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National Fire News

Chicago Fire Dept. Honors 50th Anniversary Of Fatal Mickelberry Plant Explosion

The Chicago Fire Department Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of an explosion that killed four firefighters in the Back of the Yards neighborhood responding to a fire in a sausage factory. On Feb. 7, 1968, more than 300 firefighters were called to the Mickelberry Food Products Company at 50th and Halsted.
- PUB DATE: 2/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CBS Chicago

Texas firefighters sue city over civil service rules

Upset over the way the city rolled out civil service rules last fall, the union representing Arlington firefighters has now turned to the courts. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Tarrant County, the Arlington Professional Firefighters sued the city and named Fire Chief Don Crowson, city human resources director Kari Jo Zika and members of the city's Civil Service Commission as defendants.
- PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Child fatally injured during Arizona fire station tour

A toddler died from injuries suffered while touring a Scottsdale Fire Department station this past weekend, city officials confirmed Tuesday. The boy, just under 2 years old, was fatally injured Saturday by apparatus bay doors at the Scottsdale Fire Station at 1901 N. Miller Road, the city's communications office said.
- PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Arizona Republic, AZCentral.com & KPNX-TV NBC 12 Phoenix

Rhode Island department still monitoring health of crews who responded to chemical fire

The Cranston Fire Department is monitoring the health of 20 firefighters and first responders experiencing exposure symptoms after battling a chemical fire at ProSys Finishing Technologies last week. Crews from across the state responded to the company on Elmwood Avenue last Monday when a report of a fire turned into a hazmat incident, sending 12 firefighters and two first responders to the hospital.
- PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WPRI-TV Providence 12

Florida county's policies for pregnant firefighters under fire

Every 24-hour shift for firefighter-paramedic Nicole Morris gets harder for her to endure. She's not sick or hurt. She's pregnant. And according to the contract negotiated in 2016 between the International Association of Firefighters Local 2201 and the Indian River County Emergency Services District, she can't be assigned to light duty.
- PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: TCPalm.com

Bystanders help rescue Louisiana firefighter after overhang roof collapses, trapping him

A Central firefighter became trapped when an overhang roof collapsed while crews were working a house fire Monday afternoon. But civilians on scene helped rescue him, according to a Facebook post from the Central Fire Department. Crews were dispatched around 2:40 p.m. to the 12100 block of Lancewood Drive for a building on fire behind a home.
- PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Advocate

San Francisco to settle with firefighter blamed for running over girl in Asiana crash

San Francisco has reached a $250,000 tentative settlement in a lawsuit alleging a firefighter was wrongly blamed for the death of a teenage passenger in the Asiana Airlines crash. The lawsuit claimed firefighter Elyse Duckett became a “sacrificial lamb” for the San Francisco Fire Department after 16-year-old Ye Meng Yuan died as first responders scrambled to rescue passengers and douse flames July 6, 2013.
- PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Francisco Examiner

Kentucky fire department Investigators sued for allegedly giving arson suspect beer

A Louisville man who served eight years for arson claims investigators manipulated him into making a false confession by providing him beer during the interrogation and threatening his girlfriend with prosecution. U.B. Thomas III was convicted of setting four apartment house fires in 2011, but a judge tossed out the conviction in March.
- PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Louisville Courier-Journal

Fire quint truck in Illinois city sets off alarm bells

The proposed acquisition of a quint truck faced stiff opposition from firefighters, while Mayor Bob O’Dekirk said the city needs to do something about “obscene” amounts of overtime spent in the department. Firefighters at a City Council workshop meeting Monday said putting a quint, a dual-purpose truck, in downtown Station 1 would threaten public safety in the older section of the city.
- PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Herald-News

NFA's Marchone Reflects on Public Education, Risk Reduction Career

Mary Marchone never imagined giving nearly 50 years to the fire service when she was hired as an office assistant for Montgomery County, MD, Fire Rescue in 1969. But over the course of nearly 50 years, that office assistant educated herself on fire safety and prevention and eventually became one of the most well regarded training specialists in the country.
- PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse

