A firefighter/EMT with the Paint Creek Joint EMS/Fire District lost his life Sunday after an accident at the district’s station near Rainsboro.
Early Monday morning, Paint Creek released the name of the victim, firefighter/EMT Joe Patterson.
“It is with deepest sympathies that we have been informed that our brother has been called home and answered his final alarm and did not survive the injuries inflicted by the accident,” said public information office Branden Jackman in an earlier press release. - PUB DATE: 6/25/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Times-Gazette
A 40-year FDNY veteran who oversaw rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site after 9/11 has succumbed to cancer linked to his efforts at ground zero.
Chief of Fire Prevention Ronald R. Spadafora has passed away at the age of 63, Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.
Spadafora is the 178th member of the department to die of illness related to the September 11 attacks, according to Nigro. - PUB DATE: 6/25/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC 4 New York
The IAFC today thanked Congress for final passage of the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act (H.R. 931), groundbreaking legislation which will create an anonymous, voluntary registry for firefighters at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Modern medicine does not fully understand why firefighters experience cancer at rates much higher rate than the general public,” said Chief Thomas Jenkins, IAFC President & Chairman of the Board. - PUB DATE: 6/25/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: International Association of Fire Chiefs
After nearly four years and more than $1 million spent trying to escape the burden of an expensive contract with the local fire union, the Texas Supreme Court dealt the city a final blow Friday, refusing to consider its case challenging a clause that keeps the contract in place for a decade. Disappointed and defeated, city officials said they wanted to immediately begin contract negotiations with the San Antonio Professional Fire Fighters Association, calling on union boss Chris Steele to start up talks. - PUB DATE: 6/25/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Antonio Express-News
In light of a debate between the Orange County Fire Authority and Sheriff’s Department over which should be the lead agency on search-and-rescue calls, a grand jury report released Friday called on the county to create a permanent “air operations safety council.” The report also called on the two agencies to work together, with the sheriff’s department being the lead response agency to wilderness or remote off-road search-and-rescue calls, and the OCFA taking the lead on urban search-and-rescue calls. - PUB DATE: 6/25/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: MyNewsLA.com
The city of Muskegon has received and is reviewing a controversial proposal to contract fire service from Muskegon Heights, officials said recently.
But a vote on the deal, which calls for the city of Muskegon to dismantle its fire department and contract fire service from Muskegon Heights, is still more than a few months away, said Muskegon City Manager Frank Peterson. - PUB DATE: 6/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Mlive
The city and the firefighters’ union tentatively agreed to a new contract Thursday, one day after the union threatened to picket outside Mayor Paul Heroux’s house.
The pickets have been called off and a cookout the mayor had planned will be held as scheduled Saturday afternoon.
Heroux said the threat of picketing had nothing to do with him agreeing to a new contract, but union President Jacob Springs said he thought it moved the process along. - PUB DATE: 6/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Attleboro Sun Chronicle
With a ticking clock growing ever louder in the background, the Orange County Fire Authority rejected several demands made by Irvine that would keep the city in the fold as a voting member of the regional emergency coalition.
“Basically, Irvine was told to pound sand,” said County Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who sits on the Fire Authority board of directors. - PUB DATE: 6/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse
The man hailed as a hero for halting a gunman's wild rampage outside the Tumwater Walmart store came forward Wednesday and said he fired his weapon only after it became clear that the gunman might injure or kill more innocent victims if he weren't stopped.
David George, who is an emergency medical technician with the Oakville Fire Department and a pastor at the Oakville Assembly of God, described his harrowing experience at a Wednesday news conference in his hometown. - PUB DATE: 6/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOMO-TV ABC 4 and Radio 1000
Steve Krentel, whose leadership at a Covington-area fire district has been under assault since last fall, will retire as of Sept. 1, he told the St. Tammany Fire Protection District 12 board of commissioners in a letter Thursday.
Krentel, whose wife was killed nearly a year ago, said in a phone interview that he had always planned to retire as soon as he was eligible to do so. - PUB DATE: 6/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Advocate
An arbitrator agreed a veteran Toledo firefighter was erroneously demoted from captain to a line firefighter after the administration said the captain used “poor judgment” at a fatal fire scene.
