Wednesday, December 12, 2012
'Forcible entry door' training prop allows hundreds and hundreds of live-simulated break-ins that could mean survival for any Tosa citizen trapped in a burning building.
- BUSINESS
- Jim Price
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Wednesday, December 12, 2012
"Forcible entry." It's not always a crime. It's what firefighters do for a living. As if flames and heavy smoke weren't enough, firefighters can face a lot of other obstacles and challenges on an "active structure fire" call. Structures may be unsafe. Floors, ceilings, stairways could collapse. There are gas lines and appliances, the possibility of toxic and/or volatile chemicals that could erupt, electrical shorts and arcs that could cause the blaze to leap behind you. Any wall can conceal an inferno behind it. Most pressing, there is the possibility that people may still be inside, may be already unconscious, and you have to put aside every other danger to find them and rescue them. But all that is faced once firefighters get inside a …
Friday, November 9, 2012
Fire Department returns to County Grounds plant with more potent equipment to soak burning coal deep in bunkers. Unfortunately, escaping retardant causes small fish kill.
A coal fire that began early Sunday morning at We Energies' County Grounds Power Plant was finally put out after a 20-hour stretch of innovative firefighting throughout Thursday and into Friday. It took the Wauwatosa Fire Department with the aid of specialists and specialized equipment from as far away as Duluth, Minn., to douse and remove the coal after efforts by We Energies proved futile. Tosa firefighters were called to the Watertown Plank Road plant at 7:30 a.m. Sunday when coal ignited in bunkers on the sixth floor. Initially, it was determined that water could not be used because of the danger to and from the high-voltage electrical power equipment below. A truck from Gen. Mitchell International Airport was brought in and foam …
43.045106
-88.027203
9200 W Watertown Plank Rd, Wauwatosa, WI
We Energies' County Grounds Power Plant
/articles/power-plant-coal-fire-extinguished-after-6-days
/locations/8130255
Friday, September 7, 2012
Once a year, every hose in the Wauwatosa Fire Department's service has to be pressure-tested – and guess who gets to do the grunt work?
- POLICE & FIRE
- Jim Price
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Friday, September 7, 2012
Thursday was Conor Quinlevan's one-year anniversary with the Wauwatosa Fire Department, which means it was also his first day off probation – a full-fledged Tosa firefighter at last. You'd think he'd get a party or some kind of ceremony. Instead, they sent him out to test hoses, on the wet end. He did rate an assistant, though, now that he's ranked – Christopher Sandoval, who's been on the job all of three months, got to help. I stepped out of my house Thursday afternoon to find Quinlevan, Sandoval and a host of other firefighters hemming me in with a pumper truck and a massive firehose snaking down my street in long loops. With all the utility excavation that's been going on for weeks on my street and throughout the neighborhood – the …
Thursday, September 6, 2012
September 11 memorial display and ceremony will mark upcoming anniversary of attack on America and the sacrifices of firefighters then and soldiers since.
- POLICE & FIRE
- Jim Price
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Thursday, September 6, 2012
Enjoy the music and the food at Tosafest – but don't forget to "fill the boot" for charity and pay tribute to those who have given all for their country. The Wauwatosa Firefighters will host their annual Charity Event at Tosafest on from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday and 1 to 9 p.m. to benefit their community Charity Fund. Firefighters wear "turnout" gear when they go to battle a blaze, but they also turn out regularly to volunteer their time and talents to good causes. Funds are raised by the operation of a dunk tank and by generous people who “fill the boot,” a firefighter's good-sized footgear. A memorial ceremony, including a garrison flag-raising, will take place at approximately 5 p.m. Saturday, marking the upcoming 11th anniversary of the 9/11…
Friday, July 13, 2012
Victim had to be extracted from SUV knocked over in a collision in the middle of busy Mayfair and North.
