RUNS & WORKERS - PART 8

Photo: WDTN

Neighbors raised a ladder to help two people escape a fire on East Northern Avenue in Springfield on Feb. 28, 2016. They were "we’re very fortunate under the circumstances," Battalion Chief Pat Casey told WDTN. Resident Michael Bertram said: “If it wasn’t for the neighbors over here, we would have been dead."

Fatal accident and fire on I-70, Clark County, Oct. 4, 2018. One dead.

WHIO SKY7 view of fatal house fire, Dover Road, Springfield, Aug. 30, 2018. One dead.

Fatal house fire, Wiley Avenue, Springfield, Aug. 12, 2018. Two dead. 

Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken, Springfield, May 24, 2018

COLUMBUS DISASTER - 1936

Photos courtesy of the estate of Henry Frank Moler, an engineer employed by the City of Columbus engineer's office

Five members of the Columbus Fire Division died Feb. 19, 1936 when a wall collapsed at a fire at the Odd Fellows Temple - one of the largest losses of firefighters in Ohio history. 

They were:

• Herbert Harrington, firefighter, Squad 1
• Otto Ignatze, captain, Pump 3
• Harry McFadden, firefighter, Truck 1
• Oliver Metzger, firefighter, Squad 1
• Robert Welsh, captain, Squad 1

The fire apparently started at the furnace.

The building was located on the corner of High and Rich streets.
On Feb. 19, 2012, the Columbus Dispatch published the following recollection:

Five Columbus firefighters died, and seven others were injured on Feb. 19, 1936, when the rear wall of a four-story Downtown lodge hall collapsed during an early morning fire.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall, which stood where Columbus Commons now is on S. High Street, was one of the oldest office buildings in the city, having been built in 1868. 

Decayed mortar between the bricks of the building’s west wall was blamed for the tragedy.

At least eight firefighters were on a fire escape when the wall gave way, plunging some to their deaths and injuring others.

Firefighter Earl Ruhl said he was on the third floor when “Lt. McFadden and others in his company told me to go down and warm up. I went down the fire escape and a ladder, and before I knew what happened, I heard timbers crashing and felt bricks hitting my back.”

Lt. Harry McFadden, 36, had been injured fighting the fire but ignored advice to go to a hospital.

“He returned to the blaze after preliminary treatment just in time to be crushed under the wall,” The Dispatch reported.

McFadden was killed.

Firefighters used torches to rescue survivors from a tangle of steel beams, bricks and debris.

The front of the building was coated in a 6-inch sheet of ice, as the water from firefighters’ hoses froze in frigid weather.

GRAIN SILO - 2018

On Jan. 21, 2018, a grain silo ruptured in New Carlisle, spilling an estimated 20 million pounds of corn.

Remarkably, there were no serious injuries.

"If we would've had employees in the building it would've been a lot worse because their drive-thru that they run during the week, five-days a week was demolished on one side," New Carlisle Fire Chief Steve Trusty told FOX 45 News.

"The office area was completely demolished," Trusty said.

CHANGE OF WATCH

From Springfield News Sun

Chief Nick Heimlich became the head of the Springfield Fire Rescue Division in 2010, shortly after the Great Recession in the late 2000s.

The division “had a series of a couple of years of decreasing budgets,” Heimlich said. “But, when I started, we were at the lowest point of budgeting over the last seven to 10-year cycle.” Heimlich said his goals included “trying to maintain services, maintain our equipment and facilities under pretty significant constraints.”

Learning how to manage that he said was his single biggest challenge. The division will spend close to $1.1 million to upgrade the vehicle fleet in 2018. Three new ambulances and a rescue truck will be the first new vehicles since 2010, according to Heimlich. The current rescue engine has been in service for about 20 years. Some others are at least 26 to 27-years old, he said.

“Many of the fleet vehicles were deferred replacements over the course of the last seven years and as a result of that we … need to move that process very aggressively,” Heimlich said.

That will be a significant portion of the next chief’s duties, he added.

In his career as chief, Heimlich was able to install an information management system the division could use to help make decisions.

“My primary objective for the organization was to connect everybody to the information,” Heimlich said. “Collecting data on all the medical runs we go on. All the fire runs we go on. All of our inspections that we do. The hydrants we maintain,” Heimlich said.

That system showed where activity was in the city and became instrumental when a station had to be shuttered earlier this year. Information from that system helped officials make an informed decision about what to close.

Assistant Chief Brian Miller is serving as acting chief until Tuesday when he becomes Springfield Fire/Rescue Division’s new chief. He said Heimlich did a lot to insure the success of the division.

“Chief Heimlich did most of the hard work. He weathered the storm and we kind of reached bottom and we are heading back up,” Miller said.