A parody that could have been done in your fire station

Enjoy the silliness.

Mike "FossilMedic" Ward

Race to the Bottom

A Historical Vignette
by Tom Parquette

Part Two of Four
(Part One is HERE)

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 was significant not only for the horror and devastation caused to 146 young people and certainly their families, but Triangle has been matched in many respects in terms of sadness and loss. Triangle became the 1911 poster child of what were concerted efforts to not only improve fire safety, but working conditions and wages as well. The event was in many respects the genesis of, or better stated, the flux of, union efforts already under way at that point in history. The employees of Triangle had gone out on strike only a year prior to the disaster. That strike and the fire itself led to codes and regulations but these were largely ignored, side stepped or bought off altogether for many years following.

The parallels to the Triangle Fire continue, essentially unabated. "What's that?" you say. I know and I don't ignore that we have some of the most progressive and well thought fire codes and regulations known world wide to mankind. It would be too easy for me to turn this article into a commentary or opinion piece but that is not what this article is. This article is rightly titled, "The Race To The Bottom" and we will get to the bottom of that as the article continues.

(Bangkok Police Fire Brigade photo)

As the Race To The Bottom continues, you, gentle reader, are asked to fast forward with me to 1993. Monday May 10, 1993, at approximately 4:00 pm while concluding a normal workday shift, a small fire was discovered by an employee of the Kader Toy Company factory. The Kader factory was a facility of Kader Industrial Co. Ltd., a multinational company. This particular plant was located in the Sam Phran District of Nakhon Pathom Province just outside of Bangkok, Thailand near the site of the famous World War II railroad bridge over the River Kwai.

Thai Tourist Board

The company was first registered to do business in Thailand on January 27, 1989 but that registration was suspended after a fire on August 16, 1989 destroyed the then-new plant. The 1989 fire was blamed on the combustion of polyester fiber used to make dolls. Following the reconstruction of the facility, Kader was allowed to continue to conduct business in Thailand.

In May of 1993, the Kader facility was under contract to Mattel, Tyco and Kenner to produce items to their specifications. Bart Simpson was just reaching full tilt success in the US and this was one product on the assembly line on May 10th. The US and European toy companies mentioned would fax their orders and specifications to Kader in Thailand and expect products made to their exacting specifications. These also multinational firms didn't inspect the property or inquire or care under what conditions their orders were filled, just that they were.

The Kader facility was made up of four buildings and were numbered accordingly. Actually, they were all parts of the same large structure and were fully connected. Building One largely contained sewing machines, dolls of wool, handicraft and raw materials. A separate Building Two was largely toy assembly and plastics while Building Three was finished storage, more sewing and fabric storage. Building Four, while connected, was not connected in the same fashion and was largely office and storage.

International Labour Organization images

The buildings were all four story constructed of concrete slabs supported by a structural steel frame which was not fireproofed. The buildings were equipped with fire alarms, portable extinguishers and hose stations on the outside walls and stairwells. There was no sprinkler system.

After the certificate of registration was reissued following the 1989 fire, Kader experienced several more fires at the same facility. The latest one, in February of 1993 destroyed much of Building 3 and started in the middle of the night in waste cotton and polyester materials. At that time the Ministry of Industry issued a warning that the plant needed safety officers, safety equipment and emergency planning. It was ignored.

(Bangkok Police Fire Brigade photo)

Since the Kader facility was just beyond the jurisdiction of Bangkok, security officers and workers tried to put out the small fire as they had tried so many times before. Oh, how they tried.

Tomorrow, Part Three

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They Still Don't Know What It Was

BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA, FIRE AND SHERIFF DEPARTMENTS were called  when the Atlantic Ocean washed a 55-gallon drum ashore at Hollywood Beach Sunday night.  Hollywood city workers pulled the drum onto the beach and took it to a city maintenance yard on the beach.  When they reported back for work on Monday morning they found the barrel hissing and smoking.

The Palm Beach Post continues:

Hazmat teams do know this: Inside the dangerous drum percolated a cocktail of chemicals "from the sodium perchlorate family — extremely flammable," Hollywood Fire Rescue division chief Mark Steele said Tuesday.

