A Commonwealth Court panel Wednesday thwarted an attempt by the state attorney general’s office to forcibly dissolve a volunteer fire company that refused to participate in a government-organized merger. The ruling means that, for now at least, Independent Fire Company No. 1 in South Williamsport can continue to exist as a nonprofit entity and might even resume fighting fires outside the borough.
- PUB DATE: 2/6/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: PennLive

With climate change spurring intense and longer wildfire seasons, fire safety and preparation is no longer an option. As seen in the United States and across the world in Australia and the Amazon, wildfires are devastating and can dramatically affect the economy of a region. With the growing frequency and severity of wildfires, firefighters are needed more than ever to protect cities and communities.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: AdvisorSmith

“Gray Death” is a particularly dangerous mixture of heroin, fentanyl, carfentanil and other synthetic opioids, and it has made its way to Indiana. Carfentanil, which is used as a tranquilizing agent for elephants and other large mammals, is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl, according to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WAVE-TV NBC 3

York City's Fire Chief had to make a choice. So, he chose his home. But because of that decision, he could lose his job by the end of this month. Residency requirements in the city of York require the fire chief to live within the city limits. Deardorff lives in West Manchester Township with his children and wife.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WPMT-TV FOX 43 York

VIDEO: According to the National Fire Protection Association, firefighters are 9 percent more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than the average American. The Toledo Fire and Rescue department is teaming up with Cancer Dogs, a Canadian company that uses dogs to detect possible cancer in someone's breath.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTVG-TV ABC 13 Toledo

An interim report on conditions at the fire station include plenty of reasons for alarm. Consultants have documented problems with airflow. No ventilation air is being introduced into the apparatus and rescue vehicle area, and two exhaust fans “do not appear to be functional,” MacRitchie Engineering, Inc.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Cape Cod Chronicle

New city firefighters make less than $15 an hour, a lower starting pay rate than city parks laborers earn. The issue came up at last week's Marion City Council meeting when a city resident questioned the existing pay rates for city parks employees, rates that went before city council for approval. "I'm not trying to say that's not an important job, but in the grand scheme of things, if I need my park to look pretty or my house not to burn down, I'm going to choose house not burning down," said Christian Dunston, an East Fairground Street resident.
- PUB DATE: 2/4/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Marion Star

Lt. Reece Chambers of East Jefferson Fire Rescue has a lot of heart. He’s now on his second one. Chambers, 42, is believed to be the first firefighter in Washington state to return to front-line duty after receiving a heart transplant. He went back on Jan. 2. “New heart, new start,” Chambers said Friday while working at the Chimacum fire station.
- PUB DATE: 2/4/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Peninsula Daily News - Metered Site

The Phoenix Fire Department responded to more than 250 mountain rescue calls in 2019, more than one every other day. Working with numbers provided by the Phoenix Fire Department, 12 News broke that number down by mountain and focused on the four busiest mountains in the area: Camelback Mountain, Piestewa Peak, South Mountain, and Papago Park.
- PUB DATE: 2/4/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KPNX-TV NBC 12 Phoenix

VIDEO: From blazes, to crashes and medical emergencies, firefighters risk life and limb everyday to serve their communities, and Great Falls Fire Rescue is no different, tackling all sorts of emergencies since the late 1800s. In its 136 years of service, the Electric City's fire department is no stranger to the history books, scoring statewide firsts in firefighting over the decades, as they tackle both minor and major situations.
- PUB DATE: 2/4/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTMF-TV ABC/FOX 23 Missoula

VIDEO: Austin Fire Department Chief Joel Baker says the Department is at fault for the foamy water as many as 300 South Austin neighbors had come through their sinks more than a week ago, citing issues with one engine’s foam eductor pump as the culprit. On January 22, crews put out a fire at a church, but needed to use Class A foam because of how intense the fire got.
- PUB DATE: 2/4/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KEYE-TV CBS 42 Austin

The city intends to hire a professional fire service consultant to conduct an examination and analysis of the administration, operations, training and deployment practices of the Fire Department. The study will include a master plan for the Fire Department that will assess its internal operations and staffing, and provide a gap analysis of its current situation against national standards and best practices, according to City Manager Edward M.
- PUB DATE: 2/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Telegram & Gazette

VIDEO: It’s not just for video games anymore. The Myrtle Beach Fire Department is now using virtual reality as a way to better educate the community on what it’s like to be a firefighter. Firefighters plan to debut the technology to students at Pathways to Possibilities next week at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.
- PUB DATE: 2/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WMBF-TV NBC 32 Myrtle Beach

After a photo believed to have been taken last year of a D.C. Fire recruit class showed three white men making what looked like an “OK symbol” with their hands, an internal investigation found they were not aware the hand gesture is associated with white supremacy. Weeks before an internal investigation cleared three members of recruit class 387, D.
- PUB DATE: 2/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTOP-AM 1500 Washington

Paramedic Trent Bowers received a call on a recent January night: A woman had been beaten at a St. Louis Family Dollar store. When Bowers arrived, the woman showed him injuries across her body. “This looks like it’s out of place,” he said, looking at her knee. He suggested she take the ambulance to the hospital, but the woman said she couldn’t afford it without insurance.
- PUB DATE: 2/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

When firefighter Richard “Dick” Boyer responded to a fire call at the Reading YMCA on a bitter cold morning in January 1985, he immediately sensed something wasn’t right. “The fire hose on the sidewalk was burning, and the handle on the Knox box had melted,” recalled Boyer, 76, a retired Reading fire chief.
- PUB DATE: 2/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Reading Eagle

The City of Chicago is suing a Rockford-based coffee company for trademark infringement, claiming the company’s logo is an imitation of the Chicago Fire Department’s symbol. Fire Department Coffee and the Fire Department both feature logos that consist of the letters D, F and C intertwined in a stylized monogram, which is likely to confuse consumers into thinking the city has endorsed or sponsored the business, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday.
- PUB DATE: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Sun Times

A Vancouver firefighter is heading across the state to become Kennewick’s new fire chief. Chad Michael is leaving a spot as the deputy chief of operations at the Vancouver Fire Department to return to his roots in Eastern Washington. He starts March 16 and will be sworn in at the March 17 city council meeting.
- PUB DATE: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Tri-City Herald

Top Fire Department officials told a City Council committee Jan. 28 that the department’s policy of “promoting” Emergency Medical Technicians to become Firefighters, who are paid tens of thousands of dollars more a year, had produced a major gap in Emergency Medical Service staffing. As a consequence, they conceded that even as the city continued to set records for EMS call volume, and response times for those calls were rising, there had been a decline in the number of ambulance crews available, a circumstance they said would take “a couple of years” to rectify.
- PUB DATE: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Chief Leader - Metered Site

When Brian Kernohan complained to his doctor of merciless headaches two summers ago, he expected to get a prescription for a sinus infection, not a diagnosis of brain cancer. The 37-year-old firefighter’s eardrums were curved inward, so his doctor suggested a CT scan. It found a tumor the size of a golf ball sitting on his right cerebral artery, daring a stroke with every heartbeat.
- PUB DATE: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WUFT-TV PBS 5 Gainesville