Toronto Deputy Chief busted for “street racing”
From the Secret List:
A Toronto Deputy Fire Chief faces a charge under Ontario’s strict street racing law after the fire department vehicle he was driving clocked 150 kilometres per hour (96 mph) on a highway last week.
The cops say the vehicle was impounded for 7 days and Deputy Chief Daryl Fuglerud’s license was suspended for a week on Friday after the red TFD Toyota Highlander he was driving heading eastbound in Port Hope was spotted by an aircraft patrol unit around 0926 Hours.
Acting Chief of Dept Frank Lamie said D/C Fuglerud was on vacation at the time and on his way to the funeral of a retired member of the service. He said the chief, deputies and division commanders are assigned vehicles and “use them all the time.” The D/C was issued a summons to appear in court on August 5th.
Satellite views of fire recovery in Yellowstone
NASA has put together a series of annual Landsat satellite images of the Yellowstone National Park area since the 1988 fires that burned 793,000 of the park’s 2,221,800 acres. They can all be seen at NASA’s Earth Observatory site, but the Monga Bay site has assembled some of the photos and their descriptions. Here is one to whet your appetite; it’s from 1989 and shows the areas (in red) that burned in the west-central part of the park.
Oregon lumber mill back in operation using small diameter trees
The Interfor Pacific lumber mill in Gilchrist, Oregon is back in operation after being shut down since February due to a lack of demand for finished wood products and the downturn in the housing market. But instead of turning out two-by-fours like it did in the early 2000’s, they will be producing wood products used for furniture, paneling, hand tools, and decks, all made from small diameter trees that come from hazardous fuel reduction projects.
The Bend Bulletin has more details.
