Shav A Thon is a campaign to stop bullying in Indiana schools. Fantastic Sams joined in the campaign to get the attention of students to the stop bullying. Click on the picture to see the pamphlet and maybe join in the fun! There are a number of Fantastic Sams in the Evansville area. Call them to see if they are participating.
In the
fall of 2009, Captain Cindy Gries nominated German Township Fire Department
to the 20 Days of Christmas, sponsored by Office Ware.
This program was to award 20 ReNeW recently re-certified copier
systems to 20 worthy non-profit organizations between November 23 and
December 18, 2009.
As a
volunteer organization, we were definitely open to receiving a copier at no
charge from Office Ware. As
December came to a close and no word was received from Office Ware, Captain
Gries was certain there would be no copier for German Township Fire
Department.
About
mid-January, 2010, a call came from Office Ware that they had two copiers
left and they would like to give one to German Township Fire Department.
With the blessing of Chief Buckman, we gladly accepted the copier.Several weeks later, the copier was delivered and installed, free of
charge to our department.
We would like to
extend our appreciation to Office Ware for their donation to our department.
Four 2009 recruits along with a classmate from Southern Indiana Career and Technical Center (SICTC)made a trip to Lebanon , Indiana to compete in the HERO Competion and came away with second place. Click on picture to see pictures of their day.
On Saturday April 24 at 11:12, German Fire Department was dispatched to a car fire at the German Township Booster Club baseball fields. Division Chief Don Neel was the first on scene and reported a car with lots of smoke and no exposures. As usually happens with car fires by the time someone calls 911 it is already too late for the car. Assistant Chief David Bretz took this picture of the fire before the first engine arrived.
On April 16th, German Fire was dispatched to assist the sheriff department in searching for a four year who was missing from the front yard on N. St Joseph Ave.Vanderburgh County Sheriff Deputy J. D. Wargel found Morgan a 4 year old child who had walked away from her house and went to a neighbors house some 500 feet away. A happy ending !
At 3:36 on April 11th German Fire was called out to a fire on Fischer Rd. As you can see in the image below it was a completely involved house fire. The picture was taken by 8A2 when he was the first on scene. He immediately put in call for Suburban help. Twelve grueling hours later, there were two children dead, an arson charge, an all area search for a missing auto and its driver, an arrest in Covington and families torn apart by this tragedy.
All
firefighters were safe but very saddened by the event. See more pictures and
story by link from picture.
On Sunday March 21, 2010, German Township Firefighters held their Annual Awards Banquet at St. Joseph School. Chief Buckman began the dinner with a prayer and a wonderful meal was served by the staff at the school. Awards were made for the most runs made to firefighter Lester Garrett, Assistant Chief David Bretz, and Captain Cindy Gries. Next Division Chief Brett Stuckey presented awards for attendance at training to Chief Bretz, firefighters Lester Garrett and Kevin Jones.
A slide presentation of pictures taken at various incidents and events from 2010 was shown. The chief and firefighter Bob Covington spent a good part of their Sunday trying to get the show to run with music. Like all "good" programs it worked fine in the office, but at show time the music would come and go. The selection of scenes was great and we did get an idea of how it was suppose to go when it ran as it was suppose to run!
Division Chief Don Neel then presented the award for Volunteer of the year to firefighter Jim Geiser for his work on maintenance and for being there to help out the younger members.
Chief John M. Buckman III then presented the Chief's Award to Captain Paul Carr for his work on changing over the training program to our newest hands-on training with a scorecard.
On Sunday, March 14th, German firefighters were training when they were dispatched to a motor vehicle accident at Diamond Ave and St. Joseph Ave.
The duty personnel had a visitor drop in at Company 9 this afternoon. He said he was on a cross country journey and the winds blew him off course a little. He took time out to have this picture taken with Engine 9.
The election of Board Officers was held on December 13, 2009 as preamable to the Firefighters Christmas Party. The nomination and election of officers of the German Township Fire Department was called to order by Vice President Larry Chapman and handed over to the nominating committee chairperson Devron Farmer. Devron then introduced the slate that was chosen by the committee.
Their nominations were the only ones submitted and they were elected as follows:
President: Tom Cook
Vice-president:
Larry Chapman
Treasurer:
David Mangia
Secretary: There were no nominations and the position remains open.
The nominations were closed and VP Larry Chapman called
the meeting closed and the party began.
The new 2010 officers will be sworn in at the January
Board Meeting (second Tuesday of month, January 12, 2010.)
Perry Township Volunteer firefighters were called to a working fire in residential fire in an attached garage on Sunday morning Dec. 6. Chief Bulger
called it a working fire and under the Suburban Move Up Plan, German sent a
crew to help.
