WPBFD History

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ognition was also given to Assistant Chief Donald P. Widing for his work in developing the Palm Beach County incident command system. This program pro- vided a uniform county-wide system for improved effi- ciency when mutual aid operations were required. A five-year-old child playing with matches started a fire that destroyed a home at 411-47th Street on Novem- ber 17, 1992. As firefighters arrived a propane tank on the front porch exploded in a fireball. Firefighter Julio del Rio, current holder of the Mr. Florida bodybuilding title, made the extinguishment sound easy when he told a Palm Beach Post reporter, "We got two lines to the house. The lieutenant had one and I had the other and we got it out in about two minutes." During 1992 the department became more active in community projects. In addition to working closely with neighborhood associations, firefighters decided to lend a hand to the needy. More than 800 pounds of turkey was prepared on Thanksgiving for the less fortunate. Fire- fighters purchased the food with money from the Central Station Coke fund and assisted in serving the dinners on Thanksgiving Day. Another new project called Home for the Holidays provided transportation for nursing home patients so they could enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas at home. The newly trained Special Operations Team was called into service on November 30, 1992. Palm Beach requested mutual aid for an acid emergency in their com- munity after a plumber had attempted to unclog a drain by pouring sulfuric acid down a sink. Fumes had quickly spread, forcing occupants out of the apartment building. Engine 51, Rescue 51, and Special Operations 51 re- sponded and neutralized the acid by application of soda ash. The Division of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (A.T.F.) awarded Inspector Rhett Turnquest a Certificate of Appreciation on December 9, 1992. The honor was bestowed for Turnquest's participation in the arrest and conviction of an arsonist who set fire to the Lakeview Towers on February 20, 1991. Combined efforts by A.T.F., West Palm Beach Police, and Inspector Turnquest led to the successful prosecution. Monday, December 21, 1992, the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach was hosting an international conference at- tended by 120 visitors from around the world. The formal dinner was to be followed by carolers singing Christmas songs from the countries of those in the audience, but shortly after 9:00 p.m. several of the people began to pass out and others rushed for the restrooms. Palm Beach paramedics arrived and soon had thirty patients complain- ing of nausea and dizziness. Palm Beach requested assis- tance from West Palm Beach to handle the unusual situa- tion. A temporary clinic was set-up to assess those who had been affected. The cause was later attributed to

Dennis Hashagen, president of Local 727 for more than a decade, loss his bid for re-election in December. Tom Sheppard took over leadership of the union. 1993 The alarm sounded shortly before midnight on July 6, 1993, and firefighters once again spent the early morn- ing hours battling an arson blaze. This fire gutted the St. Mathews A.M.E. Church located at 911-21st Street. Au- thorities believed that drug dealers had once again used fire as a threat to leave them alone. Twenty minutes be- fore the fire was discovered, a local television channel had shown a two-minute segment of police observing a drug deal from their hiding place in the church. Another fire death occurred on July 13, 1993. Fire units were dispatched to a fire in an abandoned house at 605-48th Street at 3:21 a.m. After the fire was knocked down, a secondary search found the body of William Grace in a room where there was little fire damage. Grace apparently poured a flammable liquid in the vacant house and was trapped after lighting the fire. He died of smoke inhalation. As of July 20, 1993, Chief Bennett T. Kennedy's Training Facility no longer belonged to the city. The Florida Department of Transportation took possession for future expansion of I-95. The City of West Palm Beach felt a severe budget crunch in 1993 that threatened to force the fire department to lay-off 30 firefighters. A bitter dispute arose between the union and Mayor Nancy Graham until a tentative set- tlement which promised to save some of the jobs was reached at the end of July. In an effort to consolidate resources, the West Palm Beach Fire Department and Palm Beach County Fire- Rescue entered into an agreement to share response cov- erage. The county placed an advanced life support engine in Station 6 that responded in Engine 61’s primary zone. Engine 61 would provide coverage of a section of Palm Beach County. Three children narrowly escaped an accidental fire on December 10, 1993. Their first floor apartment lo- cated at 1402 Okeechobee Road was gutted and 11 people who lived there were left homeless. 1994 The West Palm Beach Fire Department began charg- ing for fire prevention code inspections of properties on January 24, 1994. The fees were in-line with what other communities in the area assessed. May 3, 1994, Fire Chief Robert Rehr notified Mayor Nancy Graham that he was leaving West Palm

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