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
Firefighters in Amelia County are mourning the loss of one of their own after he died during a recent training exercise.
Amelia County Volunteer Fire Department Company 1 Chief Justin Wargofcak said William Moore IV, 48, of Amelia County, suffered a medical emergency and went into cardiac arrest Thursday, June 14. - PUB DATE: 6/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WWBT-TV NBC 12 Richmond
The crowds hadn't yet arrived at Charleston 9 Memorial Park on Monday when Jacqueline Drayton introduced her son to the site where his grandfather died fighting a massive blaze 11 years ago.
They stopped at the memorial for Drayton's father, Charleston Firefighter James "Earl" Drayton. And one by one, they visited the plaques honoring the other eight Charleston firefighters who perished on June 18, 2007. - PUB DATE: 6/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Charleston Post and Courier
San Diego is paying seven helicopter rescue medics a total of $442,000 because they didn’t receive overtime pay despite regularly working 56-hour weeks.
Federal law requires overtime pay of one and a half times the regular wage for all hours worked over 40 in one workweek, but there is an exemption for government workers engaged in fire suppression. - PUB DATE: 6/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Diego Union-Tribune
Two romantically involved Akron firefighters are on paid leave for possibly getting too hot in a firehouse.
City administrators have suspended Lt. Art Dean and Provisional Lt. Deann Eller after receiving a tip that the pair of officers allegedly produced pornographic videos on city property, then posted their flames of passion on the internet. - PUB DATE: 6/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Akron Beacon Journal
The recently released NFPA report of 2017 firefighter fatalities is both encouraging and troubling. Clearly, the efforts of many of our industry partners have had an effect on reducing our mortality numbers – the 60 on-duty deaths reported reflect the lowest number reported in over 40 years. However, some of the unexpected shifts identify room for improvement. - PUB DATE: 6/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1
Documents from a five-month investigation of Steve Krentel, the former chief of St. Tammany Fire Protection District No. 12, have been turned over to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office, which issued a warrant for the more than 4,000 pages last month.
Krentel's wife, Nanette Krentel, was found dead of a gunshot wound in the couple's burned-down home nearly a year ago. - PUB DATE: 6/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New Orleans Advocate
Several firefighters were injured battling a five-alarm blaze Saturday on Staten Island.
The flames broke out shortly after 7 p.m. at a fire marshal’s house on Steinway Avenue in the New Springville section. “One of the houses is one of our fire marshals’. Fortunately, his family and his baby were down at the Jersey Shore for the weekend, but he was at work to come home and find that his house was destroyed,” Chief of Department James Leonard said. - PUB DATE: 6/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CBS New York
