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Madisonville Fire Department no longer runs on vehicle accidents with injuries. Sorry guys… not my call. If you don’t like it, write a letter to the editor, your council person, or the mayor.

City Places Restrictions on Fire Department Response

HOPKINS COUNTY, KY—As of the beginning of this week, June 1st, the City of Madisonville and Mayor David Jackson have announced that the Madisonville Fire Department will no longer be among the first responders at the scene of a vehicular accident with injuries.

“In an effort to make our operations more efficient, we changed the response requirements for 10-46s, which are accidents with injuries,” said Mayor Jackson. “Instead of an immediate response by all of the fire department, and all the big trucks rolling out every time there’s any kind of vehicle accident, we wait until we have a police officer or first responder on-site. He or she will immediately assess the situation, and if there’s a potentially hazardous spill, if someone’s trapped, or if there’s any need for the fire department, they will immediately contact the fire department. It’s now at the discretion of the first responder; they will make the call as to whether or not the fire department needs to be dispatched.”

In regard to why the change was made and what benefits he believes the city will see as a result, Mayor Jackson said, “We hope this helps to conserve resources. With the price of fuel continuing to go up, we are trying to reduce fuel costs, and we also hope to lower the cost of fixing wear and tear on the fire department’s high cost trucks. This will also help to increase the safety of the general public by reducing the amount of trucks going through intersections for every vehicle accident. We just think it’s a much better use of our resources.”

Though the alteration to citywide 10-46 response requirements did not require approval from the Madisonville City Council, Mayor Jackson did explain that he presented the idea to each of the council members. After receiving their support, Mayor Jackson and the City of Madisonville put the change into effect on June 1st.

At this time, Chief Steven K. Stoltz and other members of the Madisonville Fire Department have not released any official comments on the amendment.

If you would like to submit your opinion on this matter for publication in a later article, please email iSurf News at luke@isurfnews.com or at news@isurfnews.com.

What a rainbow. Check the gallery for a few more.

Here are some pics from the wreck at Noel & Nebo Rd. today. Seems the driver hit the guard rail and went right over.

My view for the next hour as I wait for the parade.

Who ever heard of a Mud Bog without the mud? I ended up being out at the Hopkins County Fairgrounds tonight for the Mud Races. Unfortunately, while they did wet down the track a bit, there really was no mud. A tractor tilled the ground a few times, and a water tanker even wet down the ground a bit, but not a single person got stuck. When I go to a mudding competition, I want to see people not cross the finish line. Not only did everyone cross the finish line, but most of the stock trucks weren’t even dirty. Quite a few of them just had a little dirt on the treads, but none on the sidewalls or anywhere else. In all, while I was glad to be able to help, I was a bit disappointed in the show.

What a hard fought day at the fire station today.

Due to some newly acquired land the county has for a new courthouse, Madisonville Fire department has a number of buildings that we can demolish for training.  We had the opportunity to practice breaching concrete block walls, cut through exterior walls with a K-12 & chainsaw, attack basement fires with a piercing nozzle, and ventilate a roof with hand tools.

In all, it was a wonderful class, and I learned quite a few new techniques. However, due to the heat I now have a pounding headache.

We had a worker tonight!

Usually when an alarm comes in from Central Dispatch we can tell if it’s going to be the real thing or not due to the tone and speed of the dispatchers voice.

We knew as soon as we heard him that we would be out for quite a while. When we pulled up we had heavy smoke and fire showing. The flames were upwards of 20 ft in the air.

My partner and I secured the utilities while the first in crew made the initial attack. After we verified that our people were safe we pulled an additional hoseline to make an interior attack and perform a search. I grabbed the thermal imaging camera, we started breathing off our scba, and we pushed through the door fighting fire in every room we came to.

Because it was a trailer fire, and as is typical with most trailer fires, we started finging holes in the floor. This made it difficult to move around as our knees were always falling through these holes and getting stuck.

After searching the house twice and extinguishing all fire & hot spots, the job was through. An exhausting experience, but a very well executed attack.