Salisbury (MA) Firefighter Dies After Being Injured at Station

Update: Officials say a Salisbury firefighter was killed after a fire department vehicle he was working on at headquarters slipped from a jack and landed on him.

Salisbury Deputy Fire Chief Steven LeSage said, "It is with great sadness that I announce the death of Salisbury fire Lt. Tim Oliveria who passed away this afternoon." Lt. Oliveria was injured in an accident that occurred at the Lafayette Street Fire Headquarters Friday afternoon while working on a department vehicle.

Read more HERE.

From thebostonchannel.com:

A Salisbury firefighter was seriously injured Friday when he was crushed by a vehicle behind the fire station.

The firefighter, a man in his 50s, was working on a vehicle behind the Lafayette Road fire station when it fell on him. Fire officials did not specify what kind of vehicle fell on him, but did say it was not a fire engine.

The firefighter, said to be a lieutenant and a mechanic for the department, was initially taken to Anna Jaques Hospital but was then flown to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

MA Chiefs Concerned About Tanker Traffic Hazard

From the Boston Herald:

After another massive North Shore tanker fire, residents and fire officials say it’s time for the state to step in with new measures to control the truck traffic from local fuel facilities before more people are killed.

“We need to have just one lane for all those trucks, and limit them to 35 miles an hour,” said Allan Huberman, as he lifted debris from his fire-scorched family greenhouse business yesterday. “We’ve had four or five major accidents on that road, just in the last couple of years. People are going too fast, and you can’t, not with all that on-and-off traffic.”

“It’s a serious concern of ours and has been forever,” Saugus fire Chief James Blanchard said about the fuel trucks moving through densely populated areas. His fire crews evacuated 120 people from their homes early Saturday morning.

Blanchard said drug testing of drivers and cutting back on rotaries had helped, but now it may be time for other changes, such as widening sections of Route 1.

In nearby Everett, fire Chief David Butler agreed something has to change. Overturned tanker fires hit Revere’s Brown Circle in 2009 and in Everett in 2007.

“We’ve got a lot of this coming out of my city, and we’re not getting any extra help because of it,” Butler said. “There is an unfair strain put on some of these cities.”

Woman Trapped in Basement of Burning MA Home Dies

From boston.com:

A fire that broke out Friday night in a two-family home on Melrose Avenue killed a woman trapped in the structure’s basement, a fire official said.

The woman, whose identity was not released pending notification of her family, was believed to be a "visitor" in the house at 75 Melrose Ave., said Brockton Deputy Fire Chief Timothy Murphy, in a brief phone interview this afternoon.

The woman called 911 and reported that she was trapped about 11 p.m., he said. Eight trucks responded to the two-alarm fire, he said.

...

A search team of fire fighters swept the basement searching for survivors, but failed initially to find her. A second search team located a door to a room where the woman’s body was found, Murphy said.

A witness to the scene last night, who lives nearby but declined to give her name, said she saw emergency medical personnel attempt to revive the woman for more than 15 minutes in the back of a waiting ambulance after she was pulled from the building.

Read MORE.

Worcester (MA) Firefighter Memorial Run Returns

Via the Worcester Telegram:

Since the turn of this century, but not including last year, this was always the weekend to get the word out about the Worcester Firefighters Memorial 6K. The race committee would meet to collate and mail the applications to past runners for the race coming in June.

Consider this getting the word out this year: The June tradition that is the Firefighters 6K is back.

...

“Our goal has always been to keep the memory alive for our fallen brothers,” Franco said, referring to Paul Brotherton, Timothy Jackson, Jeremiah Lucey, James “Jay” Lyons, Joseph McGuirk and Thomas Spencer, who answered the ill-fated call to the Cold Storage Warehouse fire in 1999.

This race will also honor the memory of Kevin Turner, a Worcester firefighter who was stationed with Franco at the Webster Square house. Turner died of a heart attack last July at age 39. While in the Army, he served two tours in the Middle East during the Gulf War.

For more details, go to www.wfd6k.org.

Off-Duty MA Firefighter Saves Family

From Boston.com:

An off-duty Newton firefighter was hailed a hero today after he rushed into a burning house, with no protective gear, raced up to the second floor and rescued a family of three.

Firefighter Nick McGrath entered the multi-family house at 16 Auburndale Ave. and broke down the family's door after a woman running out of the first floor told him that people were still inside, Newton Fire Chief Bruce Proia said tonight.

...

The husband, wife, and their young child were unaware that a fire was quickly beginning to rage, he said. McGrath made sure the three were safe, before he ran back inside to check the third floor of the three-decker for anyone else who might be inside.

Read more HERE.

Boston (MA) Firefighters Describe Rescue of Public Transportation Worker

In this video, two Boston (MA) Fire Department workers talk about how they were able to rescue an MBTA worker who was trapped in a hollow concrete shaft. This second video has more details on the rescue.

More from the Boston Globe:

Boston firefighters this morning rescued a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority worker who had fallen into a narrow shaft inside the concrete structures that support the Charles Street/MGH Red Line Station in Boston.

“He kept saying, ‘I want out of here,’ ‘’ said one of the Boston firefighters from the department’s technical rescue team who helped the injured man from the bottom of the concrete shaft some 30 feet below the tracks.

Read MORE.