Army veteran and Lafayette firefighter Lt. Jason Oliver took off for Cancun last week to celebrate his anniversary with his wife Maigan. Just three days into their weeklong tropical vacation, however, Jason Oliver was confined to a Mexican hospital bed rather than a poolside cabana.
Trained as paramedic firefighter, Oliver said he began to notice some troubling neurological symptoms Friday and was taken by ambulance to the local hospital for a checkup. - PUB DATE: 10/17/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Times-Call
Whether the Julian Cuyamaca Fire Protection District will dissolve and be taken over by the county comes down to a couple dozen signatures.
On Tuesday morning, 615 signatures of registered voters who live in the district were submitted during a rare “protest hearing” at a meeting of the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO). - PUB DATE: 10/17/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Diego Union-Tribune
Pittsburgh’s fire sprinkler bill is on hold again after more than a dozen residents complained Tuesday to City Council that costs and the inconvenience of retrofitting older buildings would be “astronomical.”
“We can buy our own fire truck with a ladder that can reach as high as our top floor for what it would cost us to do this,” said Ted Goldberg, an owner in the Park Mansion co-op building in Oakland. - PUB DATE: 10/17/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The city of Atlanta has settled a lawsuit with a former fire chief over his firing for a book containing passages which some saw as anti-gay.
The Atlanta City Council approved a settlement agreeing to pay fired Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran $1.2 million. In 2013, Cochran wrote a book about his Christian faith titled "Who Told You That You Were Naked?" for a men's Bible study and gave it to around a dozen subordinates he said had either requested copies or shared his beliefs. - PUB DATE: 10/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WAGA-TV Atlanta MyFox 5 News
Most of the California state firefighters who were fired last year because they drank alcohol during a training academy will return to work in 2018, according to Cal Fire and their union.
Cal Fire in April announced that 17 firefighters would be dismissed from state service because they violated a code of conduct during their seven-week academy by drinking alcohol after hours. - PUB DATE: 10/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Sacramento Bee
VIDEO - It was his daughter’s nighttime habits that turned Joel Sellinger from a firefighter into an inventor.
"She'd fall asleep. I'd go shut her door. I'd wake up in the morning, and her door would be open because she had gone to the bathroom or gotten a drink of water," he said.
Keeping bedroom doors closed in your home when you go to sleep is critical in keeping your family safe. - PUB DATE: 10/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KING-TV NBC 5 Seattle
The city has suspended an improper practice at the Fire Department involving calculations of unused sick time and payment for that time to firefighters, according to Mayor Joseph J. Solomon.
“Activities that may have occurred in the past, when brought to the attention of our fire chief and myself, were suspended way back in July,” Solomon said. - PUB DATE: 10/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Providence Journal
Firefighters who worked in and around the site of a massive natural gas leak sued the Southern California Gas Co. on Monday, saying the utility knowingly let them be exposed to dangerous levels of toxic chemicals.
A blowout in a well at the underground Aliso Canyon storage field about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Los Angeles was discovered on Oct. - PUB DATE: 10/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KNBC-TV NBC 4 Los Angeles
A firefighter survived a frightening fall off a ladder on Sunday night.
The incident happened on Mayflower Avenue in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx at around 9 p.m. The firefighter, who was rushed to Jacobi Hospital, was said to have suffered back and neck injuries after falling off a ladder that was propped next to a third-floor window, CBS2’s Natalie Duddridge reported. - PUB DATE: 10/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CBS New York
A firefighting family is dealing with the loss of their own home after a fire on Friday night. The Oraville home of Vergennes Fire Chief Chad Sherman is a total loss, firefighters say. His wife, Trish, and oldest son, Hunter, are also volunteers with the Vergennes Department.
