Fire Department

A small notice in a 1916 edition of the Glendale Evening News informed readers, "Emil Kiefer, an employee at the White Store, is now working for Pulliam Undertaking Co. He intends to make this his life's work. He is a young man of great energy. He came here from Minnesota two years ago and has made many friends. " But shortly after this notice ran, Kiefer said good bye to his many friends - including a young lady we'll meet later in the story - and left town. He was in the first group of volunteers who responded to the call to fight in the Great War, as World War I was known in those days.

The Glendale Fire Department received a $5,000 donation Thursday to help pay for equipment used in urban search and rescue and hazardous materials training, officials said. The donation was made possible through the State Farm Insurance "Good Neighbor" program, which offers additional funding to fire departments struggling with budget constraints. The Fire Department will use the grant to pay for props and materials used for training in mass casualty response and regional terrorism incidents, officials said.

GLENDALE — The city's fire chief, Chris Gray, announced his retirement Monday and will move into the same position in San Rafael later this year. The announcement was made at the Glendale Firefighters Assn. Union meeting and comes six years after he took over as the city's top firefighter, according to a statement issued by the Fire Department. In addition to helping push through the Glendale-based Verdugo Dispatch Center and greater inter-department operability between area cities, Gray, 50, has been widely credited by city officials with having the public relations touch in reaching out to the community over the years.

CITY HALL — With city finances tight, fire and police are the latest city departments to introduce new fees as a way to recover the costs of providing services. The City Council on Tuesday voted 4 to 0, with Mayor Frank Quintero absent, to approve a new $135 police booking fee and a $30 charge for fire inspections, which officials said would help the two departments recoup the costs of staff time spent on the tasks. “It’s become very difficult to offset all of our costs through general-fund budgeting,” said Fire Chief Harold Scoggins.

Crowds of people packed the halls of the Glendale Fire Station No. 21 Saturday for family fun, education and a chance to better know their fire department. The scene was the department's Centennial Fire Service Day, and the department went all out to let people know what it is all about. "It's kind of like an open house, we're trying to let the community see who we are and what we do, Glendale Fire Capt. Tom Propst said. The event closed off part of Columbus Avenue, leaving an open area with several fire engines on display.

CITY HALL ? Caught between a growing budget deficit and pledges to leave public safety budgets alone, the City Council this week is scheduled to review police and fire services for possible cost-cutting measures as the new fiscal year looms. How the council approaches possible reductions for the Police and Fire departments, which together make up the lion?s share of the city?s general fund budget, will affect how other city services are impacted when the final cuts are made. Having already sustained millions in cutbacks over the past year as tax revenues plummeted with the economy, some city executives have already warned that any more significant reductions could spell the end of certain programs, or even employee layoffs.

GLENDALE — Testing is underway for approximately 80 ambulance operator hopefuls, who look forward to joining the Glendale Fire Department’s Basic Life Support emergency program. Out of 218 applicants, 160 showed up for the department’s written exam and the remaining candidates have gone through interviews, said Glendale Fire Battalion Chief Greg Godfrey, who oversees emergency service operations. Some of the candidates are locals, while others live in nearby cities, he added.

GLENDALE — Twelve ambulance operators have officially become members of the Fire Department’s new Basic Life Support program, which is scheduled to start today. The 12 members of Class 1 graduated Tuesday from the Fire Department academy, earning the right to count themselves among the city’s first-ever ambulance operators. Starting at 7:30 a.m. today, two ambulance operators will start answering service calls to transport patients with minor injuries to local hospitals, officials said.

GLENDALE — Hoover High School student Adeh Tarverdian was on a bus with his soccer team Dec. 21, 2007, about to leave for a game when he heard cries for help. He and coach Charles Martinez ran to find a man lying on a grass field. They performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and the man was taken to the hospital. Four days later, a high school secretary notified Adeh that the man survived and that they had saved his life. “The man said if it wasn’t for us doing CPR on him, he probably wouldn’t be alive,” Adeh said.

Alex Coolman NORTHEAST GLENDALE -- About 300 Glendale students gathered at Verdugo Park Friday for the Fire Department's annual Junior Fire Program picnic. The event featured a fairly lavish giveaway -- with prizes ranging from plaques and teddy bears to tickets to concerts and amusement parks. Fire Department Capt. John Wray said the point of the event was to reward students who perform well in the fire education programs that district fifth-graders study.