Retired Georgia chief recounts getting arrested after saving woman

There’s no white cross on the side of GA 109 symbolizing a lost life. That’s what matters to Rick Rickerson. It all happened so quickly. A vehicle flips over and over on a desolate stretch of a Pike County highway. A woman is trapped. She’s not breathing. Rickerson witnesses the horrific accident and his instincts automatically kick in.
- PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WUSA-TV 9 DC

Retired FDNY firefighter, 63, dies of 9/11-related cancer after 9-year battle

Ronald Svec, a former city firefighter who was diagnosed with a 9/11-related cancer six months after he retired, has died, officials and relatives said Saturday. The 63-year-old FDNY vet died Friday at the Jersey Shore University Medical Center after a more than 9-year battle with lung and spine cancer, said his wife of 34 years, Sharon Svec.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

California firefighters focus on clean air, bodies and gear to try to cut cancer risk

Long before he became San Diego's fire chief, Brian Fennessy would wear his crusty, soot-covered helmet like a badge, proof he worked at one of the city's busiest fire stations. He thought it gave him credibility and earned him the respect of peers. Now he knows his dirty gear harbored the toxins and carcinogens that haunt the scene of a fire -- and that they might well revisit him in the future as cancer.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Diego Union-Tribune

Child, 3 adults hospitalized after Florida Fire Rescue truck crashes

VIDEO - A North Lauderdale Fire Rescue truck was involved in a serious crash Friday afternoon in Lauderhill, authorities said. The crash was reported shortly after 3 p.m. in the area of Northwest 16th Street and State Road 7. Authorities said the firetruck was transporting a high-priority pediatric patient to the hospital when the crash occurred.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WPLG-TV ABC Local10.com - Miami & Fort Lauderdale

Surveillance video: Dog tries to sneak leftover pancakes, starts Massachusetts house fire

VIDEO - A family in Massachusetts nearly lost their house after their dog inadvertently turned on the kitchen stove while trying to grab some leftover pancakes. The incident was captured by the family's security cameras, and the footage was submitted to the Southwick Fire Department which shared the video on Facebook.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WCVB-TV ABC 5 Boston

Battling treacherous office chairs and aching backs, aging Los Angeles cops and firefighters miss years of work and collect twice the pay

When Capt. Tia Morris turned 50, after about three decades in the Los Angeles Police Department, she became eligible to retire with nearly 90% of her salary. But like many cops and firefighters in her position, the decision to keep working was a financial no-brainer, thanks to a program that allowed her to nearly double her pay by keeping her salary while also collecting her pension.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Los Angeles Times

Video shows encounter between man with knife, North Carolina firefighters before deadly police shooting

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police say officers perceived an 'imminent deadly threat' from a man holding a knife outside of a west Charlotte apartment complex Friday afternoon. The man was shot by officers and later died at the hospital from his injuries. The incident happened just before 1:30 p.m. Friday afternoon at an apartment complex along the 3200 block of Timberbrook Drive near Tuckaseegee Park.
- PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WBTV-TV Channel 3

Virginia fire chief: No plans to resign in wake of harassment claims

Days after the head of a Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department advocacy group for female firefighters issued a resignation letter, charging lax attitudes toward sexual harassment, the chief says he doesn’t believe the department has major issues and that he has no plans to resign. “We take all claims seriously of bullying, harassment and retaliation,” Fire Chief Richard Bowers said at a Thursday afternoon news conference.
- PUB DATE: 2/2/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTOP-AM 1500 Washington

'Still haunting': Florida firefighter testifies about what they saw at nursing home where 12 died

Craig Wohlitka told a Broward courtroom Wednesday that he is still haunted by the dying nursing home residents he tried to save as they sweltered in a building with no air conditioning in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. In a span of about three hours on Sept. 13, the Hollywood firefighter/paramedic and fellow crew members treated two critically ill residents.
- PUB DATE: 2/2/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel & SouthFlorida.com

Phoenix firefighters deal with opioids every day. But do they fit into a solution?

Fire crews confront the opioid epidemic daily in the most personal of ways. They tend to the users who can't stay awake. They administer naloxone, the reversal drug that brings addicts back from a life-threatening overdose. And they answer the call when an unresponsive person is found in a parked car, a gas station bathroom or a neighborhood — impoverished or affluent.
- PUB DATE: 2/2/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Arizona Republic, AZCentral.com & KPNX-TV NBC 12 Phoenix

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