To see more pictures click on the image below.
Digging around in the old files, we came up with some more photos from 1959. You can see them here
German Township Firefighters rescued a cat from the tree in the 8500 block
of Yellowstone Drive Tuesday morning. The owner of the cat just moved into
the neighborhood this past weekend and was distraught. The cat missing since
Saturday was thought to be under the home because she kept hearing the cat
crying.
She could not think of who else to call so she called the fire station
because she knew she had German Township water and so she thought she would
have German Township Fire Department.
She did not call 911 as she thought this was not an emergency so she looked
the FD up in the newspaper.
Firefighter Josh Downey and Firefighter Adam Brock responded to the call and
successfully removed Bootsie from her predicament
Why was Bootsie special? The owner had been sick for about a year and the cat had laid beside her owner the entire time she was recuperating.
Click on pictures for larger version
The 2nd Amendment Patriots have moved their monthly meeting to a new location- the Sportsman's Club off Peerless Rd . The have been a growing organization and we could no longer comfortably host them because of the number of attendees at their meetings. They sent us this card thanking us for being their host.
Chief Buckman was presented the Presidents Award of the Indiana Fire Chiefs Association at the 2009 Indiana Emergency Response Conference held in Indianapolis on the weekend of September 19/20. Chief Buckman not only is the Fire Chief of German Township and is employed by the State as State Fire Training Director. He also is a very frequent flyer, going to conferences and seminars all over the country either as a participant or as a instructor.
Congratulations on your award, Chief.
Kitchen Fire - Read first then watch the attachment.
I never realized that a wet dishcloth can be a one size fits all lid to
cover a fire in a pan! This is a dramatic video (30-second,very short)
about how to deal with a common kitchen fire .. oil in a frying pan.
Read the following.
Introduction, then watch the show ...
It's a real eye-opener!!
At the Fire Fighting Training school they would demonstrate this with a
deep fat fryer set on the fire field. An Instructor would don a fire
suit and using an 8 oz cup at the end of a 10- foot pole toss water onto
the grease fire. The results got the attention of the students.
The water, being heavier than oil, sinks to the bottom where it
instantly becomes superheated.
The explosive force of the steam blows the burning oil up and out.
On the open field, it became a thirty foot high fireball that resembled
a nuclear blast.
Inside the confines of a kitchen, the fire ball hits the ceiling and
fills the entire room. Also, do NOT throw sugar or flour on a grease fire.
One cup of either creates the explosive force of two sticks of dynamite.
This is a powerful message----watch the video and don't forget what you see.
Tell your family and friends about this video. Or better yet, send this
to them.
On Friday evening of September 11th, German firefighters were dispatched to a house fire on Marx Rd. The house and garage were a total loss. A second alarm brought out additional help and water tankers from the Suburban fire departments. Click on picture for more pictures and story.
During a thunder storm on September 3rd McCuthanville Fire Department along with units from German and Scott were sent to a fire apparently caused by lightening. Other units from the Suburban Fire Departments also moved in to cover and soon a second alarm was sounded. Story and more pictures by clicking on picture.
On Monday March 30th, German Twp Firefighters were dispatched to a training exercise that involved 2 vehicles and 6 to 8 victims. When they arrived on the scene they found 2 vehicles set up to represent a near head on accident. Most of the first due apparatus were staffed by new firefighters who had little or no experience in such an incident.
Incident commander, Captain Cindy Gries assigned Lt. Scott Laugel to do triage. Scott used the new triage system and soon found that he was being overwhelmed trying to reach the victims in two vehicles with very limited access to both.
After about 90 minutes of action, the exercise was halted so that it could be critiqued. Scout Venture Crew 399 did an excellent job of acting as victims and friends of the victims. The make up "artist", Lt Brooke Hoesli, made it look very real. Channel 14 heard the dispatch and sent cameraman Jim Nolan to cover it. Here is part of his video
While the critique was going on German was dispatched to a motor vehicle accident at Highway 66 and 65, involving an auto and a pickup. One person was transported to the hospital.
On February 21, the members of German Fire Department gathered for presentation of awards to its members and dinner of camaraderie. All had a great time. Pictures and awards can be seen here.
See a few pictures taken by Chief Buckman (The Centre and his driveway) and Jim Geiser (his car covered in snow and trees down in his yard)
Click on pictures for story:
_small.jpg)
Fire Pictures from Darmstadt fire January 29
On a recent run, a motorcycle driver had some medical problems and German Fire answered the call. He did not want to go to the hospital so he went by auto to our station 8 to rest, so Chief Buckman "volunteered" to ride his bike to the station for him. There were other "volunteer drivers", but rank has its privileges.