The day-long effort to remove the drum grew complicated in the afternoon when it broke apart and spewed white smoke, Hollywood fire officials said. That’s when the county teams were summoned. "When you have something like that, you can’t just throw it in the back of the pickup truck and get going," Steele said. "Our main goal was to get it out of there safely."

The surrounding road was closed more than eight hours while crews worked on the container.

Sun-Sentinel

After the experts determined what was inside, they destroyed it. "We disintegrated it. There is no more remnant," Steele said. "No more investigation."

But the mystery hasn’t gone away. Said Steele: "The truth is, we might never know where it came from."

However, samples of the contents were shipped off to an out-of-state laboratory to be analyzed.

WSVN-TV has a good video report on the handling of the drum and material:

Chief Steele adds that there is a concern whether there are more such drums out there that are floating their way to the coast.

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Two Quarter Million-Gallon Tanks Involved

A LINE OF VIOLENT THUNDERSTORMS that swept up the East Coast Tuesday night lent a lightning strike on a Dow Chemical storage tank in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  The blaze that broke out in the 250,000-gallon tank quickly spread to a second tank and brought a 3-alarm response from several Pennsylvania and New Jersey fire departments.

Courier Times

The tanks contained ethyl acrylate and butyl acrylate, both of which are used in the manufacture of acrylic paints.  The fire began at 3:35 am Wednesday morning when the lightning bolt hit the Dow plant in Croydon.  During the incident, a volunteer police officer, David Wintz, 65, was directing traffic when he began feeling ill.  He then went home where he suffered a fatal heart attack.  No other information has been released on this sad outcome.

The fire departments attacked the tank fires with heavy applications of foam and finally had them cooled down enough by 5:30 where they stopped re-igniting spontaneously.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has more details HERE.

PhillyBurbs.com posted this video report filed early into the incident:

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The fire was marked under control at 7:30 am and is now effectively extinguished.

Fox News

NBC10 News filed this later video report from the scene:

View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.

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Did a hairdresser invent "smart" fire resistive coating?

Richard Fisher, writing in the May 16, 2012, issue of New Scientist, describes the story of amateur chemist Maurice Ward who developed Starlite.

It starts with a March 1990 demonstration at Tomorrow's World:

Fisher describes the "… tale of frustration, power and secrecy, which serves as a sobering reminder that ingenuity and big ideas do not guarantee commercial success."

You can access the article for ten days through a free registration to New Scientist by clicking HERE.

Before Ward's death in May 2011, many organizations and research facilities attempted to analyze and understand the contents of the fire resistive coating.

It appears to be very effective, but the formula for Starlite was never revealed.

Research results

Keith Lewis, head of the thin-film optics lab at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, was asked to analyze the substance. After a series of tests, Lewis used a scanning electron microscope.

… the surface had subtly altered in response to the heat. In particular, he saw that a network of small voids, each one between 2 and 5 micrometres wide, had formed.

"I thought 'This is it! That's why it works'," he says. Lewis realised that these voids transform Starlite's properties. They act like air bubbles in a foam, providing insulation and reducing the material's thermal conductivity by at least an order of magnitude compared to fresh Starlite. But crucially, they are small enough not to disrupt the material's ability to reflect and emit heat from its surface. It looked as if Starlite was smarter stuff than anyone had imagined.

"What Ward had done, and he didn't know it until I told him, was develop a composite material with an engineered smart protection mechanism," says Lewis. This placed Starlite in the same class as sophisticated piezoelectric materials or shape-memory alloys, which can change their properties in response to heat, pressure or electric fields.

Fisher's conclusion is disheartening:

Even though 20 years have passed since the wonder material made its debut, none of the materials scientists approached by New Scientist could name a polymer composite capable of protecting an egg in the way Starlite appeared to do. Most composites would quickly melt, burn or disintegrate.

