Kevin Bell, the first Hartford firefighter killed in the line of duty in four decades, had alcohol and a primary substance found in marijuana in his system when he died fighting a fast-spreading house fire, a state toxicology report reviewed by The Courant reveals. But the seven-member panel convened by the city to investigate the death and problems within the fire department never received the toxicology results, according to Hartford Fire Marshal Roger Martin, who was chairman of the board of inquiry.
- PUB DATE: 6/23/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Hartford Courant

A 4 percent raise is in store for the city’s emergency medical technicians and paramedics, the largest increase in its 45-year history, officials said Wednesday. Mayor Mike Duggan unveiled the three-year collective bargaining agreement amendment alongside Fire Commissioner Eric Jones and fire union officials outside St.
- PUB DATE: 6/23/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Detroit News

After several delays to try and attract more FDNY candidates, the filing for the city’s upcoming firefighter exam has finally closed — with historic gains in the number of African-Americans, Asians, Latinos and women who applied. The FDNY had planned to close filing on April 25 for the highly competitive firefighter entrance exam that will be given in the fall.
- PUB DATE: 6/23/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

In the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire in London, where 79 people died or are presumed dead and many more were injured, serious concerns and questions around flammability of exterior cladding, the lack of fire sprinklers and the notion of “shelter in place,” among other subjects, have been brought to the forefront by the news media and the public at large.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: National Fire Protection Association

Hundreds of police officers and firefighters from across the Midwest joined community members in Kalamazoo Wednesday to honor Comstock Township Fire Chief Ed Switalski, who was hit by a vehicle and killed last week while responding to a call. It took firefighters and police officers about half an hour to file into the Wings Event Center for the funeral.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WOOD-TV NBC 8 Grand Rapids

Except for a Vallejo firefighter who got a $2 million payout for wrongful termination, the list of California’s highest-earning public employees for 2016 is dominated by medical personnel – surgeons, physicians, psychiatrists, hospital directors – and a few investment officers from CalPERS, the world’s largest public employee retirement system.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orange County Register

Four employees of the Billerica Fire Department have been handed lengthy suspensions and one demoted following a town investigation into a months-long sex scandal, first reported in April. "All employees involved have acknowledged violations of the rules and regulations of the department and have accepted the discipline that has been imposed by the town," said Town Manager John Curran, in a statement posted to the town's website Wednesday.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Republican

A poorly performing computer program at the Knox County E-911 Center is placing law enforcement officers and firefighters in danger by depriving them of updated information on emergency calls, authorities said Wednesday. The $6.2 million Intergraph Computer Aided Dispatch program went online two years ago and has been problematic ever since.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Knoxville News-Sentinel

The chief of the McDonald Volunteer Fire Department was killed in an explosion in West Virginia. Scott Albertini, died Tuesday morning at the Midland Resource Recovery plant in Barbour County, West Virginia. Two people were killed and one person was injured in an explosion at the same plant last month.
- PUB DATE: 6/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KDKA-TV CBS 2 Pittsburgh

Thirty-two members of the Chicago Fire Department’s brass resigned their exempt positions Monday and returned to rank-and-file status in a fight over pay and benefits that will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. The bosses will return to their career service ranks of battalion chief and, in one case, paramedic field chief, but will continue to “act up” in their exempt positions.
- PUB DATE: 6/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times

The city of Houston is gearing up to play hardball with its firefighters union in advance of contract mediation by passing less favorable employment terms that would take effect if the firefighters' current agreement lapses next week. The changes subject to City Council approval Wednesday would come a month after the fire union declared an impasse in negotiations with the city.
- PUB DATE: 6/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

A Kansas City firefighter is awake from a coma after suffering a heat stroke, and doctors are trying to determine if energy drinks may have played a part in his condition. The Kansas City Fire Department says he was participating in a training exercise last Saturday, June 10, when he suffered a heat stroke.
- PUB DATE: 6/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KCTV-TV CBS 5

The Los Angeles Fire Department could soon seek federal permission to fly drones, a tool that officials say could help them track down missing hikers, gauge the risks in burning buildings and search confined spaces. A Los Angeles City Council committee voted Tuesday to allow the department to start seeking Federal Aviation Administration authorization to use “unmanned aerial systems,” despite objections from groups concerned about privacy rights.
- PUB DATE: 6/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Los Angeles Times

A firefighter is dead and another is badly injured following a wreck in Lafayette County, MO. This accident happened shortly after 6 p.m. on Monday evening. It happened on Highway E just north of Wheatley Road, which is north of Interstate 70 in Lafayette County. The area is just south of Mayview, MO.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KCTV-TV CBS 5 Kansas City

The Santa Paula City Council on Monday approved a resolution that, once finalized and in effect, effectively disbands its 114-year-old fire department. The tax-sharing agreement sets the terms for getting coverage from the larger Ventura County Fire Protection District. The district is paid for from property taxes, and Santa Paula will turn over 79 percent of what it gets once it joins, according to the agreement.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Ventura County Star

One of the seven U.S. sailors killed on the USS Fitzgerald after a collision with a container ship off the coast of Japan has been identified as Dakota Kyle Rigsby, a Fluvanna County volunteer firefighter. The U.S. Navy said Sunday night that 19-year-old Rigsby, a gunner’s mate seaman from Palmyra, was among the dead.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Lynchburg News & Advance

For the third time in less than a year, the City Council has rejected a contract settlement with district fire chiefs in a continuing dispute if the current chiefs should be required to live in Springfield. A motion to give final passage to the contract failed by way of a 6-6 tie vote, needing seven votes to pass.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Republican

Seven of them were huddled next to a couch on the second floor. Another was just 10 feet from the front door. Eight others were found together wrapped in a rug, apparently having fallen all at once when the floor under them collapsed. They, like all the other victims of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire, died of smoke inhalation, their lungs and airways clogged with soot.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Bay Times

The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office is investigating the death Saturday of Fire Chief Abraham Pitre, said Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz in a statement early Sunday morning. Diaz called the 44-year-old Pitre's death "sudden" and that the "circumstances of the incident remain under investigation by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.
- PUB DATE: 6/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: MyCentralJersey.com

When Columbus officials rolled out a plan to cut the number of paramedics on trucks responding to medical emergencies, they said it would save on the city Division of Fire’s bulging overtime budget. Six months later, overtime in the division is on track to bust its budget for the sixth time in seven years and reach its highest level in years, but fire Chief Kevin O’Connor said the plan is working.
- PUB DATE: 6/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Columbus Dispatch