Busy morning traffic was rerouted in two directions Friday at North Mayfair Road and West North Avenue after a two-vehicle collision that left a woman trapped in her tipped SUV. Firefighters were able to extract the woman within about 15 to 20 minutes after the 8:29 a.m. accident. The woman, whom police and fire officials have not yet identified, was able to walk to a stretcher on her own but was taken to the hospital. Lt. Gerald Witkowski said the woman suffered a minor injury to her arm. The SUV remained on its side in the middle of the southbound lanes of Mayfair Road, while the sedan that struck it, with major front-end damage, sat in the eastbound lanes of North Avenue. Traffic in both those directions was rerouted. A witness told …
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Fire Department supervisors would get a 3 percent pay raise and benefit parity after two years; other non-represented employee would see only about half of that.
- GOVERNMENT
- Jim Price
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Wednesday, December 14, 2011
With the focus all year on the reduction of collective bargaining rights of unionized government employees, far less attention has been paid to those public workers who are not union-represented — administrators, supervisors, engineers and the like. In separate actions Tuesday, Wauwatosa moved forward with proposals on pay and benefits for its Fire Department supervisors, and for all other non-union employees other than police supervisors. In a first proposal, recommended unanimously Tuesday by the Budget and Finance Committee of the Common Council, the six unrepresented Fire Department supervisors — the chief, deputy chiefs and assistant chiefs — would get 3 percent wage increases to keep them in line with union firefighters and officers…
Monday, September 26, 2011
What Chris Abele calls 'out-of-date' subsidies, Chief Ugaste sees as critical line of defense in saving lives.
Wauwatosa Fire Chief Rob Ugaste was a paramedic for 25 years of his firefighting career and knows the value of EMS – Emergency Medical Services. A fire department gets far more medical calls than it does fire alarms, and each one of those calls presents a likelihood of saving someone in a life-threatening situation. So it's no surprise that Ugaste is alarmed by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele's proposal to cut $3 million in support for paramedic service to municipalities. Abele last week announced that he plans to end payments to local fire departments for paramedic service as part of his 2012 budget. Those subsidies to public safety have been in place since 1975. The move is driven by a $55 million budget shortfall facing Milwaukee…
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Simple ceremony during Tosafest an eloquent tribute to those who willingly risked and gave their lives.
- POLICE & FIRE
- Aj Randall
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Sunday, September 11, 2011
The Wauwatosa Fire Department briefly called for quiet Saturday evening to honor 9/11 firefighters who died, as well as other service men and women who have died since in America's struggle against terrorism.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Tenth anniversary of 9/11 prompts Tosa firefighters to expand annual charity event to include memorial display and ceremony.
- POLICE & FIRE
- Jim Price
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Thursday, September 8, 2011
In July, when the Wauwatosa Fire Department finally received an artifact of the World Trade Center attack after a two-year wait, firefighters and chiefs hoped to be able to get a permanent display for it built at headquarters Station No. 1 by this weekend. The plan was to have a dedication ceremony at the firehouse on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, with the artifact on view in an appropriately designed setting. That didn't happen; there just wasn't the time or money to get it done right. And perhaps that's just as well. Since the twisted and tortured steel reminder of the tragedy is still portable, the firefighters decided to place it front and center on their annual charity stage at Tosafest starting Friday. So, Tosa's Twin Towers steel I-…
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
With large federal grant in hand, department can afford to test and re-equip with the best.
- POLICE & FIRE
- Jim Price
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Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Four firefighters worked feverishly Monday hauling hoses, deploying ladders and swinging sledgehammers to get to an unconscious man and drag him away from a searing fire, then entered a room that had turned into a 785-degree inferno to douse the flames. In the process of checking the building for other occupants, they crawled blindly into tangled deadend passages and fell through collapsing floors but found no one else trapped inside. Fortunately, the victim in this blaze, Rugged Ron, a 165-pound dummy, was OK and will be around to be dragged away another day. The four firefighters, one each from Wauwatosa, Waukesha, Racine and the North Shore fire departments, were chosen as testers in a unique program in which 22 area fire departments …
Cheryl Nenn
11:06 am on Monday, November 12, 2012
Its a coal burning power plant. The Valley Plant is converting to natural gas hopefully by the end of 2013/early 2014, but I'm not aware of plans to convert this plant. I visited the site on Friday afternoon and did not witness any live fish, but lots of dead sunfish on the bottom of the pond still. Does anyone know if that pond is stocked with fish? I was surprised as a stormwater pond to see … more ›