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National Fire News

31 crashes of first responders in Florida last week raise red flags

First responders rush through the streets to save lives every day, but that comes with a risk and, sometimes, a cost. With more than 30 crashes involving Jacksonville police and fire vehicles last week, city leaders are once again concerned about safety. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office alone had 24 crashes last week, with the officers at fault in 17 of them.
- PUB DATE: 10/31/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WJXT-TV CBS 4 Jacksonville

Inside The New Tech Helping Los Angeles Firefighters Decide Who And When To Evacuate

Ever wonder how fire agencies decide who and when to evacuate? It's not a decision made on a hunch. It requires making sense of huge amounts of real-time data and intelligence, and getting it wrong or late can have tragic consequences. Not than long ago, fatalities in California's wildfires were very rare.
- PUB DATE: 10/31/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: LAist

North Carolina county: 'We need our own EMS team'

If you have a heart attack in Harlowe, according to resident and former firefighter Rufus Carter, you are in serious trouble: it’s going to take the ambulance an average of 18 minutes and 22 seconds to get there. If you live in nearby Adams Creek, the response time is even longer. That’s the longest average response time for EMS in the county by nine and a half minutes (in Fort Barnwell) and nearly 11 minutes longer than the county’s quickest (Township 7).
- PUB DATE: 10/31/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New Bern Sun Journal

Chicago Fire Department officials face calls for greater diversity in ranks

Chicago has the largest number of women fighting fires and working on ambulances of any city in the country, the city’s fire commissioner said Wednesday, but they make up less than 10% of the department’s total personnel. In a department that has long dealt with diversity issues, aldermen also pressed Chicago Fire Department officials to better address the under-representation of black and Latino firefighters on the force, an annual complaint when officials come to City Hall for their budget hearing.
- PUB DATE: 10/31/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Tribune - Metered Site

Wildfire Victims Don't Have Cell Service Thanks to Greedy Telecoms

The California wildfires and PG&E’s incompetence are having a terrifying impact on the residents of California, who face not only immense risk to life and property, but a growing number of power and telecom-related outages that make a bad problem worse. There are more than a dozen wildfires currently raging across California, and heavy winds this week are only expected to exacerbate the problem.
- PUB DATE: 10/31/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Vice

Authorities in Arizona searching for missing Pine-Strawberry Fire Chief Gary Morris

Authorities are searching for the Pine-Strawberry Fire Chief who has been reported missing after setting out to hike an Arizona trail last week. Sheriff's officials say 73-year-old Chief Gary Morris was reported missing around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Deputies say Chief Morris, an avid hiker, was scheduled to do 51 miles over four days of the Arizona Trail with the ending point being in the Doll Baby area, southwest of Payson.
- PUB DATE: 10/30/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC 15 News Arizona

Kincade Fire: Harrowing dashcam video shows San Francisco firefighters driving into flames, embers hitting windshield

VIDEO: Harrowing video of San Francisco firefighters sent into the Kincade Fire drives home the reality that our first-responders are risking their lives when they step in to battle raging wildfires. Firefighters from San Francisco Fire Department were deployed to help fight the Kincade Fire, which has now burned 74,000 acres in Sonoma County.
- PUB DATE: 10/30/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KGO-TV 7 News

Several shots fired into West Virginia volunteer fire department; trucks damaged

At least 13 shots were fired into the Ona Volunteer Fire Department building, damaging three trucks, Cabell County Sheriff Chuck Zerkle said Tuesday. The sheriff said someone shot through the station’s garage doors, hitting three truck’s radiators and transmission lines. As a result, two of the trucks will be out of service.
- PUB DATE: 10/30/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WSAZ-TV NBC 3

Call for full-time paid chief, two more firefighters in Maine town

The town’s full-time firefighters say the current paid firefighting service is too thin for a town of York’s size, and they are seeking residents’ support to add two more people to their ranks. But as much as they seek relief from their 56-hour work week, it is just as important to them that the town hire a full-time paid fire chief.
- PUB DATE: 10/30/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fosters.com

