A Very Busy Seven Days for the KPVFC brings 32 runs!

While many were preparing to celebrate the upcoming religious holidays, the volunteers from the KPVFC were kept extremely busy.

It all started with simultaneous calls coming in at 10:00 AM, Wednesday, April 1^st, and steadily continued through to Tuesday morning, April 7^th.  The  calls ranged from fire alarms, vehicles fires, accidents, helicopter landing assignments, dwelling fires, a cover assignment, rescue/extrications and numerous mulch fires.

Those 32 calls spanned over a 136 hour time period.  That meant we were on a pace of a call out, on average, every 4.25 hours for some sort of assistance.  Compare that to our average of 2 calls a day and we’ve been doing 5.25 calls a day!

With the excessive dry spell and very welcomed warm weather, 11 of those calls were specifically related to mulch fires, unfortunately.

If you have ever been fortunate to visit King of Prussia, one thing you can’t help but notice is that we have an abundance of plantings in the traffic and parking lot islands and medians.  Although these beautification efforts do add charm to our commercialized community, they sure do keep us busy every spring.  These fires led us to installing a homemade “mulch” line on Engine 47-2 (see photo). Not a pretty hose pack, but very effective and it helps keeps the volunteers safe when working in traffic.

Two of our dwelling fires were directly related to fires starting in mulched flower beds.  As our health conscious efforts have led us to oblige smokers to move outdoors, this effort has increased fire responses, nationally.  It’s not our role to take sides in the smoking debate; however, we take our fire prevention efforts seriously.  That said, we would be remiss and fail our duty if we didn’t remind our community that when you do enjoy your tobacco product outside, you do have to be cautious and properly dispose of that product.  Tossing that cigarette butt in the flowers or shrubs could have serious consequences if a fire ensues.  In the pictures attached, we had two close calls on Saturday where discarded cigarettes caused these fires that started to attack the homes.  Fortunately, in both cases the homeowners saw the fires very early and contacted 911 for a fire department response.

Of course this overwhelming pace made sure to interrupt our Easter Sunday repast with 4 calls right at the prime of times!  It’s ok, ham is good in a sandwich too.

However; not to be outdone imposing on our Easter, two very serious motor vehicle accidents sure did ruin our efforts to root on the next NCAA basketball champ.  Monday evening, shortly before tip-off, the volunteers from station 47 were sent to a vehicle accident with a possible car fire.  Minutes into the response, crews were informed that the call was now going to need a rescue response as well.  The crews went right to work with a door removal and a dash push to extricate the entrapped driver of one of the vehicles involved.

As the crews got home and settled in to catch the remainder of the 2^nd half of the game, again the excitement would be disrupted.  With just a minute thirty left in the game, rescue box 56-58 was struck for Jasper Rd and Bernard Drive for a motorcycle accident with entrapment.  Crews would find a single motorcycle operator trapped under the rear of a parked minivan.  See the follow-up web story to be posted soon on this successful rescue.

Crews finally completed their clean up and equipment restoration at 12:30 AM to get home and be awoken at 6:00 AM for a truck for a truck fire on the PA Turnpike.  The minor brake fire was handled with ease and crews returned just in time to start heading to work.

All though this was an anomaly in our normal workload pattern, the dedication and commitment of the brigade was steadfast through this barrage of calls.

A Chronological Listing of the Calls

Deck fire hit with the green line. Close call here

Another close call here

UMPD jumping in with the green line, Easter afternoon.

We were waved in by several movie goers to this one.

Eng 47-2 and the mulch line in service

Smoke showing

Another one conquered

The RT-202 median fires, these were like the movie Ground Hog Day! They just kept repeating themselves.

Back on RT-202 AGAIN!

Engine 47-2 with the bumper mulch line or as we call it, The KoP Bundle!