A federal investigation reviewing the 2016 fatal shooting of a Maryland firefighter found that 911 public safety call takers did not warn first responders that the possibility of guns had been reported at the scene and that volunteer firefighters were not wearing a common uniform the night of the incident that made it clear who they were. - PUB DATE: 12/4/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Washington Post
A state district judge Friday evening granted a temporary restraining order blocking the implementation of a voter-approved charter amendment requiring the city of Houston to grant its firefighters “pay parity” with police officers of similar rank and experience.
State District Judge Kristen Brauchle Hawkins granted the TRO Friday night at the request of the Houston Police Officers Union, which filed a lawsuit earlier in the day against the city and the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association. - PUB DATE: 12/4/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle
From responding to emergencies at the Bippity-Boppity-Boo Boutique, to rescuing a downed princess, the Reedy Creek Professional Firefighters isn’t your traditional fire service.
RCPF serves the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the exclusive government agency of Walt Disney World properties in Florida, providing all fire and emergency services for 38. - PUB DATE: 12/4/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1
It was the best bad place.
To the south was a gun shop called Fins, Fur & Feather Sports, stocked with live ammunition. To the northeast, a propane yard. Across the street, a Fastrip gas station. All around, soaring, drought-crisp pines.
And in the center? About 150 terrified people who had fled the ferocious Camp fire only to be stopped at the intersection of Skyway and Clark Road, forced to sit out the deadliest conflagration in California history. - PUB DATE: 12/4/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
The city’s second-highest paid employee in 2017 will soon be without union protection if the City Council approves a new contract Thursday with the Uniform Fire Chiefs Association.
The tentative agreement signed by Mayor Patrick Madden and Deputy Fire Chief Dave Paul, president of the UFCA, would remove Fire Chief Thomas Garrett from the union. - PUB DATE: 12/4/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Albany Times-Union
The former Ogunquit fire chief has filed a complaint in York County Superior Court seeking to appeal his firing earlier this fall.
Mark O’Brien had served with the Ogunquit Fire Department for 37 years before he was placed on leave, investigated and ultimately fired by the town manager, who had concerns about his ability to lead the department. - PUB DATE: 12/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Central Maine
The afternoon of Aug. 15, Wilkes-Barre Fire Department’s Engine 1 filled up with 24.74 gallons of diesel fuel at the city pumps, a routine repeated 38 more times over the following eight weeks of daily patrols under the ramped-up community fire watches ordered by the mayor.
Engine 1, based at the department’s headquarters at the East Ross Street station, took on 750 gallons total during the watches, almost double the fuel intake for the eight weeks in June and July, according to fuel logs obtained by the Times Leader through a Right-to-Know request. - PUB DATE: 12/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wilkes Barre Times Leader
The thick black smoke from a savage warehouse inferno came quickly two years ago, but not quickly enough to spare 36 mostly young partygoers from the terror of knowing they were at life’s end: “I am going to die, mom,” one texted; a young couple fell into an embrace, dying of asphyxiation in each other’s arms. - PUB DATE: 12/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Bay Times
Assistant Mayor Cliff Lazenby will ask the rest of the City Council to support his efforts to lobby the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to conduct a health study on firefighters who have been exposed to PFAS chemicals.
Lazenby said he intends to ask the City Council at Monday’s meeting to send a letter signed by Mayor Jack Blalock and the council asking NIOSH to conduct such a study. - PUB DATE: 12/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Seacoast Online
VIDEO - A group of Dallas firefighters who rescued other firefighters during the devastating condo fire earlier this week are now sharing their incredible story of what happened.
Everyone survived the 4-alarm fire in northeast Dallas Tuesday morning. That includes the three firefighters who got trapped when a ceiling collapsed on them. - PUB DATE: 12/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KDFW Fox 4 News
The city of San Antonio notified the San Antonio Professional Fire Fighters Association on Thursday that it has officially dropped the lawsuit that the Texas Supreme Court refused to hear over the summer.
The dismissal of the suit sets the stage for contract negotiations to begin more than four years after the fire union’s contract initially expired. - PUB DATE: 11/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Antonio Express-News
Some Medford firefighters are upset after their ladder truck was pulled out of service for hours to put up the city's holiday decorations.
Medford Firefighter Eddie Buckley says he's shocked because the town is already down ladder trucks. One of them is out of service for repair so Boston Fire is loaning them one, leaving Medford with just one working ladder truck of its own. - PUB DATE: 11/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Boston 25 News
Butte County Sheriff’s Deputy Aaron Parmley was on Pentz Road attempting to rescue four nurses when his patrol car broke down.
With embers swirling around him, he set out on foot surrounded by flames. Parmley switched on his body camera “in hopes of capturing what he thought were going to be the last moments of his life,” the sheriff’s office said Thursday. - PUB DATE: 11/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Mendocino Beacon
A woman who has performed hundreds of on-camera interviews and appeared on billboards representing Jackson County Fire District 3 has filed a civil-rights complaint with the state claiming that local officials took away her spokesperson duties as retaliation for complaining of sexual harassment and taking a medical leave earlier this year. - PUB DATE: 11/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Medford Mail Tribune
A volunteer fire company that broke away from the city of Salisbury nearly two years ago is no longer recognized by the Wicomico County Fire Chiefs Association after the group passed changes to its bylaws.
Members voted 9-4 on Wednesday night to adopt a new bylaw that requires participating fire companies to have recognized territories, something that the Salisbury Independent Volunteer Fire Company is lacking. - PUB DATE: 11/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Delmarva Now
Two firefighters were injured when a wrong-way driver slammed head-on into their engine on Interstate 5 near downtown San Diego Thursday morning, according to California Highway Patrol.
A San Diego Fire-Rescue truck was responding to a pedestrian hit-and-run crash at about 2 a.m. when a Toyota Carolla, traveling the wrong way on I-5 at State Route 94, slammed into it, CHP said. - PUB DATE: 11/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KNSD-TV NBC San Diego
A report released Wednesday warns that Pennsylvania’s fire and rescue services face a crisis, saying the number of volunteers continues to fall amid funding needs and training challenges.
The 95-page legislative study said there were about 300,000 volunteer firefighters in the state in the 1970s, a number that’s fallen to about 38,000 currently. - PUB DATE: 11/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Bucks County Courier Times
Firefighter Kelly Gall is suing the city of Austin for failing to prevent sexual harassment from former Austin fire Lt. James Baker, who pleaded guilty in October to filming Gall in a fire station restroom.
In a civil lawsuit filed in Travis County this week, Gall says the city failed to take action against Baker, her former supervisor, for previous reports of inappropriate behavior. - PUB DATE: 11/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Austin American-Statesman
Garfield Township Trustee Steve Duell used a metaphor of three farmers to describe why he believes the township should leave the Grand Traverse Metro Fire Department unless changes happen.
These three farmers own farms of differing sizes — one small, one big and one medium, but each has equal say in what their neighbors do. - PUB DATE: 11/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Traverse City Record-Eagle
Gerald Munson, the former chief of the Croton-on-Hudson Fire Department, and member of a family involved in the village fire services for nearly a century, on Wednesday was sentenced to as much as four and a half years in state prison for stealing $313,000 from the department.
Westchester County Court Judge Larry Schwartz handed down the sentence two months after Munson pleaded guilty to grand larceny as a crime of public corruption. - PUB DATE: 11/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NY Journal News (Lohud.com)
