Thank you to everyone for stopping up town at the Fredericktown National Night Out. The weather definitely put a wrench into the works, but we were happy to meet at talk to everyone that stopped over.
Being a regular training night for our cadets during their academy, we brought them along with us to help out.
Although it can happen anytime, summertime and nice weather brings the prime time for garage sales, auctions, and antiquing, both on the part of the buyer and the seller. Those on the hunt for antiques and things that catch their eye sometimes however get more than they bargained for with their purchase.
An alert homeowner on Green Valley Road, within the Fredericktown Community Fire District brought crews responding to a dangerous situation at their home on Saturday afternoon. The homeowner contacted the Knox County Sheriff’s Office after finding that an antique bottle his wife purchased at a sale unknowingly contained an explosive chemical. Research on the labeling of the bottled determined it contained Picric Acid, and with the age and form it was something very unstable. In the form the acid was found in, it was both shock sensitive and sensitive to metal. The explosive power we were informed was similar to nitroglycerin.
The FCFD had two chiefs along with an engine respond to the scene to be on standby during the course of the operation. The Bomb Squad from the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office responded to the incident with their team and were able to safely dispose of the bottle and contents utilizing one pound of C4.
Incidents like this are nothing new within our community, over the course of the last several years the FCFD has responded to incidents with unstable materials requiring the assistance of bomb squad units from around Central Ohio. As people are cleaning out old barns, garages, and basements are often times when old chemicals and potentially dangerous items are found.
A quick search of the Internet and fire service publications rendered numerous results for picric acid incidents from around the United States requiring assistance from bomb squads and EOD teams. In addition to the form we found it in on Saturday, a more common response has been to decades old first aid kits containing “picric acid gauze pads.”
Although its primary use is as an explosive, over the years picric acid has found other uses in medicine as an antiseptic, burn treatments, and other uses, but early on was also used as a dye.
If you find some type of hazardous, dangerous, explosive, or unknown material such as the picric acid that we dealt with in our community over the weekend we would recommend the following:
1. Call 911 and provide them with as much information as possible to what you have found. Name of material, description, and where it is located.
2. Stay away from and keep others from the area surrounding the material or device in question.
3. Leave the material where it is. Do not attempt to move it, transfer it to another location, or change the container it is in, doing so may cause a reaction. Trained professionals will respond to where the material is and determine the safest manner to dispose of the situation.
4. Do not simply pour it down the drain, not only are you putting that into the sewer system, but potentially the material is reactive to water or metal in the pipes.
5. Doing anything other than leaving this situation to the trained professionals is extremely dangerous.
Thank you so much to Mid-State Waste, and Mark Phillips for your help once again in making the extrication day for our cadets happen. Three vehicles were dropped off for our training today and we were able to make this such a success.
Although the cadets made a significant dent in the vehicles that were dropped off, there is still a lot more to be done. Looking forward to more training!
We pushed our fire cadets mentally and physically tonight in training. Cadets broke off into two crews, swapping scenarios partway through the night.
SCBA were assembled into a pile, connected together, and cadets put their hoods on where they could not see. Cadets then worked to untangle the mess and see how well they knew their air packs in order to properly assemble them in working order.
The second station for the night was mental and physical. A five station challenge course consisted of the following for a timed event. 1. Lift a 50′ section of 1 1/2″ hose onto their shoulder and climb the training center stairs up/down five times. 2. Come down the stairs, place the hose bundle into a taped off area, move to a platform and pull a 50′ section of 2 1/2″ hose roll with a rope. 3. Leave the platform, pickup two pieces of cribbing, move through a series of cones and place them on the ground. 4. Hoist a roof ladder to their shoulder and go 50 feet around a cone and back to the starting cone. 5. Go through the firehouse and stretch 100′ of charged 1 1/2″ hoseline to a pair of cones and open/close the nozzle to end the course.
Cadets never gave up, they pushed each other, they learned a lot tonight, and they worked through a tough challenge.
Great job by ALL. The effort was amazing.
Hosting another multi-departmental training tonight at our house. Guest instructor Steve Treinish is presenting swift water and surface water rescue awareness. Crews from five departments are taking part. Thank you to everyone for coming to participate and take knowledge back home.
This is a joint meeting between the Fire and EMS boards on May 30th. The meeting will be held at the Fredericktown Firehouse, 139 Columbus Road in Fredericktown.
If you have questions, make sure to contact your local trustees, councilpersons to have them answered.
Here are some recent media links to meetings and events.
Firefighters Voice Stance on Merge – 2017
Emotions high as staffing turned down
Fredericktown Fire Rejects Paid Staff
Congratulations to the 2018 graduating class of Fredericktown High School. Special congrats go out to Noah Smith as he officially transitions from Fire Cadet to Probationary Firefighter tonight!
Cadets spent their second meeting of the month in the training center on search and rescue. Next month starts the summer Fire Cadet Academy.
CH411, E419, T417, G412, G414 were dispatched at 11:48am on Saturday morning to the 19000 block of Ankneytown Road on the report of a trailer load of hay on fire.
Upon arrival of CH411 the trailer of hay was off the roadway and unhooked from the truck. Unburned hay was being removed by hand.
Firefighters stretched the 1 3/4″ line from the bumper of E419 for suppression and crews used hand tools to tear apart bales. A draft site was setup nearby at Knox lake for water supply.
A total of nine firefighters and one cadet responded to the call. All FCFD crews were back in quarters by 1:39pm.