Maurice Ward's blog

Mike "FossilMedic" Ward

Wednesday Morning

I know we have a lot of baseball fans here, so I'd like to pass along this entertaining, but provocative, article posted last night in the Wall Street Journal.  It was written by Rich Cohen, a noted sports writer, and he lays out the case for demolishing and plowing over Chicago's Wrigley Field ball park.  He sets the tone for his essay right off the bat with these opening paragraphs:

Having not won a World Series since 1908, and having last appeared on that stage in 1945—a war year in which the professional leagues were still populated by has-beens and freaks—the Chicago Cubs must contemplate the only solution that might restore the team to glory: Tear down Wrigley Field.

Destroy it. Annihilate it. Collapse it with the sort of charges that put the Sands Hotel out of its misery in Vegas. Implosion or explosion, get rid of it. That pile of quaintness has to go. Not merely the structure, but the ground on which it stands.

It's an amusing piece and obviously written with the proverbial tongue-in-cheek, but I think he is serious in his argument.  He points out that in 1906, before the team took up residence in their current park, the Cubs had a .763 winning percentage which is still the Major League record.  Cohen goes on to lay out the team's fortunes from then on and how they not only tumbled, but became seemingly jinxed after they encamped in what is now called Wrigley.

Set aside a few minutes to CLICK HERE and enjoy this article for what it's meant to be.  I had fun with it.

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Mark Donovan passed along this video report from New Hampshire that was broadcast on WMUR-TV the other day.  It's always nice to see a story that holds the FD in a positive way.  The Manchester FD got to have a repelling drill, rescue boat practice, and happy PR last Friday when they responded to help rescue a Golden Retriever that had fallen into the swift current of the Merrimack River.

The tv's video crew happened to be close by and recorded the entire adventure.  It's a nice story, so enjoy the broadcast video:

Now, let's start our own happy story and get this equipment checked out.  I will be very happy once the next pot of coffee is ready, so I'll get started on that.  See you back in the day room in a little while.

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NHL Playoffs – Conference Finals

Western Conference – Los Angeles (8) vs. Phoenix (3)
Game One: Los Angeles – 4, Phoenix – 2.
Game 2:  Los Angeles – 4, Phoenix – 0.
Game 3 on Thursday, 6 pm Pacific.

Los Angeles leads series 2 games to none.

Eastern Conference – New Jersey (6) vs. New York (1)
Game One: New York – 3, New Jersey – 0.
Game 2 on Wednesday, 8 pm Eastern

New York leads series 1 game to none.

Highlights From Tuesday's Game in Phoenix

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No Estimate Yet On Damages

A FIRE BROKE OUT AT A PARIS, France, BMW motorcycle dealer around 1 pm Monday afternoon.

Le Parisien

The Paris Fire Brigade was on the scene quickly with the first units arriving in less than five minutes, but the fire was already extending through a major portion of the rear part of the building.  There were many close exposures and the firefighters worked hard to successfully contain the fire to the dealer's property.

20minutes

The building that burned was a major repair workshop for motorcycles and was completely destroyed.  One of the employees told 20minutes, a news agency, that around 1 pm he heard a loud "boom" and then saw a very large amount of flames coming from one end of the building.  The 18 mechanics were on lunch break at the time and the shop was closed.  An adjoining building had ten other employees in it and they witnessed the sudden ignition and called the fire brigade.

Close exposures but all were saved.  (Le Parisien)

The fire was knocked down in 45 minutes.  There were approx. 70 motorcycles in the workshop at the time, but it is not known how many of them were destroyed.

20minutes has the STORY.
France Soir has MORE.

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Race to the Bottom

A Historical Vignette
by Tom Parquette

Part One of Four

American philosopher, George Santayana, wrote in "Life Of Reason I", that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The words have been hacked and changed and twisted over the years since, but the intent and validity of the observation stand the test of time. And rightly so. Life and history itself are most certainly a learning process, whether the life is our own or another’s. And, whether the history is ours personally or that of our society collectively.

This writer has long had a fascination with historical events which should have or might have influenced the future much in keeping with Santayana's musings. That fascination increases enormously especially when there is evidence that given historical events haven't influenced or positively changed anything. So much for that.

The Asch Bldg.

This spring marks the anniversaries of two events in fire history which are or should be alarmingly similar in many, many respects. A few weeks ago, March 25th marked the 101st anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City. Most in the fire service have heard of this event insofar as it marked the milestone of being the largest industrial accidental loss of life by fire in our nation’s, and the world’s, history. There are varying definitions of the record holder of these dubious claims. We're not here to debate levels of severity. Suffice to say that the Triangle Shirtwaist fire was a horrific event in the history of modern mankind.

A typical garment district sweatshop.

Triangle Shirtwaist was a sweatshop garment operation in New York City which manufactured various clothing items using the labor of mostly young immigrant women. The business was located in the Asch Building (now called the Brown Building) at 23 Washington Place. The factory occupied the eigth, ninth and tenth floors of the 10 story building in Greenwich Village. The owners were Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. These two employed up to 500 immigrant women between the ages of 14 and 48 who worked on average some 9 hours each day plus Saturday for earnings of somewhere between $7 and $9 weekly.

On Saturday March 25, 1911 as the work day was ending, smoke was noticed as a fire flared up in a scrap bin under a cutter’s table in the northeast corner on the eighth floor. Blanck and Harris were at the factory at that time and had even invited their children to the factory that afternoon. The scrap bin the fire ignited in had not been emptied of accumulated cuttings for over two months. Smoking was banned in the factory but it was widely reported that employees were known to smoke anyway and even exhaled the smoke through their lapels to disguise or conceal it. 129 young women and 17 men died as a result of the Triangle Fire.

Triangle Shirtwaist on fire.  (New York Times)

Fire exits, though mandated by City code even then, were not adequate and were in fact missing altogether in certain locations. The fire escape which was installed on the building bent under the heat and collapsed. It was later discovered to have been installed with substandard fastners and workmanship. The only fire supression of any kind in the building was the presence of a total of 27 buckets of water. Nine on each of the three floors. The employees were accustomed to and only knew of one way to exit the building, that being one of two freight elevators. One wasn't in operating condition. Exits had been locked and chained shut to keep the employees from leaving their sewing machines, sealing their fate.

New York Times archive

While the owners and their kids were escaping the holocaust using the roof and adjoining buildings, 50 of the employees were being incinerated on the three floors and 60 were driven to their death by jumping 90 to 100 feet to the street below. Of the 146 dead, 129 were immigrant women from 14 to 48.  Of the total dead, 6 could not be identified until modern science caught up with history in 2011 and they were duly recognized and memorialized. There is closure for you.

Max Blanck and Isaac Harris were charged with multiple offenses resulting in death. A long trial worthy of Perry Mason resulted in an acquital of both men. A civil trial resulted in a 'victory' for the victims survivors. That 'victory' afforded a judgment of $75.00 per head. Blanck and Harris profited heavily from the disaster. They were able to induce an insurance settlement of $400.00 per death and a settlement which exceeded the material losses by some $60,000. Blanck and Harris had much experience in fires. At two other locations operated by these nefarious crooks, early morning fires were commonplace. Especially at the close of the garment selling season. The partners found fires profitably took care of carryover inventory and then some.

Max Blanck and Isaac Harris  (ILGWU Archives)

Triangle Shirtwaist Company reopened in 1913 in a different location in the city. Within twelve months of it's reopening, Max Blanck was arrested by fire inspectors when a surprise inspection found another exit door chained shut. He was fined twenty dollars and given an apology from the judge for disturbing him.

Now, don't be mistaken. There was some good which resulted from this devastating event. After the fact, of course. Fire Chief John Kenlon identified some 245 factories in the City which were sitting ducks for the same type of devastation in New York. From the date of the fire until 1913 alone, 64 laws were passed including building access, fireproofing requirements, alarm systems, auto sprinklers, fire extinguishers not to mention comfort issues of rest rooms, eating space and hours of work. This, at the time, put New York on the map in the effort to improve not only employee safety, but the general public safety as well. The development of NFPA 101, the Life Safety Code can be directly attributed to the Triangle fire.

As for George Santayana, though. Well, it seems to me from my meager vantage point, that George was correct. And history proves him right once again. In fact, not once again, but rather 'many times', again!

