Chamber of Hoarders Online Blog

  Check out this news interview with Ryan Pennington from ChamberofHoarders.com.  WCHS TV stopped by to interview him during his presentation of Hoarder Homes: Piles of Hazards for firefighters.  Check out this Hoarder News Story

LANSING  — A wind chill well below zero and a fire consuming a house so filled with belongings that firefighters could not safely enter it culminated in a headache for Lansing firefighters Tuesday morning. Crews were called to a two-story house shortly before 9 a.m. in the 800 block of North Pine Street, on the northwest corner of Pine and Madison

WRCBtv.com | Chattanooga News, Weather   CHATTANOOGA, TN (WRCB) - We have an update on what McKamey Animal Center has called the worst animal hoarding fire this area has ever had. Dozens of cats died when an East Brainerd home burned Saturday. Chattanooga firefighters say piles of clutter made getting to the fire a challenge in a house filled

How often do you train with your portable radios? In today’s fire service most all firefighters carry portable radios, how often do you review what is important traffic.  One such transmission should be Heavy Contents.  From a street level, jumpseat riding, firefighter like me to the chief of the department allowing them all to transmit a discovery

One common factor that keeps coming up during the my research of fires in Hoarding conditions is the increase danger to firefighters.  One of the most dangerous times of the [caption id="attachment_220" align="alignright" width="144"] Be Prepared For Overhaul Dangers firefight is in the overhauling of the fire.  Once the flames have been knocked do

Story From   Wchs6 (WEEK) Sam and Barbara Garland's Pekin, Illinois home is now just a pile of debris. The house caught fire early Sunday morning. Pekin Firefighters were on the scene for 12 hours, forced to demolish the home to search for the victims buried inside. They uncovered the bodies of the Garlands later that night. Deputy Fire Chief Brian

Hoarder Response from a Northeastern Fire Department: Initial dispatch info is for sparking/arcing on the utility pole in front of the complainant's residence, at 12:08am. We respond with a crew of 3 (driver (a LT filling in), Sr  firefighter serving as acting officer (myself) and a FF) (non emergency per SOG) and arrive on scene in 5 minutes, with

  Free Webcast Hoarder Homes: Piles of Hazards for Firefighters Monday January 14, 2012 1300 EDT Sign up by sending email to: Ryan33@suddenlink.net Free Ebook Giveaway during Webcast

Police ID woman found after house fire ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) - Albuquerque Police said the elderly woman found dead in a house fire over the weekend was the homeowner, Juanita Adams, 84. APD is still waiting on the autopsy report to learn how she died. The first broke out early Saturday morning at her home on Lexington Ave Northeast near Juan Ta

WEST PHILADELPHIA - January 9, 2013 (WPVI) -- Officials say an elderly man has died in a fire that destroyed one home and damaged neighboring homes in Philadelphia's Parkside section early Wednesday morning. The fire broke out around 2:15 a.m. on the 4900 block of Brown Street. Fire crews arrived to heavy flames showing on the first floor. The fast

One of the common problems that you can encounter, if you choose to perform an interior attack, on a fire with hoarding conditions, is the punishment that your Personal Protective Equipment will face. Mountains of belongings offer many hazards to firefighters when a fire has occurred.  Let us look at one perspective of fighting hoarder fires,

  As the news came in from Maryland’s recent Hoarder fire, the images began to surface.  Their choice of High Expansion foam made for some amazing video.  The images looked like someone had put the bubble bath into a hot tub and left it on for hours.  Using foam while battling a hoarding condition can be one of the best solution

From Hyattsville Fire Departments Website JANUARY 4 -- At about 17:48, Engine and Squad 1 were dispatched to a reported house fire in the 3400 block of Webster Street, Co. 55's area. Engine 855 arrived on the scene of a two-story duplex with smoke showing from the top floor. Engine 801, responding as second due, picked up E855's line. Engine 855 re

Often when researching fires that happen inside a hoarded environment we discover that the doors and windows are blocked with belongings.  What does this mean to us?  It means that they no longer choose to use the primary means of entrance and exit to their homes.  This can prove to be a huge challenge as we make our choice of entry points.  A rece

Since the beginning of my research into responses in hoarding environments, one question [caption id="attachment_152" align="alignleft" width="158"] Hoarder FIre continually comes up.   What are the most important things my department should do if we are faced with a hoarding condition?  Great question, there are many things that need to change whe

Good afternoon from the Chamber.  Often when we are asked what should we do when Heavy Contents are discovered?  This question has many responses but two should be made IMMEDIATELY. Announce Heavy Contents [caption id="attachment_141" align="alignright" width="134"] Hoarder fire Photo Shepardstown WV Fire Dept.   First thing that should happen

One of the most important observation and/or decisions a first arriving officer to a [caption id="attachment_133" align="alignright" width="180"] Photo By Keven Smith structure fire is the estimate of how long the fire has been burning.  This observation can help make the attack strategies, points of entries, and help predict structural collapse ti

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The stories keep coming in as Firefighters are facing more and more fires inside Hoarded Conditions.   It truly is amazing how many we are facing.  It is troubling to hear many firefighters talk about these conditions and immediately go to the fuel load problem.  Since starting my research into this problem of hoarding I have found many other chall