In 1999, José Troncoso had an idea. It came while the veteran Portland firefighter was in Guadalajara, Mexico. The capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, Guadalajara has been one of Portland’s sister cities since 1983. As part of that sister-city relationship, Portland was donating a fire engine to the Guadalajara Fire Department at the time.
- PUB DATE: 9/9/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Oregon Public Broadcasting

East Peoria Fire Chief John Knapp expertly pitched the need for a new fire truck at this week’s City Council meeting. What he got in return was not the familiar response the fire department is more accustomed to. The City Council said no. “What I take away from that vote is that I didn’t get done what needed to get done to make the case that needed to be made,” Knapp said a couple days after last Tuesday council meeting.
- PUB DATE: 9/9/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Journal Star

As fire departments nationwide have grappled with recruitment and retention challenges, area firefighters in Sauk, Marquette and Columbia counties say it’s becoming harder to find people available for fire calls during the day. “It’s kind of a roll of the dice,” Baraboo Fire Chief Kevin Stieve said.
- PUB DATE: 9/9/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WiscNews

Baltimore City Fire Department is in its first week of a scaled-back response policy. Baltimore City’s Fire Department’s new police now sends two fewer engines to every fire — from five currently — down to three. Its policy change cuts short ladder trucks and battalion chiefs from two down to one. The City’s Firefighter Union said the new policy jeopardized someone’s life Sunday, on the first day it was implemented.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WJZ-TV CBS 13 Baltimore

Pennsylvania’s auditor general wants to reduce restrictions on how firefighters can spend state aid, but Western Pennsylvania fire departments have mixed feelings over whether change is needed. “The law has not kept pace with changing times and, in my view, puts too many restrictions on how relief associations can spend the state aid they receive,” Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said at a news conference Thursday.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: TRIBLive

New York City firefighters who rushed to the remnants of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 terror attacks are dying from health issues — and that may include serious cardiovascular diseases, according to a study published Friday. The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and conducted by doctors at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, "suggest a significant association" between greater exposure at the World Trade Center and a higher risk of long-term cardiovascular disease.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC News

When the Tenaja Fire's flames started threatening structures in Murrieta's Copper Canyon community, Eric, who declined to share his last name, ignored the evacuation order and stayed behind to defend his home. The afternoon winds kicked up around 2 p.m. on Thursday, as usual, and two privately contracted firefighters battled the wildfire flames nearby that sent surrounding oak trees up in hissing flames.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Desert Sun

As calls come in through 911, dispatchers are ready to deliver instructions on how to perform CPR on someone who is not breathing, tell them best way to evacuate a building that is on fire or help guide them through a life-threatening situation. At the same time, dispatchers are on the other side of the call figuring out which emergency response is needed, where it’s needed and how to get them there.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Cleburne Times-Review

VIDEO: It was an alarming sight, a CAL FIRE truck flipped over and smashed items littered across the ground. Detectives say the firefighter driving the truck lost control in the small town of Ducor, just south of Porterville, and the firefighting vehicle flipped multiple times. The driver suffered major injuries in the crash and is being treated at Kaweah Delta Medical Center in Visalia, while the other three firefighters only had minor injuries.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KFSN-TV ABC 30 Frenso/Visalia

As states in Hurricane Dorian's path are sending out calls for help, some of San Antonio's most skilled firefighters are answering that call. The crews are part of an elite state team called Texas A&M Task Force 1. Though the mission is dangerous and overwhelming, it's one they've taken on many times before.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KSAT-TV News 12

VIDEO: The Indiana Volunteer Firefighters Association and Ivy Tech are giving Hoosiers the chance to get a two-year degree at no charge. Earlier this year, House Bill 1064 established that a public safety officer may be eligible for a scholarship for educational costs. The bill didn’t pass so Ivy Tech stepped in.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WFIE-TV NBC 14 Evansville

VIDEO: Firefighters came all the way from Knoxville, Tennessee to learn more about wildland fires. The 3-team crew got here on Monday and will be here until September 9. Right now, Rural Metro Fire is teaching them wildland suppression tactics used to fight Oregon wildfires. One technique they are learning is how to get 400 feet of hose on the ground with as little as just two or three people working.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KDRV-TV ABC 12 Medford

With more than 50 East Haven firefighters and supporters in the audience, the Town Council voted unanimously Tuesday night, with one abstention, to increase the tax abatement volunteer firefighters receive from $1,000 to $1,500 — and eventually to $2,000. The only council member who didn’t vote in favor of the increased abatement was Chairman Ken McKay, R-1, a retired career firefighter and five-decade member of the volunteer Foxon Company 3.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New Haven Register

VIDEO: Cal Fire has opened an investigation into how a local fire department’s fire engine was burnt over, leaving two firefighters hurt during the Country Fire in the community of Cool Thursday. The twisted and burnt front end of a Garden Valley Fire Department engine sits in the middle of a blackened property.
- PUB DATE: 9/4/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOVR-TV CBS 13 Sacaramento

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol released dramatic dashboard camera video from a few weeks ago, when two firefighters in southeast Oklahoma were hit by a trailer along the side of a wet road. The video shows two men with the Stringtown Fire Department standing in a grassy area off a road in the rain when the driver of an SUV heading in the opposite direction lost control.
- PUB DATE: 9/4/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOCO-TV ABC 5 Oklahoma City

The City of Spokane is considering adding locks to its fire hydrants, and adding fill stations throughout the city for third-party companies to use after water was contaminated in a Hillyard neighborhood. In July, residents in some Hillyard neighborhoods were without water after a hydroseed truck was using the city's water hydrant to fill their truck and contaminated it.
- PUB DATE: 9/4/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KXLY-TV ABC 4 Spokane

During an extreme weather emergency such as Hurricane Dorian, hundreds of first responders, law enforcement and county personnel work around the clock overseeing evacuations, shelters, flooded roads and securing the community from harm. At the Martin County Emergency Operations Center, they also must eat.
- PUB DATE: 9/4/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: TCPalm

After reports from EMS personnel raised questions about the frequency of field officer assault by patients, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services conducted an internal survey. The results showed that the majority of Austin EMS personnel say they’ve been assaulted on the job in the last two years.
- PUB DATE: 9/4/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Austin Monitor

Divers with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department joined the U.S. Coast Guard Monday in an effort to find as many as 30 people feared dead resulting from a 75-foot commercial diving boat that caught fire and sank near Santa Cruz Island early Monday. Twenty-five bodies have been located, and at least nine other people were missing and likely deceased, authorities said.
- PUB DATE: 9/3/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fox 5 San Diego

An assistant fire chief has been severely burned while fighting a fire in Okanogan County that began over the weekend. The Spring Coulee Fire was sparked Sunday afternoon south of the town of Okanogan, county emergency officials said. The fire spread quickly to the north. During the fire fight, Assistant Chief Christian Johnson with Okanogan County Fire District No.
- PUB DATE: 9/3/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOMO-TV ABC 4 and Radio 1000