An arbitrator has ruled that city firefighters are entitled to out-of-title pay for shifts worked in which they took on the role of the department’s demoted captains.
Daniel Daugherty, president of the Watertown Professional Fire Fighters Association Local 191, said arbitrator Richard Curreri ruled that the city will have to compensate firefighters who responded to calls while assuming the responsibilities of captains. - PUB DATE: 8/27/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Watertown Daily Times
Eight children were killed after a fire sparked in an apartment building in Chicago, fire officials said.
The blaze ignited just before 4 a.m. on the second floor of a building on South Sacramento Avenue, according to Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago.
The first call to authorities came when a woman who came home from work smelled the fire, he said. - PUB DATE: 8/27/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC News
A Stockton fire crew had to act quickly after a man tried to take off with their fire engine early Saturday morning while they were fighting a fire.
When engine 7 drove up to Jill Circle around 4:30 Saturday morning, fires were blazing at multiple spots on the street but another issue flared up as well. - PUB DATE: 8/27/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTXL-TV Fox 40 Sacramento
There’s no guarantee that a different strategy would have resulted in a different outcome — that the victims would be alive today if something as mundane as an administrative spreadsheet had one more agency added.
But in each of four fatal fires over the last 11 years, the structure of mutual aid calls for volunteer fire departments just beyond Peoria city limits has resulted in scenarios that appear to contradict the most basic tenets of firefighting. - PUB DATE: 8/27/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Peoria Journal Star
An arbitrator overturned the demotion and suspension of the former firefighters' union president in relation to actions at a New Year's Day 2017 fire that killed three people, displaced 49 tenants and destroyed a building.
The decision by the American Arbitration Association said there was no evidence that Chad Cunningham ignored orders or violated rules and ordered he immediately be returned to his former rank as lieutenant and be awarded back pay. - PUB DATE: 8/24/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: MassLive
The parents of a toddler killed when he became pinned in a door at a Scottsdale fire station have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city.
The suit does not seek a specific damage amount in the death of 16-month-old Joey Reiss. However, a previous notice of claim filed against the city of Scottsdale had sought $9 million. - PUB DATE: 8/24/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Arizona Republic, AZCentral.com & KPNX-TV NBC 12 Phoenix
Detroit police announced an arrest Thursday in the shooting death of Detroit firefighter Jack Wiley Jr.
Detroit police said they arrested an 18-year-old man near the Southfield Freeway and Ford Road in Dearborn, said Capt. Michael McGinnis.
"What his motives (were) ... I have no idea," said McGinnis. - PUB DATE: 8/24/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Detroit News
Lawmakers will hold a hearing Friday on data throttling during the Mendocino Complex Fire after Santa Clara County’s fire chief said his department’s firefighters were put in danger when Verizon slowed the speed of their wireless transmissions while they were battling the blaze.
The Select Committee on Natural Disaster, Response, Recovery, and Rebuilding, led by Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, and Assemblywoman Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara, will hold the hearing to probe wireless provider policies for restricting cell phone plans during emergencies like wildfires. - PUB DATE: 8/24/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle
On Savannah Highway, out beyond the car dealerships and across the street from a barber college, lies one of the most significant projects for the city of Charleston and its firefighters.
The site is an empty L-shaped lot for now. It’s bordered by a doughnut shop, a park and a quiet residential neighborhood where neatly subdivided homes line gentle, swooping streets along a curve in the Stono River. - PUB DATE: 8/24/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Charleston Post and Courier
A nationwide telecommunications company that slowed internet service to firefighters as they battled the largest wildfire in California history says it has removed all speed cap restrictions for first responders on the West Coast.
Verizon Senior Vice President Mike Maiorana says the service restrictions were removed as of Thursday and include Hawaii, where emergency crews have rescued people from areas flooded by Hurricane Lane. - PUB DATE: 8/24/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC News
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is looking for a new Chicago Fire Department commissioner, as Jose Santiago hits mandatory retirement age and steps down.
Emanuel tried to find a way to let Santiago stay past his 63rd birthday that’s coming up in a few days, but the city statute bars firefighters of any rank from serving beyond that, according to spokesman Adam Collins. - PUB DATE: 8/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
A fire department whose data was throttled by Verizon Wireless while it was fighting California's largest-ever wildfire has rejected Verizon's claim that the throttling was just a customer service error and "has nothing to do with net neutrality." The throttling "has everything to do with net neutrality," a Santa Clara County official said. - PUB DATE: 8/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ars Technica
A jury awarded $3.35 million Wednesday to a former Circleville firefighter who sued the city, alleging years of harassment and discrimination, including unwanted sexual advances, denied promotions and bodily fluids on her belongings.
Amie Morningstar, 38, of Circleville, the first full-time female firefighter on that community’s force, filed suit in late 2015 and was fired in early 2016, said her attorney, Brian K. - PUB DATE: 8/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Columbus Dispatch
Two Key West firefighters were fired Monday in connection with a police narcotics investigation centered on the city’s fire department.
The firings, announced Tuesday, followed an Aug. 10 sweep of all three Key West fire stations by Key West police and Homeland Security, who were tipped off by the KWPD special investigations units that fire personnel were engaging in “narcotic activity,” according to an arrest report. - PUB DATE: 8/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FL Keys News
California cities and counties have too few cops and too many wildfires to get a handle on their soaring overtime budgets.
That’s how they explain the $3.7 billion they spent collectively on overtime last year, a 60 percent increase from the $2.3 billion they shelled out for overtime in 2012.
The dynamic means police and firefighters have no shortage of opportunities to pad their paychecks with overtime hours, but for some, the extra work is taking a toll on their bodies and families. - PUB DATE: 8/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Modesto Bee
Verizon Wireless' throttling of a fire department that uses its data services has been submitted as evidence in a lawsuit that seeks to reinstate federal net neutrality rules.
"County Fire has experienced throttling by its ISP, Verizon," Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in a declaration. - PUB DATE: 8/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ars Technica
Mike Beadle, Palm Coast’s longtime fire chief, will be retiring in September and his second-in-command, Gerard “Jerry” Forte, will take the reins of the department, city officials announced Tuesday.
City Manager Jim Landon formally appointed Forte, currently the deputy fire chief, to take over in Beadle’s stead during Tuesday’s City Council meeting. - PUB DATE: 8/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Daytona Beach News-Journal
The panel that oversees the Los Angeles Fire Department voted Tuesday to give the agency’s internal watchdog “unfettered access” to the disciplinary files of its firefighters, nine years after voters created the post to assess the agency’s handling of misconduct complaints.
The Board of Fire Commissioners unanimously changed its policy to give the watchdog, known as the Office of the Independent Assessor, the power to obtain unredacted interview transcripts, evidence and other records generated over the course of a discipline case. - PUB DATE: 8/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
PHOTO - A kindergartner rode to his first day of school in style fulfilling the wishes of his late father.
Last week, Cooper Brooks, 5, arrived in a fire truck alongside dad Christopher Brooks' colleagues from the Sullivan County Volunteer Fire Department.
Christopher Brooks, a father of three and volunteer firefighter, died May 7 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. - PUB DATE: 8/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC News
As the Puyallup Police Department embarks on its move to South Hill, Central Pierce Fire & Rescue is putting shovels in the ground for their state-of-the-art station on the same lot.
CPFR is building a new Station 72 on two acres of what’s known as the Lumbermen’s property at 703 39th SE. It will stand alongside the new Puyallup Justice Center. - PUB DATE: 8/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The News Tribune
