It's YELLOW fire truck day!

It seems as though we’ve been surrounded by yellow rigs today. I’ll get to that in a minute or twenty but there are a few other topics / headlines I want to hit first. Line of Duty Deaths (LODD’s) and serious injuries. Outside the United States, Geezer reported on a double LODD in Spain. Here in the U.S. we’ve been hit just as hard this week. To begin with, we lost a brother up in Chicago this week. Firefighter Christopher Wheatly lost his life after falling 3 stories from what was described as a ladder attached to the building (fire escape). Statter has the coveragehere This one kind of hits close to home for me and I’m sure for a lot of others on the job as well. Though I have never been to Chicago, I am going up in about two weeks to attend Fire Rescue International. Visiting a department / city that is mourning the loss of a brother is hard on everyone but who knows, maybe a large attendance of brothers and sisters from across the country will help our “windy city” brothers with the healing process. Detroit has also been hit hard this week with 6 injured, 2 critical when a brick wall collapsed. Statter also has that story here. Earlier, both Statter and Geezer reported on the attempted production of a documentary on the city in ruin. You can read the article here or just take the time to watch this video …
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13184388&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0

BURN Trailer from Tremolo Productions on Vimeo.

I don’t know, it just seems like more and more, cities across the country are asking us to do more and more with less and less and nobody seems to be listening or care. How many more brothers will have to die? How many more need to lay in the ER or rehab facilities? Have they ( local government, city officials, legislators, tax payers etc.)all forgotten? I know those of us on the job haven’t and I, for one; NEVER will! I wish I could just shake the $*&^#$&*% out of all of em… don’t even get me started. Anyway, my thoughts and prayers go out to the families, brothers and sisters up in Chicago as well as Detroit. Ok, moving on to local and happier news.. Tomorrow is a big day for us here at #3-C. Why you may ask….well it’s Pee-Wee’s fault..

Just look at him…GUILTY! And, it’s not WHAT he did, it’s what he’s GONNA do…


Call it what you will but at 17:00 hrs tomorrow our little fella is “tying the knot”…”taking the plunge” or just plain ol GETTING MARRIED! And NO.. it’s not gonna be a “shot gun” wedding but I did find a pic of a hot gal in a wedding dress holding a shot gun just in case…

The boys and I will do what we can to “red neck” it up a little. We have a few really good ideas for his wedding cake…

Or.. we thought maybe we could help with their limo rental…


I don’t know but I’m sure we can come up with something. Either way.. CONGRATULATIONS and best wishes to Pee-Wee and Amanda.
Ok, as for today and being surrounded by yellow rigs. It’s been another busy day around this joint. We started out the morning with sound good training (pre-fire planning and tours) with our Brothers from the County… yea, they run yellow rigs.


This “automatic-aid” deal is kind of new to us but I have to say, that at least on our shift; we have a good relationship with each other(except for when Rucker was making fun of my handicapped daughter). We even had some of the County guys practicing their assignment…


LMAO.. I’m
just kidding.. it really was some good training today and plans were made for more in the future. We got to see even more yellow out at the airport. While making its departure for Orlando Fla. a plane carrying about 100 passengers blew an engine… and I mean BLEW. You can read some local coverage here. I got to snap a shot from our stagging area inside the ARFF station…


The pilot get her stopped in time, no passengers were harmed and ARFF had everything under control within minutes. So there you have it… we’re back on Sunday with an update from Pee-Wee’s nuptuals and who knows what else. Until then, stay safe and in house.
Captain Wines