The Rest Of The Story

Interesting news story in Saturday’s Santa Barbara
News-Press:

Firefighters discover person trapped in burning
building

by Vladimir Kogan

Firefighters battling a blaze in a four-story mixed-use
structure in the 100 block of De la Guerra Street on Friday found
at least one person trapped inside the burning building.

Several engines from the Santa Barbara Fire Department responded
to a report of a fire Friday evening, and firefighters punctured a
hole in the roof to provide ventilation. [snip – the password
protected link is
here]

The article continues by describing the second floor rescue, and
how, at the time of the news report, the man’s condition was
unknown. The good news is that an ambulance was providing support.
No calls, evidently, were returned from the Fire Department
headquarters.

Now this is the kind of real news we need from the
News-Press.

As veteran broadcaster Paul Harvey says, “And now… for the rest
of the story.”

We received this E-mail today from one of our more astute
bloggers, “Vladdy Baby,” which was sent to City officials from John
Ahlman, the Santa Barbara City Fire Dept. Battalion Chief; it’s
authenticity has not been verified, but we believe it to be
true:

You may have read the article in the News Press entitled
“Firefighters discover person trapped in burning building” dated
Saturday the 28th of October.

This was preplanned DRILL, not an actual incident. I had no
communication with Vladimir or any SBNP reporter about this event.
I will remind him to verify any event before publishing it,
especially one where he is not in personal contact with myself or
another representative of the fire department.

All drill activities such as this are relayed to the 911
dispatchers so as not to alarm the public. The four story
“mixed-use structure” was our training tower.

When conducting training such as this, we use alternate radio
frequencies to communicate, not our main tactical channel. I can
not be completely sure, but it appears that Vladimir Kogan of the
Santa Barbara Newspress may have picked this up off an emergency
scanner and ran with it. The article was written in error as the
“Fire” was a drill.