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Crews from five area fire departments were up all night extinguishing a giant garbage fire at the San Martin Transfer Station Friday, according to authorities. The cause of the fire at the garbage and recycling facility at 14070 Llagas Ave. is undetermined, but investigators do not think it was intentional, according to CalFire Battalion Chief Brandon Leitzke. The blaze burned in a pit of garbage and recyclable materials inside a roughly 5,000-square-foot metal building that is open on two sides to allow heavy equipment to sort through the discarded items for processing, Leitzke said. About 100 tons of garbage burned, but the fire only caused “minimal” damage to the building itself. Crews from CalFire, the South Santa Clara County Fire District and the Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Jose fire departments worked through the night Friday and into Saturday morning to extinguish the fire, Leitzke said. The fire started just after 7 p.m. Friday. A firefighter injured his wrist while fighting the fire, Leitzke said. That was the only injury resulting from the incident. The San Martin Transfer Station is owned and operated by Recology South Valley. That company’s general manager, Phil Couchee, said they had to close the site to drop-offs from the public for a couple days, but they expect to reopen by Monday afternoon. “The firefighters did an outstanding job to contain (the fire) and manage it,” Couchee said. 

A memorial Mass will be held at Immaculate Conception Church on Thursday, August 8th, 2013, at 11:00 A.M., to which friends are invited. Memorials are preferred to St Jude Children Hospital c/o the mortuary chapel. Private inurnment will be held. Visit: www.grunnagle.com for condolences.

At 7:48 a.m. Thursday, San Jose police responded to a silent alarm at California Check Cashing Store in the 2100 block of Story Road in

Susan Dodd and Gavilan College have had a symbiotic relationship for 37 years, and now – even with the decorated educator’s retirement from the institution at age 63 – her legacy will live on.

Students culminated six weeks of learning how to live healthy and apply science, technology, engineering and math Wednesday when parents joined them in playing games, constructing cars from household products and learning how to cook healthy food.

Sloane Pace and Louisa Mantilla know they will probably never be Olympic gymnasts — and that’s OK with them.

In a late night stealth operation, about 25 officers from several local and state law enforcement agencies shut down an illegal gambling venue masquerading as an Internet sweepstakes cafe on First Street in Gilroy Aug. 1, confiscating everything in the store, arresting three people and snapping handcuffs on dozens of others.

Identity theft

Three engines from the Gilroy City Fire Department extinguished a small vegetation fire Wednesday afternoon in the creek near Antonio Del Buono Elementary School.

Following a major disaster, fire, law enforcement and emergency services might not be able to meet the demand for services, according to Morgan Hill’s Emergency Services Office. Individuals and families will need to be self-sufficient for at least three days. That’s where training as a volunteer for the Community Emergency Response Team can be helpful, improving your understanding of how to be prepared and respond to a major disaster, according to Morgan Hill Emergency Services Director Jennifer Ponce. The FEMA-developed CERT curriculum delivers emergency preparedness skills and trains students in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization and disaster medical operations. CERT basic training classes are free to South Santa Clara County residents. High school students are welcome, and will receive community service hours for this training, Ponce said. To register for CERT training, go to www.mhcert.com. Courses are on Tuesday evenings, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in the Morgan Hill Police Department’s Emergency Operations training room. On the last day of training, students will test their skills in a disaster simulation Saturday, Oct. 26. For more information about CERT training, contact the Morgan Hill Office of Emergency Services at (408) 776-7310, or [email protected].