DECATUR, Ga. - DeKalb County officials have fired another firefighter involved in the response to a Dunwoody blaze that left a 74-year-old woman dead.

DeKalb Public Safety Director William Miller says Captain Sell Caldwell was fired following a brief internal investigation.

Caldwell was among the crew that responded to an early morning call from Ann Bartlett, reporting her house was on fire.

Firefighters responded to a call for help, but officials say they didn't get out of their vehicles at the scene and saw no evidence of a fire.

Five hours later, the house was engulfed in flames and Bartlett had died.

The firing follows the Tuesday resignation of Fire Chief David Foster

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Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Sorry, this whole incident and repercussions here scream witchhunt on the part of the city and caving to the family.

I can understand disciplinary actions for the first in rig who should have been investigating further, but right now this looks like any person with a rank associated with the call is getting screwed over. There should be no reason that company officers off other rigs (if this is the case) should have to babysit the first in company officer. If word is given such that there is no fire or sign of it etc, there isn't a reason for every damn FF and officer at the scene to get out and check it out. We should trust the word of the other officers.

Now I don't agree with a "drive by investigation" as this is being touted. The first in crew should have got out and checked things out, made contact with the caller etc, but really if nothing is showing, I've been on enough where other crews NEVER got out of the rig after the first in said they can handle things. The 5 hours later for a fire things rings odd to me as well. I understand a smoldering fire can wait, but seems to be some other factors at play here. The caller never called back, despite the noise etc, when contact supposedly wasn't made? There were no intensifying smoke etc after she initially called and have her wondering where is the FD? What was the cause of the fire? Was it here O2 as she basically reported? Was it a cooking, candle, smoking materials cause? Seems more to this than what we know. Yes it is a wake up call against complacency, but I think the city may be wrong here in their headhunt on ranking personnel.
what he said

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