2100 hours. They noticed a dense smoke in the room and they notified management. The fire department was called within a few minutes and extinguishers were used on the fire with no effectiveness. Within 10 minutes, the fire had spread to the Cabaret Room and things would turn tragic very fast.
Here is quote from one of the first arriving firefighters about what he saw, “When I got to the inside doors, which is about 30 feet inside the building, I saw these big double doors, and people were stacked like cordwood. There were clear up to the top. They just kept diving out on each other trying to get out. I looked back over the pile of – it wasn’t dead people, there were dead and alive in that pile – and I went in and I just started to grab them two at a time and pull them off the stack, and drag them out…” , Bruce Rath, a Fort Thomas firefighter.
The results of this night were that 165 people lost their lives that night. The reports were not much different from the Cocoanut Grove fire some 30 years prior.
-Overcrowding of the facility, namely the Cabaret Room. The room had a listed occupancy load of 615 -756 people. That night, it was estimated that nearly 1300 people were in the room, almost double the allowed load.
-For the size of the facility Kentucky law required that there should have been at least 27.5 exits for the occupant load, there were only 16.5.
-The wiring was considered inadequate and it was stated that it would have never passed inspection by an electrician who inspected the electrical work.
-There were no fire walls to prohibit the spread of fire from one area to another.
-No sprinkler system and no audible fire alarm system.
-The local volunteer fire department acknowledged that there were issues, but had not ordered any of them to be corrected. (I was unable to find out if the department had fire or building codes ordinances at the time of the fire.)
-There were reports of locked doors.
These factors are all too familiar. We see the same failures in these large loss of life fires in assembly occupancies. We sometimes take our inspections and prevention activities lightly because it is not “fun” or interesting to some. Remember these fires and the lives that have been lost because of poor prevention measures and a lack of life safety measures in these buildings.
Below are some links where you can get more information and much of the sources for this post were from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Until next time, stay safe, do your inspections with conviction and stay low.
http://www.enquirer.com/beverlyhills/lives.html
On May 17th, 1923 in Camden, South Carolina, over 300 people were packed in the Cleveland school.
The Cleveland School circa 1920's
They were there for a children’s graduation play that ended in tragedy. News from the small town would be known all over the country by morning.
The play was a tradition that would be the last that night. It was announced that the school would close after this school year and that these would be the last students to pass through these halls.
The building was a two-story, wooden frame building with the auditorium and stage on the second floor. The key feature of the second floor was a 30 inch staircase which was the only exit from the second floor.
As was customary in those days, oil lamps were burned when night fell. They hung along the corridor and above the stage. At approximately 21:00 hours a lamp that was above the stage fell and started a fire on the stage. There were attempts to put the fire out with coats but the fire spread to the stage curtains.
With the room being filled beyond capacity and the obstacle of chairs, the exiting of people was difficult at best. As people realized that the exit was jammed, they started jumping out of the second story windows and were severely injured. The room was dark, filled with smoke and getting hotter and more putrid.
As the stair way was full with people stuck on them, they finally gave way from the weight, spilling them to the floor below. At the same time, the upper floor was also slipping onto the floor below.
That night 77 people lost their lives at a school event that should have ended with celebration and refreshments. Instead the community was tasked with finding the bodies of those who did not make it out.
There is a reason we have fire codes and building codes. It also shows the importance of inspections and code enforcement. Over the years we have made great strides in fire prevention and fire codes. But, we have to make sure that corridors are free of clutter and that protection systems are in place and maintained.
Stay diligent and keep your community safe before the fire starts.
You can find more on this fire at http://www.scarboroughgenealogy.com/Cleveland.htm
Pictures are from the same site listed above.
Last night I had the pleasure to listen to and get in on a discussion on Art Chief Reason’s new FirefighterNetcast radio show. The show was fantastic and the content was interesting and stimulating. However, the topic that came up that really got my attention was when he and Dave dove into the subject of risk vs. benefit and safety vs. extinguishment. I know, I know, this has been beaten with a sledge hammer over our collective heads for the last year or so. But, I just can’t figure one thing out; when did it become okay to perform different risk analysis and size-ups for assumed different buildings?
Now listen, I understand that if a vacant building is leaning and crumbling you have to take a different approach, but overall, your first 90 seconds should be very similar, if not the same, on every a call. I don’t buy into the segregation of calls and how you look at them in theoretical terms. I think that this is a crash course for failure. Oh, and I get that a commercial building is different from a residential building, but the basics are the same.
Before you start slamming me on this, hear me out. We are taught as company officers to size-up a call and/or building as soon as we get the dispatch. We should be familiar with our area and resources that are or are not backing us up. We should be more than competent at basic size-up skills and ideally get a look at three sides of the building before we ever get off the apparatus. We can determine within seconds and relay to our back stepper what size line to pull and give instructions to incoming units before we hit the ground.
We have heard of and there are some teaching victim profiling; determining if there is someone in the building or not and if it is survivable. While I understand what is trying to be done in regards to keeping ourselves safe, why should it be any different from your size-up and basic training as a company officer? A building is tenable or it is not, no matter if it is occupied or not occupied.
