Engine 22 was dispatched to the Kepler Home in Elizabethville as part of a planned drill at that facility. Engine 22 responded with a crew of seven, and on arrival set up next to the Swab Wagon Company Building where they stood by at the hydrant. After a walk through of the facility with Company 21 chiefs, the crew went available.
Engine and Tanker 22 were dispatched to Wiconisco for a reported structure fire. Engine 22 responded with a crew of six, and Tanker 22 with responded with a crew of two. Later into the call, Truck 22 was requested for PPV and responded with a crew of three. Crews arrived on scene and found a two story wood frame structure with heavy smoke pouring from the front. Company 23 members already started a crew with a line through the front door, and a Company 22 crew assisted with additional lines and ladders to the roof. The crews assisted with extinguishment and suppression activities until the fire was out, then followed up with overhaul. Property was extensively damaged. The truck crew later set up PPV to clear out the remaining smoke from the building. Crews remained on scene until released by command.
Truck-22 was dispatched for a chimney fire in Williamstown, along with Companies 23 and 24. Truck-22 arrived on the scene, performed roof operations, and cleaned the chimney, while Company 23 and 24 personnel operated in the basement.
2004
Smoke In A Structure, 505 West Market Street (Box 24-3)
Company-22 was requested to respond back to the scene of the earlier call for reported smoke in the structure. Initial dispatch was for an alarm activation. Chief 23-2 on the scene requested a box upgrade to a first alarm assignment when smoke was found throughout the first floor of the building. The source of smoke was determined to be a result of occupants returning home from the earlier call and turning on the furnace, forcing smoke throughout the house on startup. No fire was found and units were placed available.
Companies 22 and 23 were dispatched to the Northern Dauphin Branch (Lykens Branch) of the Dauphin County Library for an automatic fire alarm. The initial report from the alarm company was that the alarm was a result of a manual pull station activation. Chief 22 and Chief 22-2 responded to the scene and discovered that a child had accidentally pulled the alarm. Chief 22 placed the box in service before any units responded.
Shortly after 3 p.m. on Monday, October 20,, 1902, a train consisting of N.C. engine No. 1803, two box cars, and eight coal cars loaded with dirt, locally known as the Harrisburg Coal Train, crashed in the Pennsylvania Yard between the Wiconisco Creek and the split to Williamstown. The train had been at Williamstown to pick up the box cars and the loads of dirt that had been loaded by the N.C.R.R. steam Scoop at the culm banks there. While there, the engine had been turned so that the tender was in the front. The distance from Williamstown to the accident site is five miles, with a grade of 110 feet to the mile. The train started out gradually but soon the speed was greatly increased. The engineer reversed his engine, applied the air brakes, and opened the sand valve, but the train could not be slowed. It raced through Wiconisco at 75 miles per hour. At that speed, the tender began to sway from side to side, until it left the rails, throwing the engine down the east embankment and piling up the following cars in a mass of debris. There had been nine people on the train. Seven crew members, a yardmaster who went to Williamstown to see the scoop, and an unknown man from the steam scoop gang who got on in Williamstown. The engineer, survived the crash, but two other people on the engine did not. The yardmaster, Samuel Ruch, age 57, of Sunbury, and the fireman, Warren E. Klinger, age 28, of Harrisburg, had climbed outside the engine to look for a chance to jump from the train. Their bodies were found piece by piece at the accident scene. One brakeman was on one of the cars loaded with dirt. He crawled out with only a minor injury. The others were in the cabin, which they had uncoupled from the train somewhere east of Wiconisco and it had slowed considerably. After the remains of the deceased had been gathered, they were taken to J.S. Reiff's undertaking establishment. Klinger's head was crushed, right arm broken above the wrist, right leg broken above the ankle, left leg cut off below the knee, left foot split lengthwise, and body bruised. Ruch's head was crushed fine, lower left jawbone pointing straight out, piece of skull held by a narrow strip of membrane hung down over his face, right arm broken back of wrist, left arm cut off above the elbow, and the same arm cut in two below the elbow, right leg cut off close to the body with part of the butt attached, same leg broken below the ankle, left leg severed from the body and cut off below the knee, the heart, liver, lungs, intestines, etc. were squeezed out of the body and picked up at different places. The accident was witnessed by several parties walking along the railway who had to flee for their lives and by a number of young men in the grandstand at the Wiconisco ball park.
The section of calls we've responded to has been compiled from fire company records, newspapers, and other sources. Listings for years prior to 1981 might be incomplete.
2.
The listing of local incidents is for incidents that happened around our local area, including some from Lykens for which the fire company was not dispatched. It is certainly not a complete listing, and is not intended to be. It is included here for your entertainment. Incidents listed here have been gathered from public sources.
3.
The listing of other noteworthy incidents includes incidents from anywhere outside our local area (for which we were not dispatched). Also included in this section are historical events from our fire company, Lykens, or around the world. It is certainly not a complete listing, and is not intended to be. It is included here for your entertainment. Incidents and events listed here have been gathered from public sources.
4.
These lists can be filtered. Use the control section above to activate or de-activate filtering. Filtering will not affect the list of incidents we've responded to. But, it will be applied to both the other lists.
