A Union Pacific train loaded with coal departed Sharon Springs Kansas for Salina. Just a few miles into the trip a wheel bearing became overheated and melted, letting a metal support drop down and grind on the rail. This created molten metal droppings spewing down the rail. The very alert crew noticed the smoke about halfway back on the train and stopped the train in compliance with the SOP. The bad news is they stopped over this fine wooden bridge with creosote ties and trusses that made for a splendid burn. Love it! ( Thanks to Chief Hawkins for the story)

The anual live tree burning took place last weekend at the home of Chief Joe Boyce. The event was kicked off with a dedication to all chiefs from Chief Dan Byrnes. The night was filled with a bounty of information exchange between both current chiefs and prospective chiefs. Although it was a smaller forum than normal the current and prospective chiefs were able to gain control and extinguish all beverages in the coolers. The nights crew had a were faced with a significant challenge including trees,shutters and what was reported as a wooden box,but all worked together to accomplish the task at hand. The drill was placed under control around 1:00AM with overhaul operations ending around 4:00AM.

We will list the next event when it is scheduled.

It's that time of the year again for the Chiefs to come together for an evening of public service. The annual tree burning exercise will be hosted by Chief Joe Boyce of West Bradford Chester County PA #39.

The informative event will cover all aspects of fire ground activities, including but not limited to the following: Scene size-up(who sits where?)...best choice of extinguishing agent(beer or bourbon?)...manpower utilization(who reloads the coolers)...mutual aid(who brings beer and bourbon)...and of course overhaul(fireground not closed until all combustibles and beverages depleted)...and much more useful information. Come share you knowledge with other Chiefs.

This is just one of several live burns hosted by Chief Boyce throughout the year...check website often for other dates.

We look forward to seeing you there...Here are some photos from previous demonstrations

Chiefs!

It has come to our attention that our members attending the parade have been wrongfully  grouped with a few rowdies at the parade. This is a complete untruth and in no way has any Chief shown any disrespect to the parade participants. We are all of duty Firefighters and Police Officers and would never go anywhere to disrespect our host.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'll be brief...

The issue here is not that we broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female party guest at the parade. We did.. But you can't hold a entire group of firefighters for the behavior of a few bad apples. For if you do shouldn't we blame the entire firefighting community? An if the entire firefighting community is guilty, then is this not a indictment against Firefighters in general? Well they can say what they must about us, but we are not going to sit here and let them bad mouth the United States of America! We could fight this thing with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost thousands of lives. All fun at the parade is over? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? And it ain't over now. This could be the greatest parade of our lives. Have fun and enjoy The Wildwoods! See you at the parade!

The 2008 I.A.F.F.C. convention is just a few short weeks away. As always held in conjunction with the New Jersey State Firemen's Convention hosted by the great members of the Five Mile Beach Firemen's Association. This years dates are September 11th - 13th. Check out www.njfireconvetion.com for the link to the N.J. convention. As the Chiefs Board of Defectors do every year a secret team of members were sent out in July to check out our parade location for Pinko's and farm animal's but were quickly discovered by the local Police who caught Chief Byrnes in a speed trap on Rt 47 and notified other departments in the area of our arrival. Chief Russel was quickly tracked down on New Jersey Avenue by other Po Po who called us clowns and sent him back over the bridge.  However the Chief was able to mark our favorite street corners with his blood before leaving. Should not be hard to find.  Thats Burke & New Jersey  for the departmentaly challanged. New this year is the Miss I.A.F.F.C. Pagent won by Miss Anita Cheezbuger who will represent the Chiefs at the Big National Fire Chicks Pagent this October in Chicago and will be available for a personal date with one lucky Chief.  Miss Cheezbuger won a 2008 Toyota and a life time supply of shocks and brakes donated by Toyota Kawasaki of Suzuki Japan. Big thanks to our brothers at our Tokyo Battalion for the help on that one! Rooms on the island will be going quick as last years convention tipped the scale with over 35,000 Firefighters and friends. Check out www.wildwoodnj.com for more information on hotels. We will update everyone in September with more convention news. See you at the beach!

