Month: July 2013

4:10pm–#Bridgeport CT– Report of a motor vehicle accident on Park Avenue and North Street in Bridgeport. Update: It is a three car motor vehicle accident with one person injured.

3:45pm–#Fairfield CT Report of a smell of wood burning at Osborne Hill School. There is no visible smoke or fire, only a smell of wood burning.

3:02pm–#Stratford CT– Report of a planter on fire in the area of Breaker’s Lane.

(Bridgeport, CT – June 28, 2013) — Deputy Fire Chief Bruce Porzelt retired Friday after 36 years on the Bridgeport Fire Department.

In his three-and-a-half decades, he saved lives, witnessed death, responded to some of the city’s largest catastrophes — and had a hard time retiring.

“He’s a good friend and a better firefighter,” said Fire Chief Brian Rooney. “He served this city well for a very long time.”

Porzelt joined the department in 1976 after spending six years with the Bridgeport Board of Education as a plumber and welder. He applied for the fire job on a whim. He knew a few firefighters who loved the job.

It was a different era, he said. Today, firefighters spend four months at the training academy. Back then, it was a week, and three of those days felt like signing papers identifying his beneficiary if he got killed, he said.

His first night, he responded to three working fires. The rule for rookies was to follow a veteran and learn. It literally was baptism by fire. He was hooked, even though the department still had opened roof engines and firefighters resorted, on the coldest days, to opening the engine hood and warm numb fingers near the engine block.

A few fires and tragedies stood out. There was the general alarm fire at Nathan Schwarz and Son on East Washington Street. The fire burned out of control all night, fueled by thousands of Sterno cans, the fuel-filled tins used by restaurants to heat food in chafing dishes. A wall collapsed and fell on the department’s newest truck.

Then on April 23, 1987, Porzelt had just arrived for his shift, and found the firehouse empty. He looked out the window and saw a huge cloud of dust hovering over downtown. He drove his personal car to L’Ambiance Plaza, and started digging by hand through the rubble of the collapsed building. Twenty-eight people died.

He lost seven colleagues in line-of-duty deaths during his career.

“You see some really bad things. It’s tough to forget it but you try,” he said.

What he’ll miss most: “The guys. It’s like the Band of Brothers. We eat together. We cry together, go to baseball games together. Everyone’s got a different story. I’ll miss the guys most, and then the job,” said Porzelt.

“My wife asked a few times over the years, ‘you’re young, you’re still healthy,” he said. “But you love the job so much and the guys you work with so much that you just can’t leave.”

Video Report– Bridgeport Police hold fundraiser for fallen officers memorial

Article by Denis J. O’Malley Connecticut Post

BRIDGEPORT — Panhandling in the city’s Black Rock section took a prominent spot on the police department’s agenda Monday, only it was the officers reaching out their palms.

Of course, they were not collecting for themselves. Rather, the money raised from the officers’ coin drop on Fairfield Avenue and a fundraiser held simultaneously at the Fire Engine Pizza Company will go toward a memorial to the city’s fallen officers to be built outside police headquarters.

“We want to make sure that no one ever forgets,” Mayor Bill Finch said of the city’s 12 fallen officers as he filled out a form to have a commemorative brick with a custom inscription laid in the memorial.

The bricks, which come in 4-by-8-inch and 8-by-8-inch sizes, are available to the public for $50 for the smaller stone and $100 for the larger stone. Order forms are available at the police union website, www.bridgeportpoliceunion.com.

Finch said the department and union hoped to raise $20,000 of the $50,000 needed for the project on Monday.

The production company behind the upcoming film “And So It Goe,s” starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton, who have been filming just a few blocks from the restaurant, gave the fundraising effort a boost with a $5,000 check, Finch said. A Westport man put up another $1,000.

Fire Engine Pizza Company earmarked 10 percent of its sales for the day for the memorial fund, said former city Councilman Marty McCarthy, who is a partner in the business with Phil Segneri.

domalley@ctpost.com, @domalleyctpost, 203-330-6230