The arbitrator, Mark Glazer, ruled this week that Capt. Kim Hood be reinstated as captain with seniority. - PUB DATE: 6/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Toledo Blade
On July 1, Rhoda Mae Kerr will pin five brass bugles on the collar of her Fort Lauderdale Fire and Rescue uniform—the number symbolizes her rank, and five is the highest. On that day Kerr will also make history as the department’s first female fire chief in its 106-year history.
Kerr comes from a lineage of firefighters. - PUB DATE: 6/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fort Lauderdale Daily
Utica Mayor Robert Palmieri’s office released another statement Wednesday in response to reports on the conduct of former temporary fire Chief John Kelly, who resigned from his position last week amid allegations of professional misconduct.
Kelly — appointed interim chief last July in place of Russell Brooks, who remains on administrative leave — stepped down to become a deputy chief after an investigation into text messages sent between Kelly and 23-year-old Carmen Ambrose, the son of Deputy Chief Mark Ambrose, that make references to watching pornography and other lewd acts that occurred on fire department property. - PUB DATE: 6/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Utica Observer-Dispatch
A fiery uproar in the town of Morris could have left residents without a volunteer Fire Department.
A statement from the department was released Tuesday announcing that its members had voted to “cease providing fire, rescue, and EMS services,” as of June 30.
The statement noted that the decision was not made lightly, but came after the department felt it could not come to a “reasonable working relationship with the town administrators. - PUB DATE: 6/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Connecticut Post
Buffalo Grove officials announced Wednesday they are challenging a decision to award a full line-of-duty death pension to the widow of a 51-year-old Buffalo Grove firefighter, arguing not enough evidence exists that his fatal colon cancer was related to his work.
The full pension award for Kevin Hauber’s wife, Kim Hauber, and their four children represented an “unprecedented” claim and marked the first award of its kind in Illinois after the Buffalo Grove Fire Department Pension Board determined earlier this year that Kevin Hauber’s cancer was caused in the line of duty, village officials said in a statement. - PUB DATE: 6/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
The City of Buffalo will pay a total of $1.2 million to a dozen white Buffalo firefighters who claimed they were passed over for promotion because of their race.
The $1.2 million settlement was approved Tuesday by the Buffalo Common Council and brings to a close a 2007 lawsuit that accused the city of illegally allowing two promotional lists to expire because minority firefighters had performed poorly on civil service exams. - PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Buffalo News
Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern toured three of the city’s eight firehouses June 6, calling the conditions at Monday’s City Council meeting “extremely disturbing.”
Firefighters were sleeping on mattresses with holes. Floors were being held together by duct tape. Some stations didn’t have carbon monoxide detectors or Wi-Fi, McGovern said. - PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wicked Local Cambridge
A Lehigh Acres firefighter went into cardiac arrest, and fellow firefighters resuscitated him inside Station 105 to save his life.
Rick Pride, 47, was on the treadmill inside the firehouse workout room when the nearly 13-year firefighting veteran wound up unresponsive on the floor in the firehouse.
"Our firefighters reacted very quickly that day, immediately going into emergency mode and starting to help him," Chief Robert DiLallo said of his team at Station 105 of the Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District. - PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WZVN-TV ABC 7 Naples/Ft. Myers
The Chicago Fire Department said Tuesday it was “not acceptable” for paramedics to leave a teen unattended after he was shot in the head and severely wounded as they treated others hit by gunfire at a party on the Near West Side this week. “It is not the policy of the Fire Department to leave people on the street, even if they are mortally wounded,” said department spokesman Larry Langford. - PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
Brownsville’s former fire chief, Carlos Elizondo, has appealed a ruling denying his claim that the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office has charged him twice for the same alleged crime to a higher court in Corpus Christi.
Authorities arrested Elizondo last October and accuse the former city official of stealing $8,000 from the Brownsville Firefighters Association Political Action Committee through unauthorized ATM withdrawals, according to a police report filed by the association’s president. - PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Brownsville Herald