“We all practice fire safety and prevention, it’s our number one job,” said Travis Skinner, an area firefighter who knows the family. - PUB DATE: 10/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Belleville News-Democrat
VIDEO - Both directions of Highway 1 near Bodega Bay in unincorporated Sonoma County have reopened after a solo-vehicle crash involving a Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office patrol vehicle and a house fire, the California Highway Patrol said. The crash occurred shortly after 5 a.m. in the 600 block of Highway 1 near Smith Brothers Road, authorities said. - PUB DATE: 10/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KPIX-TV CBS 5 San Francisco
The Midlothian Fire Department was first in 1906. It then took 110 years for the department to hire its first female firefighter.
Then a couple of months later, the department hired a second. And, now, that number stands at three.
With this week being the public observance of Fire Prevention Week, it’s important to remember the civil servants who are among the first to respond to a call. - PUB DATE: 10/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Midlothian Mirror
Firefighters in Detroit are reportedly “bracing” for another series of Devils Nights this Halloween after the city decided to end its annual volunteer-led anti-arson campaign, called Angels Night, according to a fire official. The decision to end Angels Night and replace it with a more celebratory community event, dubbed ‘Halloween in the D,’ was announced by the city late last year. - PUB DATE: 10/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Detroit Free Press
State police identified the Hanover firefighter killed Thursday night as Lt. Brad Clark.
Clark was killed and three others firefighters were injured after their firetruck was rear-ended on I-295 in Hanover County Thursday night. "The trooper's preliminary investigation reveals that Hanover Fire Engine and EMS was on scene providing assistance with a two-vehicle crash with all of its emergency equipment activated, when a tractor-trailer traveling southbound struck the engine in the rear," Hill said. - PUB DATE: 10/12/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTVR-TV CBS 6
A San Antonio firefighter died while battling a blaze in the Spartan Gym last year after the Fire Department failed to safely search the building, keep track of fellow rescuers and adequately ventilate the smoke-filled structure, a federal report released Thursday states.
The review by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an agency that seeks to improve workplace safety, concluded that some of the San Antonio Fire Department’s tactics actually made conditions worse inside the gym where firefighter Scott Deem, 31, died after he became lost. - PUB DATE: 10/12/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Antonio Express News
VIDEO - A fire in a vacant home in Fresno almost killed a homeless man but firefighters arrived in time to cut a hole in the side of the building and pull him to safety.
The dramatic rescue was captured on a video camera attached to a firefighter’s helmet.
Fire Chief Kerri Donis praised the heroism of those who saved the homeless man but said the rescue simply underscores the larger problem of too many vacant buildings in Fresno catching fire. - PUB DATE: 10/12/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse
Federal investigators probing the deadly natural gas explosions that rocked three northern Massachusetts towns last month are blaming faulty work orders given to the work crews by the local utility.
The investigators say Columbia Gas failed to instruct the workers to deactivate pressure sensors when taking an old cast-iron gas main out of service. - PUB DATE: 10/12/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: USA Today
Four public safety officers are being moved to full-time positions at the fire department, and the Cedar Falls Firefighters Association says the transfer violates state civil service law.
Scott Dix, Cedar Falls Fire Local 1366 president, announced the move in a press release Wednesday. Dix said the union will legally challenge the move. - PUB DATE: 10/12/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
Firefighters battling a two-alarm blaze at an Oakley tire company early Wednesday were nearly hit by a speeding freight train on tracks they thought had been closed off.
The train tracks are only a few feet from the back of the auto shop that the fire began in. The East Contra Costa County Fire District requested for train traffic to be stopped while they fought the fire. - PUB DATE: 10/11/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KPIX-TV CBS 5 San Francisco
A divided Ogunquit Board of Selectmen voted Tuesday to uphold the termination of the town fire chief following a tense meeting that culminated in more than 200 residents being asked to leave.
The termination appeal hearing focused on the firing of Mark O’Brien, who had served with the Ogunquit Fire Department for 37 years before he was placed on paid administrative leave in June while town officials investigated complaints about his management style and interaction with his staff. - PUB DATE: 10/11/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Portland Press Herald