Happy Fourth of July Chiefs Chief Monyahan in BAT 49 Alaska sent the story to me and I thought it should be shared with our membership. PO2 (EOD2) Mike Monsoor, A US Navy EOD Technician, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for jumping on a grenade in Iraq, giving his life to save his fellow Seals. During Mike's funeral in San Diego, as his coffin was being moved from the hearse to grave site in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, Seal's lined up on both side of the pallbearers route forming a column of two's with the coffin moving up the center. As Mike's coffin passed, each Seal having removed his gold Trident from his uniform, slapped it down embedding the Trident in Mike's wooden coffin, The slaps were audible from across the cemetery. By the time the coffin reach the grave side it looked as though it had gold inlay from all the Tridents pinned to it. This was a fitting send-off to this great warrior hero. This holiday weekend we should all take time to remember the men and women like Mike who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedom. There is not enough paper in the America to list the names of those Americans, but some how we know who they all are. We should take the time to thank our Armed Service members currently serving America, both in the United States and overseas and wish them a safe return to home, and thank our veterans who have returned to their homes and are now able to share with all of us, the shelter of the very umbrella of freedom they held high for us all now to enjoy. We salute everyone of them! GOD BLESS AMERICA !

Well Chiefs, it's been a few months since our last update to the site. Let's just say we were asked not to play for a while until a few minor discrepancies were resolved. I am happy to say "WE ARE BACK IN BIZ" spreading good times between firefighters at the expense of the Chief! Let me break this down in words that only a IAFFC Chief could understand. It was a dark and stormy winter day when a Big Chief came to Fake Fire Headquarters to have a pow wow with Fake Chiefs. But only one Chief was at FF HQ sleeping one off when the Big Chief arrived. The Big Chief came in FF HQ without wiping his feet,leaned softly down to the sleeping Chief and yelled in his face "YOU BETTER SHUT THE F@#% UP". The Big Chief said it very loudly to scare the crap out of the Chief. Then the Big Chief took 50 feet of 5" and tied it around the neck of the Chief, I think he used a half hitch. The Big Chief fired up this bang'n new Seagrave ladder. It was a pre piped tandom with all the bell's and whistles, and dragged the Fake Chief all around town. After sixteen hours the truck ran out of fuel and the half dead Chief yelled out " GET ME A DOCTOR"! "NO, I MEAN A LAWYER! Then the Chief passed out for a while in a pool of his own blood, a melted Snickers bar and some incredibly tuff 5". When the Fake Chief came too he yelled back out, " NO, YOU BETTER MAKE THAT A DOCTOR". Before the Chief knew it he was getting loaded in the back of one of the Big Chiefs gut buckets. The Medic's dropped the Chief three times while getting him packaged up for the ride. Once inside and even though the Chief could breath just fine on his own, the medic's tried to open up the Chiefs airway and even hit him with the paddles a few times. Then the Medic's unstrapped the Chief during transport and they strapped themselves in with these really cool Big Chief style seat belts. They had quick release buttons and everything, nice stuff. The Medics floored it and then they rolled a perfectly good E-One, about a 2005, type III, white with red graphics, right in front of the local Trauma Center. As they rolled over and over the Chief flew out of the backdoor and landed right at the entrance to the hospital. As all the E.R. staff ran out to help, the Medic leaned down and whispered in the Chiefs ear,"you better shut the F@#% up"!!! Well a few months go by and after short stint of therapy and hours of legal advice, the Chief went back to FF HQ. The Chief struck a box and all the other Fake Chiefs responded. He gave them all the juice on Big Chief. They all sat around for hours and watched Bonanza reruns and waited until dark. They went down to the Big Chiefs Station and lit the dumpster on fire. But Big Chief did not wake up and some of our guys forgot why they went and put the dumpster out. So the Chiefs filled the dumpster back up again with empty whisky boxes and a low milage blow up doll and lit it on fire again. They opened up the Big Chiefs bay door when one of the Chiefs yelled, YO!, is that the Seagrave you were talking about? So the Chiefs spent a few minutes checking out the Seagrave and then pushed the dumpster into the station to set off the smoke alarm. They ducked behind an older Pierce Engine, that still looked decent, and probably seen a lot of action in it's years and I'm not a big fan of the front