Governor: Firefighters called to 330 fires across California in 24 hours

In the last 24 hours, firefighters have responded to an estimated 330 fires across California, Governor Gavin Newsom stated in a press conference Monday afternoon. The update comes as the Kincade Fire, which sparked northeast of Geyserville on October 23, continues to burn across Northern California.
- PUB DATE: 10/29/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: SF Gate

‘He’s going to be irreplaceable’: Veteran D.C. firefighter who maintained apparatus dies of heart attack

Alex Graham was a fixture behind the wheel of Engine 21, part of a crew known as the Alley Rats that raced to calls around Northwest Washington’s Adams Morgan neighborhood. But it was in Graham’s less flashy work on the training grounds at the other end of the city where the 48-year-old became the department’s go-to fix-it man, making sure water flowed from engines and through hoses at the required rate and that ladders could be raised to burning structures.
- PUB DATE: 10/29/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Washington Post

Federal jury says city must pay FDNY EMS members for time spent preparing for their shifts

They did the time — now they’re going to get paid for it. A federal jury ordered the city to cough up millions of dollars to FDNY emergency medical technicians and paramedics who were stiffed for time spent on preparations before and after their shifts, attorneys for the first responders said Saturday.
- PUB DATE: 10/29/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

Close call at Kincade Fire in California: Hero firefighter shields evacuees from surging flames, all survive

A firefighter battling the explosive Kincade Fire near Geyserville was forced to deploy his personal fire shelter to prevent two residents from being overcome by flames as the blaze surged Friday evening, state officials said. Fire shelters are used as a last resort, and the rescue, at about 6:20 p.m.
- PUB DATE: 10/29/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle - Metered Site

Ohio could add more firefighters, but state grants come with a cost

Fairfield officials are debating whether to accept a federal firefighting staffing grant because of the city’s own financial obligations that come with the funding. Fairfield was awarded a nearly $1.26 million Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant so the fire department could hire six firefighters.
- PUB DATE: 10/29/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Journal-News

Ohio firefighter dies from electric shock after trying to help victims of crash

The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating a crash that left two people dead early Sunday morning on Sprague Road, west of state Route 252. According to officials, 31-year-old Keith Liedtke, of Columbia Station, was driving a 2007 Pontiac G5 in the eastbound lane of Sprague Road. Twenty-seven-year-old Brent Reszler, of Columbia Station, was in the passenger seat.
- PUB DATE: 10/28/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKYC Studios

Amid South Carolina county fire dispute, the closest department might not receive the first call

An ongoing dispute between neighboring fire department jurisdictions in northern Beaufort County could mean that, beginning Friday, the closest firefighters won’t always respond first to an emergency. Leaders of the Beaufort-Port Royal Fire Department and Burton Fire District say their departments are equipped to keep residents adequately safe despite the latest escalation in the spat.
- PUB DATE: 10/28/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Island Packet

Fatal Massachusetts fire raises questions on whether blackouts affected response time

The recent fatal fire on Coffin Ave has brought renewed attention to the fire department’s blackout policy. First responders were able to locate and evacuate 85-year-old Louise Barboza on the third floor of her three-story home after receiving reports of a structure fire, but she suffered second and third degree burns and later died at the hospital.
- PUB DATE: 10/28/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: South Coast Today

NFPA awarded FEMA funds to develop free public safety drone compliance program for the fire service

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), has received just shy of a million dollars in Fire Prevention and Safety Grant money from FEMA to develop a free public safety drone compliance program that includes educational training and a searchable knowledgebase that tracks fire service drone programs and usage.
- PUB DATE: 10/28/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NFPA.org

Gender-neutral facilities included in Michigan fire station renovation

After recently going solar, an Ann Arbor fire station is set to undergo interior renovations. City Council has OK’d a $208,400 contract with Allied Building Service Co. of Detroit for upgrades to Station 6 next to Briarwood Mall, including adding gender-neutral facilities. The station was constructed in the early 1980s when the fire service was made up of mostly male firefighters, officials said.
- PUB DATE: 10/28/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Mlive.com

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