Houston firefighters are accusing Mayor Sylvester Turner of standing between them and a voter-approved pay raise by failing to ensure a petition they submitted last month is certified in time to appear on the November ballot. Turner rejected any suggestion that he has involved himself in the City Secretary's effort to verify their petition, and his office on Thursday said an offer by the fire union to cover any staffing costs needed to count their signatures is being examined as a possible attempt to improperly influence a public official.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

The turf war is back on between the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County Fire Authority over whose helicopters should respond to rescue calls. A proposed agreement in which both agencies would share rescue calls was pulled from next week’s Board of Supervisors agenda because of opposition from fire officials and city council members in Santa Ana, Tustin and Yorba Linda.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orange County Register

PHOTO - Sometimes, when a tree falls in the woods, someone is there to see it. In the case of a Richmond volunteer firefighter, he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunately, the 45-year-old Richmond resident, a 13-year veteran of the department, escaped serious injury after a large branch suddenly broke off of a tree along the north side of Division Road at about 7:30 p.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Voice

Former Kinloch Mayor Darren Small, 51, and his wife, Jayna Small, 40, have pleaded guilty to a federal charge and admitted stealing money from the city’s fire protection district, the U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday. Darren Small pleaded guilty Thursday to two felony counts: conspiracy to commit access device fraud and access device fraud.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A fire department participated in a viral trend that involves getting out of your vehicle to attempt a slam dunk in a basketball hoop and driving away. Arlington Fire Department tweeted a video of one of their crewmembers wearing a T-Rex costume and attempting to slam dunk at a neighborhood basketball hoop as part of the #DriveByDunkChallenge.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

A Silsbee volunteer firefighter was killed Wednesday after being struck by a car while working a traffic accident. 12News has been asked to withhold the name of the firefighter until all family members have been notified. The firefighter was struck while working an accident along FM418 just east of Highway 92 according to Hardin County Sheriff Mark Davis.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KBMT-TV ABC 12

A firefighter was killed while working the Lolo Peak fire Wednesday afternoon — the second firefighter death in Montana this fire season. Missoula County Sheriff T.J. McDermott said an official investigation to determine the cause of death is still underway. Dispatchers at the Lolo Peak fire said the man was given CPR after apparently being struck by a falling snag.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Missoula Missoulian

Authorities pulled a second body from the rubble Wednesday night, after a building exploded and collapsed at Minnehaha Academy earlier in the day. At just before 10 p.m., Fire Chief John Fruetel announced that searchers had been able to locate and remove the body of the missing male victim, who had been identified by the school as 81-year-old school custodian John Carlson, at about 8 p.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KARE-TV NBC 11

A D.C. firefighter was critically injured after he was struck by another fire department vehicle late Wednesday night. The accident happened as firefighters were responding to a rowhouse fire on the 800 block of F Street NE at 11:30 p.m. Fire officials say 28-year-old Dane Smothers Jr. was preparing hose lines and other equipment when he was struck by a ladder truck arriving at the scene.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC Washington

The Orange County Fire Rescue Department is attempting to reduce response times with a new GPS technology that uses locations of its vehicles to dispatch firefightersThe department started using Automatic Vehicle Location for dispatch in June to make its operations more efficient, Fire Rescue Chief Otto Drozd III said.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orlando Sentinel

The St. Paul fire chief recently suspended a captain for five days, saying he “engaged in fraudulent and deceptive conduct related to requests and use of sick leave with pay.” The city said Mike Hamburger’s use of sick time cost it $14,000. The figure doesn’t include the cost of having firefighters fill the open posts, which is frequently at overtime rates.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: St. Paul Pioneer Press - Twin Cities.com

Two people remain unaccounted for after a gas leak caused building to explode and catch fire at Minnehaha Academy Wednesday morning, CBS Minneapolis reports. One person who was previously missing was found uninjured, the Minneapolis Fire Chief Bryan Tanner said in a press conference several hours after the blast, which occurred just after 10:30 a.
- PUB DATE: 8/2/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CBS News

When the ATF held a press conference in West, Texas more than a year ago to announce a big finding in the 2013 fertilizer plant explosion, there was a lot riding on it. Hundreds of lawsuits had been filed against the fertilizer manufacturer. Much further reaching, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was working on a rewrite of one of two major sets of federal rules governing chemical plant safety.
- PUB DATE: 8/2/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

People tell their doctors about family history of cancer, heart disease and other common conditions that have a genetic link. But when Dr. Matilde Castiel, Worcester’s commissioner of health and human services, asked seven city firefighters attending a training on opioid addiction Tuesday whether any of their relatives had an addiction, none raised his hand.
- PUB DATE: 8/2/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Worcester Telegram & Gazette

It's been nearly two months since Anchorage firefighter, Ben Schultz, was critically injured after falling off a ladder at AFD and Monday his family witnessed a long awaited moment. According to his father, Jeff Schultz, Ben spoke a few words Monday which are the first words he has spoken since his fall on June 5.
- PUB DATE: 8/2/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTUU-TV NBC 2 Anchorage

A Stop & Shop in Dobbs Ferry is under fire after being accused of not giving out water to firefighters battling a blaze across the street from the store. The firefighters were allegedly told they had to pay right away and couldn't come back after the fire was out to settle the tab. In a published letter by a former fire chief, he said the firefighters asked for several cases of water for which the store could later bill them.
- PUB DATE: 8/2/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: News 12 Westchester

VIDEO - A near-tragedy avoided thanks to the quick actions of the Florence Fire Department on Sunday. A video shows a man and his dog trapped in an SUV as rushing water filled a creek bed. The man tells 11 News he was adjusting flow valves for irrigation ditches when the water hit. "I looked down and I had 6 inches of water on my feet, and I looked up and all I seen was logs and water coming at me," explained David Rooks.
- PUB DATE: 8/2/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KKTV-TV CBS 11 Colorado Springs

A retired New Jersey firefighter will receive full honors as a line-of-duty death after succumbing to injuries he sustained 24 years earlier. Former Perth Amboy firefighter Richard W. Leonard, 70, died Sunday from complications of toxic smoke he inhaled while battling a fire on April 19, 1993. Leonard was operating a pumper on State Street in Perth Amboy during efforts to contain a blaze at a plastics recycling facility and spent hours taking in the smoke and fumes without any breathing equipment.
- PUB DATE: 8/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse

Lack of training, command presence and a failure to appreciate an extremely hazardous situation severely sickened and almost killed a firefighter trying to save three utility workers who were overcome by toxic fumes in a drainage hole 15 feet beneath a Key Largo street in January. Those workers died, and Key Largo Volunteer Fire Department firefighter Leonardo Moreno almost became the fourth fatality as he, too, was immediately hit with a deadly mixture of high levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide as he entered the manhole on Long Key Road in the Lake Surprise Estates subdivision the morning of Jan.
- PUB DATE: 8/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FlKeysnews.com

A compass that would direct firefighters through unfamiliar and treacherous burning buildings started as a seed of an idea thought up by veteran firefighter Jeff Dykes. In three years, the Eau Claire fire captain’s idea turned into his own business, Northern Star Fire, which gained international interest and propelled Dykes to the national stage, where today he is one of 100 small-business owners who will participate in a roundtable with President Donald Trump at the White House.
- PUB DATE: 8/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Eau Claire Leader-Telegram