suction, and waited for Big Chief. Big Chief came running out in his David Hasselhoff pajamas and the Chiefs beat him about the head with Halligan Bar's and traffic wands until he almost collapsed, made a right turn, and came to a full stop. The half dead Big Chief then crawled across the station floor. One of those nice, no slip paint job ones with yellow lines to guide you when backing up. The kind that would be real handy back at the house if it was raining real bad at night and you went out on the truck for fuel. In the rain, because the last selfish bastard who parked the friggin thing was to F'n lazy to fuel it up. Oh, Oh, I had to be someplace and was running late! Hey, we all have to be some place you A-hole! What if we had to go get batteries for the remote and could not watch cooking cartoons. Maybe we did not look at the gauge on the way out. Then ran out of fuel all the way over at the Seven Eleven across town because we stayed to long looking at the chick with the pigtails and had to call the real Chief? Then what Dickhead?? Huh? I'll tell you what. Then the real Chief would show up and start screaming at us, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING OVER HERE AND OUT OF YOUR DISTRICT"! And we say, the remote died and could not watch cooking cartoons and they got cheap batteries here. Well, the Chief knew that they do have really cheap batteries and knows how much we like cooking cartoons so what could he say right? Anyway......... So Big Chief crawled back across the floor to the front of that Seagrave and right to the feet of the Fake Chiefs and says, sweet huh? And we go, oh yea, is it new? Big Chief says no, we had it for about five months and really just got the bug's worked out on it. Then the Big Chief took us all for a ride on his new toy. It was a sweet ride I'll tell you that. When everyone got back to the station it was just at the end of the Big Chiefs shift and Big Chief says, so you boy's fancy a drink? I'm done in another ten and there's a great little Irish Pub with a decent Polish Sausage down on the corner. So the Chiefs raced down to the bar and met all the Big Chiefs boys from his watch down the street and got hammered! About midnight a few smart ass security guards from the stadium showed up in those stupid yellow shirts and someone says "hey, rent a cop, that's a pretty stupid yellow shirt" and one thing led to another and as always guess who showed up? Our favorite men in blue, The Maytag Repairman! Just kidding... The local Poe Poe with these unbelievably hard flashlights. Well as usual we all got locked up and sang songs through most of the night until we made bail in the morning. All in all a pretty fine night I must say. The next day the Fake Chiefs called up the Big Chief and said, I'm sorry man, and the Big Chief said, no I am sorry, it was all my fault, And we said, no, no, it was us, we push it a little. Big Chief said no, really 100% my fault. And the Chiefs said are you sure, it's usually us most of the time. Big Chief said no, no it was me. People started saying crap to me, people with no sense of humor. I should have never came down to Fake Headquarters with out calling first, it was rude. And we said, are you sure, because we're OK with it being us, in fact we prefer it was us. Big Chief said lets forget it! Anyway, it's water out of the hose as far as I am concerned, you guys are great. And we said, no you guys are great. And he said no, no, you guys are great and I love you guys. We said what? Big Chief said it again, I love you guys. And we said, you love guys? Big Chief said what? And we said what? Did you say you love guys?. Big Chief said no you tool, like we're all brothers right? Then we said, did you say tool and you love guys in the same sentence? Big Chief said what? Then we said what? I thought you said you love guys or something? Big Chief said no, "unless you like guys too" and we said what? Big Chief said what? We said we like the guys, but don't like guys, you know. Big Chief said what a shame. The Chiefs said what? Big Chief said, oh I mean yeah, that's what I meant too. (yea right!) The Chiefs said to Big Chief so like we cool now? Big Chief said, yeah we're cool now and Big Chief said what? And we said what? Forget it, I'll see you guys at the big one! And all of the Chiefs temporarily lived happily ever after with settlement only a lawyer could love. So the moral of the story, is don't ever show up in a bar full of drunk firefighters in one of those stupid yellow security guard shirts And...... We got the green light again and it's time to get the site running and open up the membership drive. There are thousands of opportunities out there to break the chiefs chops and you to could do it officially just by joining the IAFFC. We are working with a programmer to get the store up where you can buy all the goodies and join the IAFFC! See all the Chiefs soon!

