From The Star's front page today:
- An on-duty Kansas City fire captain has been taking his pumper truck
and crew into Lee’s Summit to watch his son’s high school baseball
games.
- Twice this month Star staffers saw Pumper 43, based out of
Station 43 on Missouri 350, parked in the Lee’s Summit North High
School parking lot during freshman team games. The school is more than
5 miles from the station’s Knobtown location and is about 2½ miles
outside Kansas City’s city limits.
- During an April 10 game they left for an emergency call, rumbling
with lights and sirens on through at least two intersections. On April
13, they stayed the entire game, which ended on the “mercy rule” after
a few innings of North beating Grandview.
Favorite line from the story: Chief Smokey Dyer, who ducked reporter John Shultz's specific questions and pushed a spokesperson out front instead, said the Fire Department "has no policy requiring apparatus and crews to stay within certain geographic boundaries..." Still, they're investigating.
This incident could be seen as progress. There's a rich history of creative use of KC fire trucks and equipment:
May 19, 1999:
A Kansas City fire captain's wife posed with a pumper, a Dalmatian and her husband's helmet hanging on a real estate sign, then used the picture in an ad to help her sell houses.
KC fire truck touts fire wife's real estate biz
Oct. 12, 1999:
Photos of a woman posing suggestively with what appeared to be city property at a Kansas City fire station are posted on the Internet.
The site was created by the wife of a Kansas City firefighter. It depicts a woman posing on a pumper truck, wearing boots and a hat, holding an ax, beginning to undress in a locker room and working out on a weight bench.
September 1998
The Fire Department was embarrassed by the revelation that a pumper was pictured in a 1999 Bunn's exotic dance club calendar with 10 bikini-clad women. Two firefighters subsequently were disciplined.
KC fire truck stars in Bunn's Exotic Dance Club calendar
1997
A federal jury ruled against the Fire Department after hearing about X-rated videos in fire stations and other issues in a sexual discrimination and harassment lawsuit. A U.S. district judge ordered the department to conduct training to reduce sexual harassment.
