Welcome!
Greater Houston Fire Buffs is a organization of individuals with a common interest in the Fire Department and Fire/EMS activities throughout the Houston area. Membership is $12 paid annually. The group meets every other month, usually on a Saturday. Fire photos and descriptions are emailed out on a regular basis; and the end of year Houston FD Multiple-Alarm Report is also sent to current members.
I.F.B.A. Board Meeting Report
The International Fire Buff Associates, Inc. (IFBA) held its semi-annual Board meeting in Nashville on May 1, 2010. GHFB's Secretary/Treasurer
and past IFBA President Tom McDonald was in attendance, as was Region 5 VP Wally Banks.
McDonald reports that Nashville's Box 55 Club is planning to host the 2010 national convention of the IFBA September 22-25. The host hotel is
the Radisson at Opryland, 2401 Music Valley Drive, Nashville, TN 37214 (Tel. (615) 889-0800).
The convention rate will be $99/night plus taxes.
That same May 1 weekend, an historic flood hit the home of country music and resulted in the closure of all key venues at Gaylord
Entertainment's popular Opryland complex which sits right across the highway from the host hotel (where the Board meeting was held). As of May
3, the Grand Ole Opry building, the Opryland Hotel, and the Opryland Mills Mall all were under various amounts of water from the Cumberland
River which runs alongside the complex.
Over that weekend, Nashville and most of middle Tennessee received more than foot of rain. Major flooding was widespread including much of
downtown Nashville. More than two dozen people were known dead in the area. The damage was sure to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The IFBA's host hotel did not experience flooding itself, but it is unknown at this time how major damage nearby will impact upcoming convention
plans. Further updates will be posted on this web site.
I.F.B.A. Region 5 Meeting Report
The 2010 annual meeting of Region 5 (south central states) of the International Fire Buff
Associates, Inc. (IFBA) was held in Houston on the weekend of March 26-28. There were 27 paid
registrants with the farthest traveled being IFBA Treasurer Paul Schaetzle, in from
Jersey City, NJ.
The host hotel was the newly-renovated high-rise Sheraton Four Points on Highway 59 & Kirby, right
in the heart of the city. The annual business meeting led off the program Friday night. Region Vice
President Wally Banks (a member of both Dallas' Box 4 and Houston's GHFB clubs) conducted the
meeting at which Banks and Bob Woody (of Signal 51 in Shreveport) were both reelected to their
respective positions of Region VP and Region Secretary. IFBA Executive VP Bill Mokros and his wife
Vickie were in attendance, as well, and Bill gave an update on matters pertaining to the
association, including an update on the upcoming convention in September in Nashville.
Notably absent was John Hembrey, a long time associate of the region, from Canon City, Colorado,
who passed away earlier this year. In his memory, the group voted to name its annual regional
meeting attendance award in his honor.
On Saturday, meeting coordinator Tom McDonald had the attendees up early to visit Southside
Place's new city hall and fire station on Edloe & University. A quick stop was also made at
West University's fire station, just a block away (probably the two closest fire stations
in Texas). He then led the group to one of Houston's newer firehouses, No. 37, at Stella Link
& Lanark.
The group then headed to Humble in the far north part of Harris County where the Texas Gulf Coast
Chapter of SPAAMFAA held its annual “Pumpnic,” a combination picnic and antique fire truck pumping
demonstration. About a dozen of that organization's members were on site with about seven antique
rigs, two of which were pumping from a large lake near Moonshine Hill. Humble Fire Marshal and
“Pumpnic” Coordinator Clint Johnson had several of his trucks on site as did Tim Treadway.
The IFBA group then had lunch at Humble Inn, owned by SPAAMFAA members Mary and Harvey Trigg. Before
Harvey could offer complimentary bread pudding for dessert, half the buffs bolted from the
restaurant with napkins still in their collars to go to a bridal store fire on Highway 59 near
Tidwell. The one-alarm blaze gutted the large, metal building. After the fire, the group visited
the Houston Fire Museum and HFD's showpiece central station, No. 8 downtown. The group finished
the evening with dinner at Pappadeaux's Seafood Restaurant on Richmond.
