If it’s possible to sum up a life with two words, then testimony from family, friends and former colleagues suggests “service” and “community” should be top contenders for describing the legacy of longtime Fairfax County volunteer fire chief Homer Johns.
Speakers repeatedly circled back to those concepts at a memorial service on Saturday (Nov. 16), as they paid tribute to the over five decades Johns spent with the McLean and Great Falls volunteer fire departments.
Some equipment and staffing challenges remain, but Fairfax County’s 12 volunteer fire departments are positioning themselves for ongoing improvement after a solid fiscal year that ended June 30.
That was the message delivered by Fairfax Volunteer Fire Commission chair Shawn Stokes to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday (Oct. 8).
A Dominion Energy worker was injured by an electrical transformer explosion that occurred this morning (Monday) outside the Mars headquarters building in McLean.
Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department units were first dispatched to 6885 Elm Street around 10 a.m. Additional responders were sent to the scene minutes later after a firefighter reported concern about the building catching fire, according to scanner traffic.
A damaged natural gas pipeline has shut down Route 29 approaching Centreville.
The road’s southbound lanes are currently closed at Stringfellow Road. Efforts to repair the leak are expected to drag into the afternoon rush hour today (Thursday), according to the Virginia Department of Transportation.
Two men were hospitalized this morning (Tuesday) by a crash on Richmond Highway (Route 1) in Lorton outside Gunston Plaza.
Police and emergency responders from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department were dispatched to Richmond Highway and Armistead Road around 6:50 a.m. for a two-vehicle crash that left one vehicle on fire and another with at least one person possibly trapped, according to scanner traffic on Open MHz.
Virginia Task Force 1 is on its way to South Carolina.
The Fairfax County-based international urban search and rescue task force was deployed last night (Sunday) to assist with the emergency response to Tropical Storm Debby, which made landfall as a hurricane near Steinhatchee on the west coast of Florida around 7 a.m. this morning (Monday).
It’s not every day Spiderman gets a request to draw Sonic the Hedgehog on the outside of a hospital window 10 or 12 stories off the ground.
It turns out that Spiderman, as portrayed by Prince William County Department of Fire and Rescue Technician II Kelly VanWingerden, is not much of an artist, Prince William County fire and rescue officials said in a news release.
A truck carrying metal debris crashed on Nutley Street near the Pan Am Shopping Center in Merrifield this morning (Tuesday), requiring an extended closure for clean-up.
Fairfax County police officers and Fire and Rescue units, including a hazmat team, were dispatched to Nutley Street at Route 29 around 11:20 a.m. for a report of a flipped tractor-trailer, according to scanner traffic on Open MHz.
A pedestrian died after being hit by the driver of a minivan on I-95 this morning (Thursday), the Virginia State Police says.
The crash occurred around 3:55 a.m. in the highway’s southbound lanes at the Old Keene Mill Road interchange, according to police.
A fire blazed through multiple units of an apartment complex in Idylwood this morning (Wednesday), prompting a heavy response by the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department.
Units were called to the Falls Church Gardens Condominiums in the 2700 block of Hollywood Road around 9:15 a.m. for what turned into a two-alarm apartment fire.
