This past weekend, April 25 and April 26, members from South Wall attended a 16 hour Structural Collapse course presented by Safety and Survival Training LLC. This program consisted of shoring, breaching, lifting, technical search as well as many other critical functions performed by the operational level rescuer.

South Wall Structural Collapse Team now consists of 25 members trained to the NFPA 1670 Standard for Structural Collapse Operations. The team trains every other month on these special skills. This team was formed after  numerous incidents within our District and Mutual Aid towns, where South Wall operated and such special skills were required. A few examples of theses incidents would be, vehicles into buildings, natural disasters and natural gas explosions which are becoming more popular as we have been seeing on social media. South Wall’s collapse Team recently signed a mutual aid agreement to respond together with Neptune Special Ops to any confirmed Collapse.

Don Witkowski joined South Wall Fire Rescue in 2005 after moving to the township. He had originally served Chatham Township for 5 years. Don was a direct witness to the events of September 11th, 2001 and he was inspired to re-enter the fire service after a brief break. Since his time here Don has been an active member of the RIT Team, Structural Collapse Team and is a key player in vehicle extrication. This year Don received a 10 year service award and a Citation for setting up relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Reminder when you change your clocks, change your batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

The National Fire Protection Association reports that 71% of smoke alarms which failed to operate had missing, disconnected or dead batteries, making it important to take this time each year to check your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

Every family should have a fire safety plan to ensure everyone is prepared should an emergency occur, and it’s never too late to create your plan! Some helpful tips and fire safety activities are included below.

• Three out of five home fire deaths result from fires in properties without working smoke alarms
• More than one-third (37 percent) of home fire deaths result from fires in which no smoke alarms are present.
• The risk of dying in a home fire is cut in half in homes with working smoke alarms.

South Wall is starting something new for our webpage. A “meet the members” section. This will contain posts about one or a few of our members at a time. For the first post we will start with 3 of our probationary members that are starting the Firefighter 1 program at Middletown Fire Academy.

Probationary Fireman Robby Kraft joined South Wall Fire Rescue in 2014. Robby came to us from a neighboring firehouse with a working knowledge of the volunteer fire service. According to Robby, his attraction to our brotherhood and pride are what brought him into our firehouse. Robby is currently enrolled in the Middletown Township Fire Academy with two of his peers. 

Probationary Fireman Conor Goetz joined South Wall Fire Rescue in 2013. Connor is a third generation fireman at South Wall. His grandfather Eric and father Peter had both urged Connor to carry on the family name at South Wall. Connor found a sense of direction and camaraderie with South Wall and has grown exponentially. Connor achieved Junior Fireman of the Year for 2013.

Probationary Firefighter Tom Lisowski joined South Wall Fire Rescue in November 2014. Tom came to us after seeing his older brother join and excel rather quickly among the younger members. He was also influenced to join by a family friend from a neighboring firehouse. Tom found a true home among our firehouse and has made life long friends. In his short time here, he has achieved the Junior Fireman of the Year award for 2014.

For the first two months of 2015 members from South Wall have been busy! 37 emergencies in January and 38 emergencies in February, for a total of 75 calls for service.

Some of the calls as of January 1, 2015 that our members have responded to include 7 total fires, 6 being mutual aid or RIT requests and 1 residential fire in our first due response area, 4  motor vehicle accidents with extrication, 1 fatal vehicle fire / accident and 1 special rescue of a dog that fell through ice.

Members have also responded to multiple broken water pipes in residence and business due to the extreme cold.

Along with our weekly training on Monday nights, Our members have been doing a fantastic job in keeping up with the extreme weather and busy emergency calls during the past two months.

*Photo from a Multi- Alarm fire in Ocean Grove where South Wall Responded as part of the Monmouth County Pipeline and then provided RIT services.

On Sunday, February 1, 2014 around 3pm South Wall Fire Rescue and the Wall Township Police were dispatched to the lake on Allaire Rd for an ice rescue. A dog was found in the middle of the lake keeping his head above water. Officers quickly used a row boat near by to get out to the dog and rescue him without incident. He was reunited safely with his owner. Another outstanding job by Wall Police and South Wall members.

Members of South Wall have had a busy end to 2014 and just as busy beginning to 2015. Since January 1, 2015 South Wall has answered 20 emergency calls for service including 2 structure fires and 2 vehicle extrications.

At the close of 2014 South Wall answered a total of 350 emergency calls and during the last week 1 structure fire and 1 RIT to Point Pleasant Beach Fire Company.

The 2015 Line officers were sworn in on January 1, 2015 at 11am.  Congratulations to these dedicated members. Best of luck in 2015.

Chief – John Sahatjian
Deputy Chief – Tim Hobbis
Captain – Mark Pellecchia Jr.
1st LT – TJ Wade
2nd LT – Jarrod Rubin

President – Pete Goetz
Vice President – Ralph Tancredi
Secretary – Cash Dosby
Treasurer – Spencer Arnold.

Over the last month South Wall has completed the renovations of the Special Operations Trailer which is home to mostly Structural Collapse Equipment. We had instructors in from Safety and Survival Training to hold refresher training on the skills of shoring up a compromised building with our Paratech Struts and Lumber.

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