CHATHAM — A single mom with three kids is scrambling to find housing after their apartment was damaged by fire on March 24, and the community is lending a helping hand. “No one was hurt,” Kate McCoy said. But two of the apartments in the building are uninhabitable because of the fire damage, and the whole building will remain uninhabitable until repairs can be made and the building is brought up to building an...

ORLEANS — Firefighters from several towns snuffed a brush fire in the woods behind Orleans Elementary School around 8:30 Tuesday morning. Alerted by a neighbor on Brewster Cross Road, firefighters acted quickly to contain the blaze, Fire Chief Geof Deering said. “With the dry conditions and the wind, we brought in as many personnel as we could from our department, as well as Eastham, Harwich and Brewster,” h...

ORLEANS — While fire department personnel “have consistently provided the highest possible level of emergency services to the Orleans community,” according to a new study, the current staffing model “is neither sustainable nor efficient.” A staffing and organizational review by Emergency Services Consulting International recommends a reorganization to increase minimum staffing to four firefighters per shift, r...

ORLEANS — An interim report on conditions at the fire station include plenty of reasons for alarm. Consultants have documented problems with airflow. No ventilation air is being introduced into the apparatus and rescue vehicle area, and two exhaust fans “do not appear to be functional,” MacRitchie Engineering, Inc., of Braintree, wrote. The presence of union-purchased exercise equipment in the same location “i...

HARWICH — The fire department has received a $70,866 Assistance to Firefighters grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to replace aging nozzles, add additional capabilities and provide training. “It's a huge bonus for us,” Fire Chief Norman Clarke, Jr. said on Monday of the grant that will cover the cost of replacing values and nozzles on firefighting equipment. The grant is critical because it ...

If you've taken a stroll through your favorite conservation area lately, you might notice something other than buds on the bushes and birds in the trees. Local forests are littered with trees that were downed by the series of coastal storms that battered the area last month. And that means fuel for forest fires. There were several small brush fires around Cape Cod early this week, thanks to dry conditions and ...

$6 Million Project To Go Before Town Meeting HARWICH — The proposed new East Harwich fire station building met with unanimous site plan and special permit approval by the planning board last week. Voters will be asked in the annual town meeting in May to approve funding for the project. The plan calls for a 9,500 square-foot facility on the same site as the existing 42-year-old fire substation, with the new...

Imagine this: EMTs arrive at a resident’s home only to be locked outside even as they can see the resident lying on the floor helpless inside the house. That’s not a situation that anyone wants to contemplate. But putting into place two simple elements—a key box to allow the fire department to enter and the File of Life form to bring the EMS crew up to speed on the senior’s health – can save lives. Let’s sa...

CHATHAM — According to the insurance industry, Chatham is more fire-resistant than ever before. And that could translate to savings on home and commercial insurance premiums, though modest ones. The Insurance Service Office rates communities on a scale of one to 10, based on a host of factors that judge fire preparedness and suppression ability. Like most municipalities in the country, Chatham had been rated...

CHATHAM – Firefighting can be a dangerous business. But aside from the obvious risk of bodily harm, there's another, more insidious risk that firefighters face: cancer. According to a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study, 68 percent of firefighters are expected to develop cancer, compared to 22 percent of the general population. It's not just the smoke that firefighters are subjected to ...

EAST HARWICH — In May, town meeting voters will be asked to appropriate $310,000 for an architect to draft up plans to expand and renovate the 40-year-old East Harwich fire substation. And if they approve the measure, construction funds would be sought next year for what fire officials say is a badly needed capital project. The expansion of the fire station is still in its early conceptual phase, and officia...

EAST HARWICH — Firefighters from four towns and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation were busy this weekend battling a persistent fire in Hawksnest State Park. The fire started deep in the woods, making it difficult for firefighters to get to the fire and stage equipment to battle it. Deputy Fire Chief David LeBlanc said the department received a call about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoo...

“Good things happen to those who wait.” Those were the words of Chairman of Selectmen Jeffrey Dykens at Sunday's dedication of the town's new $11 million fire station. Nobody knows that better than Deputy Fire Chief Peter Connick. When he was hired by the department in 1979 and was shown around the then-27-year-old building, he was told they'd be getting a new station. “They were right,” he said, standing i...