Today, I wrote up a piece about how Office of Attorney General lawyers were/are furious with fire department brass. What's the reason for their anger? A shoddy investigation into the Georgetown Library fire that has become the subject of a massive lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court. The shoddy investigation means a lot of problems with basics like discovery and evidence requests by plaintiffs attorneys.

In my item (linked above, please read it!), I quote from two OAG lawyers' e-mails to the fire department. The two attorneys call out the department for their potentially damaging stonewalling on the discovery, and question whether fire investigators followed basic national standards when they worked the Georgetown library case.

In my calls to the OAG prior to publishing the piece (linked above, please read it!), I got nowhere. Nothing much beyond no comment, it's pending litigation, the usual.

A few hours after my item ran (linked above, please read it!), OAG's Kimberly Matthews called to say she really, really wanted to see those e-mails. Could I please send them to her?

Read More "OAG Calls. It Wants Its Emails Back." »

The D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services department has hydrant problems, that much we know. With water flow cited as a key cause in the destruction of Peggy Cooper Cafritz's Chain Bridge Road manse last month, the department has been checking and rechecking plugs across the city to prevent another disaster.

Tania Shand also has hydrant problems.

Shand lives down the block from the FEMS headquarters, in the former Grimke School at T Street and Vermont Avenue NW. She has a hydrant in front of her house, and fire department brass are constantly parking in front of it.

Read More "Fire Brass Likes Parking in Front of Hydrant" »

Two years after the fact, Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells has gone on the record suspecting that the Eastern Market fire was arson. Wells tells the Voice of the Hill:

"'I have a tremendous amount of suspicion that it was arson,' Wells told the Voice immediately after the market reopened Friday."

Eastern Market re-opened today with the expected fanfare. Which is great. But it doesn't erase the screw-ups surrounding that massive blaze. In December 2007, we wrote a piece addressing the concerns of numerous fire fighters that the Eastern Market case was arson. Two arson investigators got bounced off their beat for making their concerns known.

Read More "Not Breaking: Councilmember Wells Suspects Eastern Market Fire Was Arson" »

One day after Chief Dennis Rubin halted fireworks displays at Nats games after paper bits fell on him, the D.C. Fire Department has declared the problem has been fixed. Its press release states:

"The District of Columbia Fire and EMS Department met with the Washington Nationals to identify additional measures to ensure spectator safety during pyrotechnic activities at Nationals Park. These new measures will be put in place to serve as an additional layer of protection to reduce debris when fireworks are used during the National Anthem, when the team takes the field, and during the Nationals' homeruns and victories. Normal pyrotechnic activities will resume for the next home game."

More details after the jump.

Read More "D.C. Fire Department: Nats Fireworks Problem Solved" »

Few in public service have fallen harder. Recently, we chronicled Greg Bowyer, a fire department whistleblower who had been demoted from arson investigator to hydrant checker. Today, his hydrant checking duties were temporarily suspended in favor of rescuing some flooded bathrooms. This morning he attended to the Florida Avenue NW water main break--which still appears to be a problem--and helped citizens mop up their flooded basements and bathrooms. "We responded code one with lights and sirens," Bowyer says of his community service unit's response to the bathroom detail.

Bowyer adds he's "thankful for the unique opportunity."

"I'm not sure if this is a promotion from the hydrant detail or a demotion," Bowyer jokes. "It wasn't too bad today. At least I helped some citizens even if it was just cleaning the bathrooms out....After a year, I finally got a chance to respond to an emergency, although it was a water emergency."

On Friday, Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson sent a letter to CFO Dr. Natwar M. Gandhi seeking an accounting of "every travel expenditure incurred by the Executive Office of the Mayor and every subordinate agency during the months of December 2008, January 2009, and February 2009."

The reason: the fishy fire truck donation to the Dominican Republic.

The two councilmembers have also requested an "immediate" investigation by the Office of the Inspector General into the fire truck issue including the involvement of Peaceoholics Inc.'s Ron Moten. They note that the donation had been contemplated within dc.gov since June 2008. You can read their letter to the IG's office here.

The two also note that AG Peter Nickles is said to be investigating the matter. But they say Nickles had to be involved in the issue---i.e. he may have worked with Moten---and is tainted; the two contest that his investigation would at least appear to present a conflict of interest.

Read More "Cheh, Mendo Request Investigation Into Fire Truck Controversy" »

More on City Administrator Dan Tangherlini's budget powwows. Post lunch, the city's top day-to-day manager had three additional rounds of discussions with agency directors on money---first with the Office of Property Management (OPM). "We need to find savings everywhere we can," said Tangherlini to OPM Director Robin-Eve Jasper. "We're doing to look to you for a lot of help."

More than an hour later, the brass from the Fire and Emergency Medical Services agency arrived---Chief Dennis Rubin and two assistants, all of whom are gloriously mustachioed white guys. Dan Tan's message to Rubin: "What is the core mission and function? What are the things that protect lives? What are the things that we've inherited, longstanding practices that we can look at?"

Just before a reporter for Average Day got kicked out of the room, Rubin said, in describing possible savings, "We feel like there's somewhere between $3 and $5 million in auto accidents." Now, does figure encompass departmental vehicles? Don't know---we got the hook.

Dan Tan is now deep in a skull session with University of the District of Columbia executives, including new President Allen Sessoms.

By Mike DeBonis

For those still waiting for a final pronouncement on the cause of the Eastern Market fire of April 30, 2007, be prepared to wait a little longer...maybe forever. As the City Paper reported in December (Cover Story, "Was This Really an Accident?"), various D.C. Fire & EMS personnel believe (and a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives report insinuates) that the three-alarm fire started on the outside of the building---a synopsis that contradicts the publicly stated opinions of District Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin, who believes the inferno was caused by an electrical problem.

Eight months later, things are still muddled.

In the most recent issue of the Hill Rag, Rubin appears to be hanging tough with his original conclusion. Referring to a "final report" on the market fire, he explains that the blaze  "was determined to be electrical in nature with four or five suspected sources, but accidental in nature."

But the report Rubin is referring to, authored by D.C. Fire employee and certified fire investigator Sgt. Phillip C. Proctor, doesn't corroborate Rubin's outlook. With 10 pages of painstaking detail followed by a one-paragraph conclusion, Proctor's report is, at the very least, noncommittal. "Based on a systematic fire scene examination," it surmises, "witness statements, and all the available information to date, it is the opinion of the undersigned that the origin of the area of this fire is near the west wall (Side C) of the structure. The exact point of origin has not been identified at this time. The cause of this fire has not been determined and is currently still under investigation."

Not exactly the wrap-up a "final report" would merit.

The most damning blow to Rubin's electrical-accident hypothesis, however, isn't found in the ambiguity of the report's conclusion, but in a bit of juicy info appearing on Page 8, where Proctor mimics---verbatim-0z--a bullet found in the ATF report on the fire:

All evidence of electrical activity found during this investigation was a victim of the fire and not its cause.

Fire department public information officer Alan Etter says in an e-mail he doesn't think Chief Rubin's statements and Proctor's report are at odds.

"I think while the cause of the fire has not been definitively determined, anyone who's looked at [the report] thinks it was caused by malfunctioning electrical equipment," he writes. He adds that Chief Rubin was just "saying what everyone who's looked at [the report] is sure of."

---Rend Smith

(Photograph by Arthur Delaney)