Of course, the answer is of course. Life is just ironic that way. What’s surprising however is how many stations have gone up in smoke, and how often it happens. Just this year, for instance, a firefighter in Japan, in haste, left the stove on while cooking dinner in the firehouse on the way out to fight a blaze. Ten fire trucks from other, nearby stations, had to put out the firehouse fire. Perhaps the guilty fireman should consider ordering-in for dinner from now on?
Closer to home, also this year, a fire broke out in a Capitol Heights, Maryland fire station. This one started in a fire truck engine. When an initial automatic fire alarm was sounded, volunteer firefighters on duty at the time foolishly cancelled it. Five minutes later, they were on the phone with dispatch requesting backup. Eight minutes after that, firefighters from a nearby station were on the scene, putting out the blaze.
Also in Maryland (Largo, to be exact), even more recently (May 19th, to be exact), the Bladensburg fire station caught fire when wiring inside the ladder truck went up in smoke. There were two fire station fires in Illinois not too long ago, as well. In Elwood on August 26,1995, a fire station caught fire and burned to the ground. And in Fillmore, a tiny community southeast of Springfield, another fire station caught fire and burned to the ground.
More recently, Pennsylvania had a lulu of its own. On July 7th, the Strattanville Volunteer Fire Department was alerted to a roof fire at its own station. The cause? Arson! When the two guys who started the fire were caught and brought into the police station, one of them said he lit his boxer shorts on fire and then threw them onto the roof of the fire station, adding that he “thought it would be funny” if the fire station caught fire.
Of course, there’s nothing funny about any of these fires, but it does make you think. And ask other questions, like: who delivers the mail to a post office? Food for thought on this Labor Day…
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The fire station in my small hometown burned down a couple years ago. Besides the fire destroying records and being a great embarrassment, building the new station diverted much-needed funds from other city projects such as renovating the library. It was very sad.
posted by Kelsey on 9-6-2009 at 9:29 pm
years ago i walked passed one in mid-town manhattan on my way to the post office. i thought i smelled wood burning, but as a typical new yorker thought nothing of it. turns out the firemen left food on the stove when they went out on a call and the firehouse caught fire.
one of my friends dated a fireman who worked in lower manhattan. one day he gave us a tour of the firehouse, when we saw the kitchen i noticed that the hood was caked with so much grease, if it was a restaurant they’d be shut down until they cleaned it. he didn’t seem too concerned since they were fireman.
posted by kmg on 9-6-2009 at 9:59 pm
The also get robbed rather often. Many don’t have remotes to close those big doors when they leave, and nobody stays behind.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 9-6-2009 at 10:27 pm
We live near a fire station, and when there was a fire on our block, all the trucks were dealing with other fires so they had to bring trucks from other neighborhoods. I hope when a fire starts in a fire station there’s at least someone there to put it off.
posted by OM on 9-6-2009 at 11:17 pm
The fire station in my very small, impoverished township also burned a couple of years ago, because of the wiring in the ladder truck. It is still closed because it was a volunteer station and they didn’t have enough revenue or donations to even buy a replacement truck, let alone rebuild it… :( It’s very sad.
posted by Rachel on 9-7-2009 at 12:26 am
I’m currently serving as fire chief in my town and in 2004 my fire station had a small fire in the chief’s office. We have these archaic radiant heaters all over the walls and the samll one in the chief’s office (which we were assured had been disconnected) had kicked on and caught a pile of boxes containing new fire helmets on fire. While the building as a whole was okay, the office was trashed and the smell lingered for years. On the plus side, the chief’s office was moved to a bigger room.
posted by Jeneva on 9-7-2009 at 10:12 am
While I don’t know of any fire stations catching on fire, I did once Fed-Ex a package to my sister’s work, which happens to be my hometown post office. Chuckles all around…
posted by Chris on 9-7-2009 at 10:34 am
Seems like a lot of these fires start with bad wiring in the trucks. If I were in charge, I’d overhaul those trucks first.
posted by Johnny Cat on 9-7-2009 at 3:01 pm
This maybe one of the most ironic articles I’ve read.
posted by Ellie on 9-7-2009 at 5:29 pm
Last month at our local volunteer fire department’s monthly meeting, the guys were working on the ancient fire truck when it backfired and one of the guys caught fire. He was burned on his chest, hands and face. He’s doing pretty well, but pretty scary, huh?
posted by Wendy on 9-7-2009 at 9:39 pm
What would happen if there was a fire during a parade? Because you know ALL parades MUST include the local fire department.
posted by Christine on 9-8-2009 at 12:26 am
I actually work in a historic firehouse (on the National Register even!) built in 1913. There was a previous firehouse on the site built I think in 1911, made of wood, which burned down while the firefighters were away on a call. The 1913 structure was made of brick, and has survived since (though it hasn’t hosted actual firemen since the days of horse-and-buggy fire trucks).
There’s also a row of houses alongside the firehouse which are known as Fireman’s Row, they’re all kit houses from the Sears catalog where you’d have them ship the lumber, plans, and so on via the railroad and then build your own house.
This is all in Portland, Oregon on SE 7th Ave, a few blocks south of Hawthorne. (For the curious.)
posted by Chris Higgins on 9-8-2009 at 2:58 am
Christine – if there were a fire while a FD was marching they would simply get on the truck and get out of the line of march. The ones that don’t get on the truck would finish the parade.
posted by Jeneva on 9-8-2009 at 9:23 am
We actually had a call during a parade a couple of years ago. We are just a volunteer department and were actually in a parade in another town when we got paged out. We had two trucks in the parade and the rest were in the station, we just flipped on the siren and got on the loudspeakers and told people to move we were coming through.
posted by Steve on 9-8-2009 at 11:24 am
actually not to long ago our ambulance caught fire at the hospital from once again bad wiring. does seem to plague emergency vehicles.
posted by Brian on 9-8-2009 at 6:45 pm
Who delivers mail to the post office? Why, the post office, of course. ;-)
posted by Calli Arcale on 9-10-2009 at 5:46 pm