Two young boys were rescued after their inflatable raft drifted offshore near the big bridge on Beach Road Monday, prompting a flurry of response from public safety officials.
The cause of a Saturday night house fire in Oak Bluffs is still unknown this week but Oak Bluffs fire chief Pete Forend said on Thursday that there was no indication that foul play was involved.
Chief Forend said that about 40 Edgartown, Tisbury and Oak Bluffs firefighters responded to the 79 Linton avenue home of Maurice O’Connor and Beth Blankenship at 7:30 p.m. last Saturday. They took just over an hour to get the fire under control, staying until 11:30 p.m. to fight the blaze. No one was hurt.
The little red 80-year-old Maxim Oak Bluffs fire-truck shines in its new home, a little fire-station off Wing Road. The newly shingled barn and museum is appropriately placed across from the much larger Nelson W. Amaral Fire Station.
Donations in the amount of $90,000 helped to house the truck, and now after a year of effort and fund-raising, they’ve run out of money.
The Oak Bluffs fire department received a $65,500 grant this week through the Department of Homeland Security to install a new ventilation system at the fire station that will remove toxic diesel exhaust from emergency vehicles inside the station.
Oak Bluffs fire chief Gilbert (Peter) Forest said the funding will be used to install the much-needed system. The grant was secured through the Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters program with the assistance of U.S. Sens. Edward (Ted) Kennedy and John F. Kerry and Rep. William Delahunt.
Tension Inside Oak Bluffs Fire Department Leads to Emergency
Services Separation
By JAMES KINSELLA
Following mounting dissension in the Oak Bluffs fire department, the
chairman of the board of selectmen moved this week to make the ambulance
service a separate department.
Selectman and board chairman Gregory Coogan said he made a
management decision Wednesday to split the two services, a move he said
was long overdue.
"I think there are inherent problems in the two
departments," Mr. Coogan said. "I think they have been at
odds over time."
If a patient at the Martha's Vineyard Hospital needs to go off-Island for further treatment at a mainland hospital, chances are the Oak Bluffs fire department will provide the lift. For more than 12 years the town fire department has been the primary transportation provider for the hospital, ferrying patients via ambulance to hospitals throughout New England and beyond. The off-Island transports provide both a vital service to the hospital and a financial boon to the town through a special purpose fund that is used to buy equipment and pay personnel.