We'll continue with "Race To The Bottom" Part Two tomorrow.

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More Space at the Top Comes Available

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THE FORMER CHIEF OF the Caribou (Maine) Fire and Ambulance Department was indicted last week on three counts of unlawful sexual contact, one count of unlawful sexual touching and three counts of assault.  The crimes all took place in Caribou and apparently a city employee is the complainant against Chief Roy Woods, 67.

Roy Woods  (Aroostook Republican photo)

The Bangor Daily News reports:

Woods resigned in January after 44 years with the Caribou Fire and Ambulance Department, including 21 years as the head of fire, ambulance and emergency management services for the city. According to a copy of his resignation letter, Woods said he was resigning for "medical reasons."

However, Caribou City Manager Steven Buck issued a statement indicating that he accepted the resignation "in lieu of termination" after an investigation into a complaint filed against the fire chief by a city employee.

"An independent investigation into the personnel matter was conducted with an expanded scope," said Buck. "After extensive review and evaluation of the results of the investigation, my own evaluation and after reviewing these evaluations with Woods and a subsequent review of his responses, I accepted his immediate resignation."

Read the detailed story in the Bangor Daily News HERE.

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IRVING, TEXAS, FIRE CHIEF MARIO MOLINA was placed on administrative leave last week for undisclosed reasons.  However, it is strongly believed that it is connected to an FBI investigation into corruption.  The Dallas Morning News is reporting:

The move came weeks after a former mayor said two FBI agents questioned him about the chief’s alleged attempts last year to secure an employment contract in exchange for reversing unpopular disciplinary decisions against two department employees.

City spokeswoman Susan Rose did not respond Tuesday to questions about what prompted Molina’s leave or who made the decision to suspend him. Molina reports to City Manager Tommy Gonzalez. Rose also did not respond to questions about whether the chief is on paid or unpaid leave.

Chief Molina

At a politically explosive council work session in March 2011, Molina accused council members of putting political pressure on him to reduce the punishments of two firefighters that angered rank-and-file department employees. The meeting preceded council elections. The firefighter association’s political arm was considered a major force in city elections at the time.

(Former Mayor) Gears, who was up for re-election, said Molina offered to "take care" of the discipline issues that angered firefighters if he would help provide the chief job security through an employment contract.

The Dallas Morning News goes into greater detail about the chief's conflict with his firefighters in their STORY HERE.

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A FORMER NEW HAMPSHIRE FIRE CHIEF was sentenced to jail yesterday (Monday) after pleading guilty to a Christmas Eve arson.  Bradley Eldridge, 51, was the fire chief in West Ossipee, N.H., until March 28, 2011, when the West Ossipee Fire Precinct Commission removed Eldridge "for cause" during an executive session.

The Boston Herald tells us:

Eldridge was sentenced to three years with all but 90 days suspended for setting a fire in the barn of William Day Jr. on Porterfield Road in Porter.  Day wasn’t home, but a family across the street called the fire in and was able to extinguish it before firefighters arrived, according to Assistant District Attorney Joseph O’Connor. No one was injured and the animals in the barn survived.

O’Connor said Day was dating Eldridge’s ex-wife, and that Eldridge had made threats that he would "make Mr. Day suffer." A camera caught a man pulling up in a car that looked like Eldridge’s car and entering the barn just before the fire was reported.

When questioned, Eldridge admitted to setting the fire, and admitted he had been drinking heavily when he decided to start the fire, O’Connor said.

Read the full story in the Herald HERE.

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Red Light Runner Triggers Chain Reaction

IN PANORAMA CITY, CALIFORNIA, a dolt drove his car through a red light and then collided with a delivery van and a third vehicle.  The van in turn, sheared off a fire hydrant in front of a gasoline station and sent a gusher about 90 ft. into the air. 

KABC-TV

The water mostly came down onto the canopy over the pumps and before the city crews could get it shut off, the canopy collapsed.

KABC-TV

No word on the total damage costs, but it will be substantial.

KABC-TV posted this video from the scene that includes surveillance video of the collapse:

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