In theory, no one should ever be injured or killed during fire service training exercises. Training, by definition, should take place in a controlled environment, with specific goals, objectives and outcomes.
Of course, this is a fallacy. Training fires are still fires. Creating training scenarios that mimic actual fire response will necessitate also including some of the risk associated with emergency response. - PUB DATE: 7/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1
A police and fire station shuttered earlier this year by the city of Springfield are reopening this month amid pressure from local unions. Fire Station No. 5 opened on Saturday — less than two weeks after the city announced plans to postpone its reopening from July 1 to Aug. 7 due to staffing and equipment issues — after calls from union leaders for it keep the promise it made to voters who expected coverage to resume after an income tax increase was approved at the polls in May. - PUB DATE: 7/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Springfield News-Sun
Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell W. Whitfield Jr. retired this week from the position he has held since 2010, citing health concerns, the need to assume more responsibility for caring for his aging parents and hoping to spend more time with his family.
"I've been wonderfully blessed to have had this opportunity," Whitfield said. - PUB DATE: 7/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Buffalo News
Though they recently announced a compromise labor contract that saved the city money, Anchorage Fire Department officials are now clashing with the firefighters union over reducing overtime by cutting hours of a South Anchorage water truck.
Mike Stumbaugh, president of International Association of Firefighters Local 1264, said his members gave up future raises in a recently renegotiated contract with the understanding it would prevent cuts. - PUB DATE: 7/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Alaska Dispatch News
The former Dayville Fire Company deputy chief, who was arrested in April on assault charges, was charged this week with side-swiping a vehicle while driving a fire truck to an emergency call, state police said.
At approximately 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, state police responded to a motor vehicle crash on Upper Maple Street in Killingly. - PUB DATE: 7/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Norwich Bulletin
Four people who died in a cabin fire near Tamarack Resort Friday night have been identified.
According to the Valley County Sheriff's Office, William Smith, who survived the fire, identified the other victims as his wife, Erin Smith, 34, their friend James Harper 3rd, 49, of Boise, and two juveniles. - PUB DATE: 7/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTVB-TV NBC 7
Nineteen times, the silver bell rang. It was a hot summer day in Arizona's Prescott Valley, at a ceremony to honor the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who died 10 days earlier fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire. The bell rang as the names of the firefighters were read in a crowded arena, and the silence between each weighed heavier than the last. - PUB DATE: 6/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: USA Today
Charlotte Fire Chief Jon Hannan said Thursday that he plans to retire on Aug. 31, after 38 years with the department.
“It has been a pleasure and honor to be part of this great fire department,” Hannan said in a memo to his staff. “I am continuously amazed by what you can accomplish, every division in this organization is the best at what it does. - PUB DATE: 6/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Charlotte Observer
A deputy fire chief has filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the town, citing policies that stripped him of benefits because he didn’t retire when he reached his maximum pension, The Patriot Ledger reported.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston last week by Deputy Fire Chief Alan Predella, 56, of Marshfield, who marked his 34th anniversary as a Braintree firefighter this month. - PUB DATE: 6/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WCVB-TV ABC 5 Boston
Every year an average of 10 volunteer firefighters quit the West Barnstable, Mass., Fire Department, about 27 percent of the department’s total. Fire Chief Joseph Maruca never finds out why half of those department members leave, but does know that about one-third of his crew leaves for career firefighting positions at larger, nearby fire departments, typically after serving in West Barnstable fewer than four years. - PUB DATE: 6/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: GovTech.com
Early Thursday morning as a group of firefighters slept and read in the cozy confines of their Little Haiti firehouse, someone outside was making their lives a little more miserable.
Behind a locked gate at the firehouse, broken glass from the shattered windows of 10 vehicles covered the parking lot. - PUB DATE: 6/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Miami Herald
News 18 has shared West Lafayette Firefighter Curtis Shidler’s story before. How he lost his eye playing with fireworks while off-duty. It’s a safety story worth telling every summer, but a recent reunion makes it news you have not yet heard.
Fireworks should go up in the air.
“This is where the fireworks should have happened,” Shidler said while high up on a fire engine ladder. - PUB DATE: 6/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WISHTV.com Channel 8
The Houston Firefighters Union is suing the City of Houston as their dispute over a new contract drags on. Hundreds of frustrated firefighters also rallied outside City Hall on Wednesday.
The lawsuit accuses the city of breaking a state law that directs cities to pay firefighters on par with what they’d make at a similar private sector job. - PUB DATE: 6/29/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KHOU-TV CBS 11 Houston
VIDEO - Four people, including two firefighters, were injured Wednesday morning in a violent crash involving an LAFD ambulance and a civilian vehicle in Pacoima, officials said.
The collision occurred shortly before 11 a.m. in the 12000 block of Osborne Street, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. - PUB DATE: 6/29/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: abclocal.go
With more than a hundred firefighters from across the state watching, Syracuse's fire chief Wednesday rejected a state union's decision to censure him.
Firefighters from Buffalo, New York City, Syracuse and beyond lined up to watch Syracuse Fire Chief Paul Linnertz speak Wednesday morning during a news conference outside the South State Street fire station. - PUB DATE: 6/29/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Syracuse Post-Standard & Syracuse.com
Reducing the amount of paid time off for Muskegon firefighters and cutting back retiree benefits will be the city's top priorities at the bargaining table now that nearly $700,000 in cuts have been approved.
High overtime costs, prompted by the level of vacation and sick time, and skyrocketing pension and retiree health costs are the primary problems facing the department's budget, according to City Manager Frank Peterson. - PUB DATE: 6/29/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: MLive
Two months before 36 people died in the Ghost Ship fire, an Oakland Fire Department employee entered the warehouse and observed exposed electrical wiring, recommending tenants fix the hazard, according to an amended lawsuit filed Wednesday by attorneys representing victim families.
The 179-page amended lawsuit adds the city of Oakland, Alameda County and state of California to a growing list of defendents, and alleges the agencies failed in their duties to shut down the crowded fire trap and its illegal parties. - PUB DATE: 6/29/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Bay Times
The state’s public-safety unions have scored a potential win in their end-of-session push for a law that will make it easier for police officers and firefighters to get disability pensions that pay them two-thirds pay, tax-free for life.
The Rhode Island House of Representatives on a 53-to-8 vote approved legislation to equate an “illness sustained while in the performance of duty” with an on-the-job injury so more firefighters can qualify for benefits they have, in some past cases, been denied. - PUB DATE: 6/28/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Providence Journal
The City of Charleston, SC, approved plans to replace the current Fire Station 11 and build adjacent to the Charleston 9 memorial site. Residents wanted the station to be the neighborhood’s “shining light and a beacon of the community.”
As the West Ashley area of Charleston grows, the city determined that the current Station 11 needed to be relocated to improve service delivery and found that the property adjacent to the memorial site—about a mile from the existing station, would help fill a service gap. - PUB DATE: 6/28/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse
The city’s fire chief announced Tuesday that he is closing one fire house and reducing staffing at another beginning this Saturday over concerns about fiscal year 2018 funding in the municipal budget.
Fire Chief Dan Goonan said he is closing Station 9 at 575 Calef Road in Ward 9, effective Saturday, July 1. - PUB DATE: 6/28/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Union Leader
