Storms bring slow nights

2/14/2007 - Just when you would have thought that snow and ice would have meant a busy night for the volunteer firefighters of Arlington County, the halo over the county saved us again. The County and City of Falls Church received a lot of sleet, ice and snow which many thought would create significant downed power lines and accidents on area roadways. It in fact didn't materialize but that didn't stop the Cherrydale VFD with our brothers and sisters at the Falls Church VFD from mobilizing resources in case something significant developed. Throughout the night, Ambulance 106 (Fortner, Schomburg, Turner) and Light and Air 103 (Evinger, Lowry) staffed Fire Station 6 in Falls Church. Utility 103 (Pardi, Azar) staffed Fire Station 1 and Utility 106 (Vilpors, Donahue) staffed Fire Station 5. This is in addition to the career staffed units at those houses. Those units were in service until 7 a.m. although the Light and Air unit remained in service throughout the day.

Lessons Learned: We did learn that putting chains on LA103 really stinks. We also learned someone took LA103's chains and put a bunch of chain parts in the bucket. Truck 106 had about 10 sets so we had a set generously donated to us.