Three Detroit Houses Leveled By Fire,  Broken Equipment And Low Water Pressure
Channel: midwestnews
Date: 2013-04-27

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DETROIT (IBS) - Mayor Bing and Detroit City Council cut the Fire Department budget so deep in June of 2012 that there's literally no ladder companies left in the city to fight a fire.  Now it seems that FIrefighters can't even get broken equipment fixed when it breaks.  

That makes residents like Troy Rials worried about his and his neighbor's safety.

Detroit Firefighters were already in the area wrapping up from a fire in a commercial building when someone noticed a column of black smoke nearby.  It was three houses fully involved in the 5300 block of Vancouver on Detroit's West Side.  Firefighters arrived on the scene and went to work but there was a problem, low water pressure from all the hydrants in the area.  Still, there was enough water to fight the fire.  Now comes the ladder truck, it didn't work so another truck was called, it didn't work.  A third truck was called and it too didn't work!  That's three ladder trucks out of only a handful left in the city!

Troy Rials was sitting in his house a few doors down from the fire when he heard a commotion and came outside to see what was going on. He describes what he saw as "a big ball of fire" he says most of the houses on Vancouver are vacant and he's had to chase scrappers and squatters out from time to time.  Troy says "you can't get a good night's sleep cause you don't know what's gonna happen".

The fire severely damaged all three houses but luckily there appeared to be no injuries.