Decisions, decisions.
It seems to me that the real problem is intermingled between fewer fires, thus we have less real-world experience. The second part of this is that we have not compensated for that lack of real-world experience as a whole. The experience we cannot help, but the training has to change for company officers and improve.
The fire officer when confronted with a crisis situation pulls from past experiences to determine what he should do. Those past experiences include actual calls, education and training. We have already determined that we are all getting less experience because fires are down. The other part of this is that the training has to be meaningful and relevant.
If our training doesn’t match what we are expected to do under extreme circumstances, we will fail to make the proper decision at those times. So, when the company officer pulls up and has a working fire in any building, he is pulling from his past experiences, or lack of, to make his decision on a course of action to take. This is critical and I think it goes back to mastering the basics and being able to identify potentially hazardous conditions at any fire without trying to run down two separate matrixes based on occupied/unoccupied. That is just confusing.
When an officer pulls up to the building or situation his experience and training will kick in if trained appropriately. Whether it is a two-story, occupied house or a single-story vacant house, the process should be the same and the decisions made from the same variables identified by the company officer.
–What is showing?
–What kind of construction?
–Life safety indicators?
–Conditions at present time and where will they be in 5 minutes?
–360
–Is it safe to enter or is it not?
These seem simple, but several other factors can be determined from each of these and the company officer will make these decisions in seconds and minutes. If the building is not safe to enter, don’t enter. If there is a chance to search safely, whether occupied or not, search. If the building can safely be entered to extinguish the fire, whether occupied or not, enter and extinguish the fire. If the building is not structurally sound, occupied or not, don’t enter. Why make it so hard?
I truly believe we can over think some of this. If we have officers making bad decisions, we need to look at our training and drills. We need to look at what emphasis we put on career/professional development and make sure our fire ground leaders are competent. But, don’t confuse the issue by buzz phrases and methods that just complicate fire ground decisions.
The bottom line is that the sooner we put a fire out, the better opportunity any victims will have. Use common sense and training and past experiences to make prudent, sound decisions that take into account all factors.
I am sure that I will rub someone the wrong way with this, but I have been kicking this around for a long time and thought I would try to put in the blogosphere. So, no offense meant and train hard and frequently. Don’t complicate things, remember our mission and master the basics.
Tenable or not tenable, vacant or not.
Here is a short but good video from our friends at Brotherhood Instructors and Urban Firefighter Magazine on taking the window.
Do yourself and those inside a favor, take the entire window.
Train and stay safe.
Look for secondary means of egress for basements too.
We have all heard and been taught to do a 360 of the structure during a working fire.
There is some debate, but this is becoming common practice and there are several things to look for.
The picture is a bulk head for a basement. We have always been taught and trained to look for and create a secondary means of egress for upper floors. Well, it’s no different for basements.
When you make entry, especially if the fire has not been isolated, make sure that either you open it during the 360 if it’s not locked or that the information is relayed to the next in crew to cut the lock.
Cut the locks to ensure crews can exit if needed.
It may be as simple as cutting a padlock or as difficult as forcing a door or security bars.
It is important to create this exit to safety for the crews operating inside. It might just be what saves their lives.
Stay safe, be smart and train hard.
This video is one of a series that explains how to identify, prevent and remove entanglement hazards. It is very basic and very well explained.
Ultimately we want to train and educate ourselves to avoid being entangled, but it is important to have the knowledge to know the situations where we need to be able to self-rescue or call the Mayday.
Watch this video and I will post this series in the upcoming week.
Stay safe and be careful. Train frequently and hard.
Do you see anything different here?
I was out of town most of this past week for class and noticed this building on the first morning I drove in.
The first morning they had only installed the wall to the “r” in Performing. The second day I realized that I needed to snap a picture of this to share.
This false wall is about four stories tall and covers the entire length of the building.
What challenges do you see?
As you can see, this wall definately would challenge any rescue efforts were there victims in the windows.
Not only will it hamper rescue efforts, performing ventilation or suppression from this side of the building would be challenging at best.
The frame of the false wall is set off of the building wall at a distance of approximately two feet. That is just a guess, but operating ground ladders here is almost impossible.
Interior crews would need to know that this side is limited access and egress because of the wall. It will certainly challenge our strategies and tactics should an incident happen here.
This is one good example of why you need to get out and see your area. Know what’s going on and get involved. As a crew you can preplan this building by just parking out front, take a picture or two and go back and have a discussion about how you would operate at this building.
Stay safe and be careful.
 This blog is part of the Emergency Services Ad Network. For marketing opportunities, please click here |
Here is the conclusion to the most recent case: 76 year old female CC: Chest pain. To see Part I… (more)
Fourth of a short series on the establishment of the Metropolitan Fire Department in NYC. Zouaves… (more)
AP reports eight people are still unaccounted for in the foothills above Boulder today, two days… (more)
The powder was not identified, but determined to be non-harmful.… (more)
Recent Comments