As many as 71 people overdosed in the city in 24 hours — many on the Green Wednesday — as emergency crews raced to save lives and one man was arrested as a “person of interest” in the case, police said Wednesday. The man, whom investigators identified only as a person “believed to be connected to at least some of the overdoses,” was found in possession of drugs, police said.
- PUB DATE: 8/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New Haven Register

East Syracuse Fire Chief Jim Brewster has been removed as the village's fire chief by its board of trustees after he used the N-word in a comment on Facebook on June 28, according to East Syracuse Mayor Robert Tackman. Brewster has also been removed from his position as the senior caretaker of the fire department, Tackman said.
- PUB DATE: 8/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Syracuse.com

With the impending retirement of Hoquiam Fire Chief Paul Dean Oct. 1 and now a letter of support from the presidents of both the Aberdeen and Hoquiam firefighters unions, discussions between the two cities about consolidating fire and EMS services seems to be picking up steam. The letter was presented to the Hoquiam City Council Monday.
- PUB DATE: 8/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Daily World

After an extended and potentially dangerous squabble over which agency is better equipped to handle air rescues, Orange County fire and sheriff’s officials said Wednesday they’ve come up with a plan that emphasizes teamwork and will enable safer and more efficient emergency responses. The joint plan emerged following a bitter, months-long feud between sheriff’s deputies and firefighters over rescues that involved the use of helicopters, and which in some cases led to delays in transporting injured people to hospitals.
- PUB DATE: 8/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orange County Register

Amid a relentless onslaught of horrific wildfires, state lawmakers found it easy Tuesday to pinpoint the most important response: Reduce the fuel feeding the conflagrations that have scorched more than 750,000 acres this year. But making that happen, on a meaningful scale, is fraught with problems, they found.
- PUB DATE: 8/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Press Democrat

Alexander Ponton thought it was a bomb. Debris smashed into Ponton’s car as he drove east on West 4th Avenue near Santa Fe Drive. The 24-year-old Thornton man got out and heard screams for help coming from a six-unit residence complex. It had exploded. Ponton jumped into action, assisting a man and woman out of the rubble who had cuts and scrapes on them.
- PUB DATE: 8/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Denver Post

First Response ambulance response times failed to meet Decatur City Code requirements, but the EMS committee on Tuesday did not recommended City Council action or make a finding that the ambulance service had good cause for its failure. Decatur Fire Chief Tony Grande said he’s frustrated at First Response’s failure to meet the requirements of the city code, but noted that some of the failure could have been the result of overly conservative classification of calls as emergencies by Morgan County 911 and by delays at Decatur Morgan Hospital in preparing patients for non-emergency transport from the hospital.
- PUB DATE: 8/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Decatur Daily

A driver had to be pulled from his vehicle early Wednesday after he crashed it into a fire truck, according to an official with the Houston Fire Department. The crash happened about 3 a.m. in northeast Houston, near Little York and Maple Leaf. The black Chevrolet Impala drove up under the truck, he said.
- PUB DATE: 8/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

First responders in Foxborough, Massachusetts, will soon be first in the state to carry a new device that has the potential to save lives. Firefighters filled a classroom Tuesday to train on new ultrasound technology. Unlike most ultrasounds in doctor’s offices, the new device is not bulky and the probe can be plugged into a phone or tablet.
- PUB DATE: 8/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NECN

Leaders of the St. Joseph County 911 center near here know thousands of dispatches have been delayed this year because of computer problems that are being fixed. But they still don’t know how long delays lasted, or if they might have affected responses to emergencies such as fires and heart attacks. Officials say that to investigate those delays, data needs to be provided by Tyler Technologies, the Plano, Texas-based software company whose New World computer-aided dispatch system has been riddled with problems since the center started using it in June 2017.
- PUB DATE: 8/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: South Bend Tribune

A firefighter from Utah died Monday battling the largest wildfire in recorded California history, marking the latest fatality in a fire season that has taken a grim toll on first responders. The firefighter, who was not named, was injured while working on an active portion of the Ranch fire within the massive Mendocino Complex.
- PUB DATE: 8/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Los Angeles Times

Rescue crews freed three Miramar firefighters late Monday after they became trapped when a live power line fell on their fire engine, authorities said. Jose A. Gregorisch, a spokesman for the Miramar Fire-Rescue Department, said the fire engine struck a low-hanging power line in the 9000 block of Miramar Parkway as the engine left the station on a call.
- PUB DATE: 8/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WPLG-TV ABC Local10.com - Miami & Fort Lauderdale

A veteran firefighter with the Orange Rural Fire Department died at the main station in downtown Hillsborough on Monday after helping to rescue a person trapped in a trench. Hillsborough Mayor Tom Stevens identified the firefighter as Assistant Chief Jeff Holden, who had been with the department since 2001.
- PUB DATE: 8/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Herald Sun

A 15-year-old boy drove off in a firetruck from the Strinestown Community Fire Co. station over the weekend after walking out of a juvenile facility in Springettsbury Township and stealing a county-owned vehicle he drove to the station, officials said. It happened in the early-morning hours of Sunday, Aug.
- PUB DATE: 8/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: York Dispatch

Cliff Musgrave been named the world’s fittest 50-year-old CrossFit athlete in the men's division. He also happens to be an Akron firefighter. "It’s a very blue collar job with structural firefighting," said Musgrave. "So being in shape certainly makes it better." Musgrave isn’t just in shape, he was named the world’s fittest 50-year-old man after competing in the year’s Reebok CrossFit Games.
- PUB DATE: 8/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKYC-TV NBC 3 Cleveland

The collapse of burning home in Altus claimed the life of an assistant chief with the Friendship Volunteer Fire Department Friday night. Madison “Maddy” Lee Clinton Jr., 54, died after he was pinned when a porch roof collapsed, according to a post from the Oklahoma State Firefighters Association "Maddy was performing suppression operations on a structure fire located in the Friendship Fire Department response area North of Altus," Altus Fire Chief Kyle David shared in a statement posted on Facebook.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse

Fire officials on Tuesday will ask the Board of Supervisors to approve a $42 million annual plan calling for more firefighters and new fire stations to plug response holes in the county — with a recommendation of a half-cent countywide sales tax hike to voters next year to fund it. The plan would add about 175 paid firefighters, many of them paramedics, to bolster the county’s current paid firefighting force of 400.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Fire chiefs from across the world are gathered in Dallas for the annual Fire-Rescue International Conference put on by the International Association of Fire Chiefs. This year the association says it’s dedicated to addressing bullying and harassment within fire department ranks. Retired South Fulton, Georgia Fire Chief David Daniels is leading a task force on the issue at the conference.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CBS Dallas Fort Worth

No one was home at a house deep in the woods of Josephine County, Oregon. The people who live here had evacuated days ago along with hundreds of their neighbors. As flames from the Taylor Creek Fire got closer and closer, the firefighters showed up. They came to prepare for the worst so that if the wind picked up, they’d be ready to dash down the driveway and save this house, even if the forest burned around it.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Oregon Public Broadcasting

On Kevin Leago’s July CT scan, his torso looks like it has been riddled with birdshot. Dark splotches speckle his liver, his pancreas, his spine, marking where his neuroendocrine cancer has spread. The pain in his bones has left the 38-year-old Houston Fire Department senior captain unable to work since the end of May.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle