Three well-involved house fires on Portage Street, Highland Park, Michigan with one fatality in the center home.
Highland Park firefighters responded about 9:00 a.m. Thursday, February 21, 2013 to three neighboring house on fire. The center house was fully-involved. A fatal fire victim, Bill Thomas, was later discovered in the home. Neighbors heard an explosion as the fire started. Bill Thomas was known to have used an oxygen tank to help him breathe.
Helmet Cam Firefighter narrative …
As you can see here We dumped our monitor on the middle home while I stretched our bundles for each exposure home. With only one good hydrant in the area being right in front of the scene, our OIC decided to pump off our ladder so that we could use elevated stream for the middle home(which was to far gone to sustain life or make entry) and make an interior attack with hand lines on both exposures. While setting up tower operations our truck would not go into pump and it took several minutes to fix that problem. You will see me make a quick check on the 1st floor of the left side home for any occupants, was radioed outside as all occupants were accounted for. I then went to an exposure line which as you can see has no pressure at first. Knocked down some fire from the outside before making entry with firefighter Tikkanen into the right side exposure home. [Read more on YouTube.com/HPZ1442 …]
Chrysler was headquartered in Highland Park, but in 1992 the company announced that it was going to move its headquarters to its technology center in Auburn Hills — about 25 miles north of the original headquarters site. Chrysler, the last major private sector employer in the city, moved its corporate headquarters from Highland Park to Auburn Hills between 1991 and 1993, paying the city of Highland Park $44 million in compensation. In 1992 Chrysler had 25% of the tax base of Highland Park and contributed 50% of the city’s budget.
See also …
MyFOXdetroit.com Firefighters battle flames at 3 neighboring Highland Park homes
