On July 3rd the Family Dollar store in Edgehill held a “Bring the Community Together Day” event. Namozine was invited to bring apparatus and to conduct some public education for the store’s patrons. Fire Marshal 1 performed child safety seat checks and Company 4 members offered glucose monitoring and blood pressure checks. Of course, there were also fire trucks that the kids were able to climb on and ask questions about.

The Family Dollar staff wore t-shirts with “Support the Namozine Volunteer Fire Department” printed on them. They were also generous with the food sales. They graciously donated the proceeds from the food sales to our department. In addition to some great barbecue, there were grilled hot dogs and hamburgers- perfect eats for the Independence Day weekend.

To further add to the event, our company was presented with a check from Gerdau Ameristeel. The donation was a contribution to fund the trailer seen in the pictures. The trailer was used at the event to present kitchen fire safety education to the public. The trailer will also be used in the future as a mobile command post for county law enforcement, fire, and ems services during large events or incidents.

Our sincere thanks go out to our neighbors in the business community for their generous help that allows us to serve all of our neighbors in the private community.

At approximately 0215 hours on 07/17/10, Company 4 was dispatched to a vehicle fire on Weakley Road. The duty crew was quickly out the door, and upon arrival, Tanker 4’s crew found a BMW SUV fully involved. Just under five minutes after arriving on scene (twelve minutes after initial dispatch), the fire was marked under control.

The vehicle was stolen earlier in the night and the driver had already left the scene. The incident is under investigation.

The pictures are still frames taken from Tanker 4’s video camera. The video is available on our Video page.

After extinguishing a vehicle fire and while still on-scene, the Company 4 Duty Crew overheard radio traffic from neighboring Petersburg. Petersburg was responding to its largest fire in several years- the three-story Brown and Williamson Building renovation. At around 0330 PFD was responding to the former tobacco warehouse that was being converted into up-scale apartments and lofts. A while after returning to quarters, Company 4 was called foe mutual aid to help in the incident.

Namozine joined Petersburg, Chesterfield, Prince George, Colonial Heights, Fort Lee, and Hopewell fire departments in battling the blaze. Company 4 was primarily tasked with keeping the fire from passing through a passageway that led to an adjoining warehouse.

Crews from Company 4 were released at around 1700 hours once the fire was declared contained, yet far from extinguished.

A news clip of the fire can be seen in the video section.

At 0155 hours on July 19^th, 2010, Company 4 was dispatched to a motel fire on the southern end of the County. Upon arrival of the first and second due companies, the fire was reported to fully involve three units of the motel with extension rapidly progressing into four more. Due to the age of the structure, there were no fire breaks between segments of the complex. The first arriving unit from Company 4 was Truck 4. The aerial master stream was immediately deployed by part of the crew while the remainder of the crew grabbed a hand line from an engine company and made entry to pull ceilings and stop the progression. Tanker 4 arrived shortly after, using most of its crew for suppression and to shuttle water to the scene after the nearby town of McKenney suffered a mechanical issue with its water system.

On scene were Engine 1, Tanker 1, Tanker 2, Engine 3, Engine 34, Tanker 3, Truck 4, Tanker 4, Medic 12, along with numerous support units. Special thanks go to Alberta VFD from Brunswick County who cam e via mutual aid. These guys came off the rig, went to work right away, and put forth as much effort as anyone else on location.

No injuries were reported and, at this time, the fire is under investigation to determine if illicit activities contributed to the blaze.

07/28/10 Correction: In the original posting of this article, Old Hickory (Company 5) was mistakenly left out of the list of responding departments. Had the writer (me) not been a complete moron, this would have been noticed earlier. Sincere apologies for the oversight.

At around 0430 hours on 07/26/10, Company 4 was dispatched for a logging truck on fire at the East Coast gas station. Early reports were that the truck was at the fuel pump, but those, thankfully, were false. The truck was parked in an overnight parking area and the driver was not inside the vehicle at the time of the fire. Engine 4 was quickly on scene and had a line extended immediately. Water was first placed on the neighboring truck which was a few feet away. The seat of the fire was then extinguished and there was no damage to the exposures. Due to the reported location, Companies 1 and 2 were also dispatched but were able to return to service due to the fast knock down of the fire. There were no injuries and the cause of the fire is under investigation.

Shortly before noon on July 31st, Engine 4 responded to eastbound Route 460 for a three vehicle collision with injuries. Due to some confusion in the dispatch information Engine 4 was initially dispatched to assist Squad 2, but the incident was actually in Company 4’s first due area. Two of the three vehicles can be seen in these images in precarious positions. The third had only very minor damage. Using equipment from Squad 2, Engine 4’s crew stabilized the vehicles while Squad 2’s crew assisted Medic 42 with patient care. After closing all lanes of eastbound 460 for a short period, the incident was under control and one patient was sent to the hospital for evaluation.