In today’s world, in which the fire department gets called to almost everything and anything, its members must be prepared to handle any kind of rescue scenario. Selected by an application process, Lufkin Fire Department Chief Ted Lovett and Capt. Dustin Ledford recently participated in a week-long course on special operations program management at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md. Funded by FEMA through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the course consisted of various team management skills of special operations disciplines including hazardous materials, swift water,...

BURNABY, B.C. – Dozens of people could have died because of a mushroom farm owner’s negligence, the lead investigator into the deaths of three men on the farm has told a coroner’s inquest.  Mohinder Bhatti of WorkSafeBC testified Tuesday the workers who died or were injured had no idea what they were doing when they tried to unplug a pipe on that fateful day in September 2008. “They weren’t thinking straight,” he said.  Bhatti said had they cleared the pipe fully, hydrogen sulfide, a colourless, poisonous gas that smells like rotten eggs, would have...

Elderly collie slips into a 150-foot pipe on a slope below Two Tanks Fire Road on Wednesday, and a Southern Marin Fire technician goes in and gets her out.   new   Southern Marin firefighter Ryan Tokuda retrieves Sierra, an elderly collie, from a drainage pipe near the Two Tanks Fire Road on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012. Courtesy Erin Clark Photos Credit Courtesy Erin Clark Credit James Reis/Marin Humane Society Credit James Reis/Marin Humane Society Credit James Reis/Marin Humane Society Credit James Reis/Marin Humane Society For about three hours Wednesday, Erin...

EDMOND — Fire personnel trained for a growing possibility given the large amount of construction in Edmond — a trench rescue at a work site. Edmond Fire Maj. Joe Elam said the city has a technical rescue team, but the Fire Department does not have enough manpower to handle a scenario such as this without additional personnel. “We have many more trenches that are being dug in the city now,” Elam said. “This is a very real possibility.” Fire Capt. Greg Westermier said the trenches are up to 20 feet deep. The department brought its engine companies to its training site, located near...

  Etched in Mark Ballmer’s mind is a tragic grain entrapment accident. When he was in high school, two girls were playing in a grain bin at a farm near Gothenburg.  One became engufled in corn.  At the time, Ballmer was not one of the Gothenburg Volunteer Fire and Rescue team who recovered the body of the young teen who was sucked into the grain and suffocated. With Gothenburg smack dab in the middle of corn country, grain-handling businesses and storage facilities abound.  That creates more of a chance for grain entrapment accidents to occur, the Gothenburg fire chief said, which is...

A man was reported in fair condition after being buried up to his chest in a grain elevator in Colusa County for nearly four hours Tuesday.  Chief Jeff Gilbert of the Williams Fire Protection Authority said the Dunnigan Fire Department received a call from the Adams Grain Co. on County Road 89 about 9:20 a.m.  Dunnigan firefighters called for assistance from the Colusa County Confined Space Rescue Team, composed of rescue personnel from seven fire agencies.   The team arrived about 9:40 a.m. and found an unidentified man trapped in an 80-foot high grain silo with about 25 tons of wheat in...