A small notice in a 1916 edition of the Glendale Evening News informed readers, "Emil Kiefer, an employee at the White Store, is now working for Pulliam Undertaking Co. He intends to make this his life's work. He is a young man of great energy. He came here from Minnesota two years ago and has made many friends. " But shortly after this notice ran, Kiefer said good bye to his many friends - including a young lady we'll meet later in the story - and left town. He was in the first group of volunteers who responded to the call to fight in the Great War, as World War I was known in those days.

Firefighters were able to contain a fire in a third-story apartment unit from spreading Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Fire crews arrived about 3:35 p.m. to find flames rising from the third-floor apartment window in the 600 block of East Chevy Chase Drive, said Brandy Villanueva, Glendale Fire Department spokeswoman.  The building's residents were quickly evacuated, she added. No one was injured in the blaze. Fire officials are still trying to determine whether any residents have been displaced from their homes as a result of the fire, Villanueva said.

Glendale police and fire officials received more than $850,000 in U.S. Department of Homeland Security grants this week for intelligence-gathering equipment and search-and-rescue training. Enhancements to video equipment on police helicopters, upgrades to night-vision capabilities, new police protective wear and equipment for the city's regional training center at Scholl Canyon are some of the projects that will be funded through grants, Police Capt. Ray Edey said. The funding will also pay for license plate camera recognition systems to be installed on two patrol vehicles and for new cameras along the rail systems in the San Fernando Road corridor, he said.

We would like to thank all the Glendale and county firefighters that responded to our house fire on Dec. 17. We had a chimney fire that went into the attic, and we had no idea it was happening. There was no smell of smoke or smoke alarms that went off. An unknown, good neighbor seeing flames from our chimney called 911, and the Fire Department arrived and started to work its magic. In no time at all, some were on our roof cutting holes to ventilate the fire while others were doing whatever they could to protect our belongings within.

The Glendale Fire Department recently earned a Class 1 rating from a top insurance risk company, which may result in lower coverage rates for residents and business owners. Glendale was one of 10 fire departments in California that received the rating - the highest score possible for an agency - from New Jersey-based Insurance Services Company. Another 251 fire departments statewide earned a Class 5 rating on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the lowest score. “For us, we were pretty nervous because of all the changes we had to make over the last few years,” Glendale Fire Chief Harold Scoggins said.

(Re: “ City officials eye a business fee ,” July 20) I can't believe that the city of Glendale doesn't know who is doing business in their city. The city collects different fees for occupancy, fire and business licenses, among others, not to mention the taxes collected. How does the fire department know which places to annually inspect? How does the city know where to send the bills for these businesses? There must be some kind of database that they work from. If they want to know who to cater to, all they have to do is look at the data they already have.

Bruce Edward Dahlberg June 8, 1955 - July 5, 2012 Bruce left us while doing what he enjoyed. He was visiting friends in Big Bear with his family for the Fourth of July celebration when he collapsed on a hike on a mountain trail. Emergency services were called and the response was the best from the fire department, the paramedics, the sheriff's department and the US Forestry. A rescue helicopter was overhead in the event transportation was required but the terrain kept it from landing in the immediate area.

Glendale fire inspectors soon will be swapping their paper and pens for 33 Apple iPads to input data from the field. While officials say the change will increase efficiency, it also will add to the amount the city has spent on a data program, which so far has ballooned from an initially planned $1.2 million to almost $2.2 million. The City Council unanimously approved the project Tuesday. Director of Information Services Department Ed Fraga said all the glitches with the EdgeSoft software, known as City Services Interface, have been fixed, and since Nov. 2009, it has been fully functional.

After 50 years of setting fire to the same building, it was finally time to say goodbye to the Glendale Fire Department's trusty training structure on Tuesday. Most of the brick-and-mortar building - used to train firefighters on live fire exercises - will be demolished due to the amount of damage and deterioration it has sustained over the years. A new structure will eventually rise at the Glendale Fire Department's training center at 541 W. Chevy Chase Drive. “It's been an amazing tool for, literally, 50 years,” Fire Training Capt.

Fire stations across Glendale on Sunday will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In Glendale, a commemoration ceremony begins at 6:50 a.m. when the Fire Department is scheduled to lower the flag to half-staff and air a tribute by the Verdugo Dispatch Center. All 44 Verdugo stations will toll three sets of five tones to honor the firefighters killed on 9/11. At 7:04 a.m., firefighters at each station will read a portion of all the names of the firefighters who perished while responding to the terrorist attacks.