Attention all Chiefs, Special attention to our Delaware County Pennsylvania members. We have just been informed that we have a Fire Fighter death in Lower Chichester. Nick Picozzi Jr. of Station 39 was killed 10:30 this morning. Two other Fire Fighters from Station 63 Greenridge also suffered minor injuries. The Picozzi family has a long history of fire fighting in Delco and hearts

The 2007 I.A.F.F.C. Board of Defectors meeting was held on schedule at the start of it all in Wildwood New Jersey this past weekend. Plans for the 2008 convention are well underway. Committees have been appointed to properly handle all important matters relevant to the success of the convention. It seems the committees have preliminary plans working on three primary issues that must be addressed. The proper amount of alcohol, food for Fake Fire Headquarters and new this year, Pledge Representative in charge of bail money. Also addressed by the Board was another member advancing to the rank of Chief. What are we to do! Robert C.Herre III has reached the rank of Chief of the Greenridge Fire Company of Aston Township Pennsylvania. We salute Chief Herre on his new position and also question, what in God's name are you thinking? How could you do this to us? With Chief Almond still on double secret probation Chief Herre add to the issue! The Board of defectors will again meet to tackle this very pressing problem. After Chiefs Almonds hearing and subsequent burning of the building. This location will be kept secret and members will wear appropriate disguises. The meeting ended just shy of a official close when Vice President Byrnes went into a coma was transported back to back to H.Q. We seen if differently but Chief Brynes seems to think he was revived by Johnny & Roy and was transported by 1 Adam 12. More to follow! STAY SAFE!

On behalf of everyone at Flashovers Tavern ( Battalion 2 PA )We wish all the Members of the I.A.F.F.C a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The Chief's were recent guest of FNDY at "The Cross Bronx Express" home of Engine 46 & 27 Truck. Chiefs came to mark the dedication of Engine 46 in the name of Captain Frank Keane who recently past. The Chiefs also spent FDNY Memorial Day with the members of the house in this day of reflection for fallen members who have past in the year. We thank the members of Engine 46 & 27 Truck for the hospitality and salute the life of Captain Frank Keane. The day ended as usual with a pat on the back by the local police.

Details for Firefighter Reagan's funeral as follows. Viewing Thursday 15:00 to 20:00 hours. Mass 20:00 Thursday evening following viewing. Friday he will be buried with full department honors. Staging information contact Station 09 at 610-583-7302. FYI to out of area members. We have covered this story a more then normal as many of the founders of the I.A.F.F.C. are running companies with Station 09 as well as a few of us were also on the RIT Team and scene that night of the loss. Thanks Chief Mike Boyce

Attention all Chiefs. We regret to inform you the Station 09 Sharon Hill Pennsylvania Firefighter Mike Reagan 19 years old has passed. This young Firefighter died in the line of duty just two days after injuries suffered in a collaspe in the 900 block of Coates Avenue Sharon Hill Wednesday night. Members of the I.A.F.F.C. were on the scene that night and know that everyone there did thier best, but some things just can't be changed. We salute Firefighter Mike Reagan for his service and commitment to the fire service and community. We pray to God to welcome him in his arms for making the ultimate sacrifice. We have no doubt he is in the Great Engine Room in the Sky. Our hearts and prayers go out to Mike's family and everyone at Sharon Hill Fire Company. More details to follow as received. This information active as of 15:00 Saturday. With Regrets, Chief Mike Boyce

Wednesday, September 26 at 22:55 Sharon Hill Pa. Station 09 (Sharon Hill) 01 (Folcroft)& 05 (Glenolden) were dispatched to the 900 block of Coates for a detached garage fire. First due Engine 09 on arrival report well involved and went into service for the knock down. Chief 09 arrived minutes after and established command. Within minutes of the bulk of the fire being knocked down the front wall of the stone and frame building collapsed trapping three 09 firefighters. Chief 09 Bill Benecke immediately called for Rescue 19 (Lansdowne) for the RIT team, 3 ALS units & 3 BLS units to the scene. Second alarm was stuck moments later bringing 04 (Darby) 06 & 42 (Collingdale) to the scene for additional help. A Pennstar Heli was also dispatched to the scene. As of this morning two Sharon Hill members we released as well as two Police officers. A nineteen year old Sharon Hill Fire Fighter remains in critical condition at the time of the report. His name withheld at the request of Station 09 at the present time. We ask everyone to keep this young firefighter in our prayers and thoughts for a speedy recovery and remind everyone there are NO routine calls.

Just some of the convention shots