Pasco County Fire Rescue is temporarily closing Fire Station 39 due to a bat colony taking up residence in the building.
The fire chief tells ABC Action News, bats have been living on their property for years, but recently have become brazen and now pose a serious health risk to firefighters.
According to the chief, they've spotted bats flying in living quarters, including bunk rooms, bathrooms and the weight room. - PUB DATE: 6/12/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC Action News
The U.S. Fire Administration confirmed that the April death of North Courtland Volunteer Fire Department Fire Chief Eddie Harris was a line-of-duty death.
Harris, 47, reported that he was feeling ill while he took part in live fire training on April 20, according to a release from the USFA.
In April, Mayor Riely Evans told the Decatur Daily that Harris suffered an apparent heart attack and was transported to Helen Keller Hospital where he died April 21. - PUB DATE: 6/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse.com
Perspectives on the state of the Meadville Central Fire Department are opposed along predictable party lines as Meadville enters the sixth month since City Council voted to cut departmental staffing levels.
City Manager Andy Walker acknowledged the opposing views as he explained the city’s position on the changes. - PUB DATE: 6/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Meadville Tribune
It served for decades, a firefighting powerhouse that lent equipment to local towns and training to area departments. But then times for the Meadowood County Area Fire Department changed, and fortunes slipped.
On Wednesday, a small group of general members and board members voted to bring the 64-year-old department to an end, a long-anticipated move following years of financial losses. - PUB DATE: 6/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Keene Sentinel
An off-duty firefighter happened to be driving through a Sandy neighborhood Tuesday when several shots were fired. Salt Lake City Fire Captain Tony Allred recounted the moments he sprang into action.
He was driving his 8-year-old daughter to gymnastics when traffic got backed up on Alta Canyon Drive. - PUB DATE: 6/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fox13.com
Fidget spinners have become a must-have toy for many central Indiana children, but they may be more dangerous than parents realize.
Some of the parts are very small and could pose a choking hazard if they pop off, as a Decatur Township firefighter discovered this week.
The firefighter shared his story on the department’s Facebook page Thursday. - PUB DATE: 6/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fox59.com
Neil Svetanics, former chief of the St. Louis Fire Department and the Lemay Fire Protection District, died Wednesday (June 7, 2017) after a brief lung illness. He was 77 and lived in St. Louis Hills.
Mr. Svetanics joined the St. Louis Fire Department in 1962 and moved up in ranks, serving as chief from 1986 to 1999. - PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: St. Louis Post Dispatch
Warren firefighters, digging with their bare hands and metal shovels, rescued a Howell man trapped in a collapsed trench on Tuesday, Warren Mayor Jim Fouts said.
The 37-year-old man was rushed to Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, where he was in serious condition, the mayor wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday. - PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Detroit Free Press
The risk firefighters face for developing job-related cancers was well known in the fire service long before elected officials and the national news media started taking more notice in recent years and cast a brighter light on the issue.
There are 37 states that have passed cancer presumption laws for firefighters, which provide workers' compensation benefits for those with certain types of cancers directly attributed to the job. - PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse.com
The Tulsa Fire Department is removing blue stripes from fire trucks. The chief thinks the stripes may send the wrong message to some people.
"It hit me in my heart that this was the right thing to do for the City of Tulsa and for the citizens," Chief Ray Driskell said.
TFD added the stripe after the Dallas police shooting as a symbol of solidarity with law enforcement, but Driskell said he's following his heart and taking the stripes off. - PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: newson6.com
Fire Chief Dale C. Herman and Deputy Chief Russell J. Randall were the only members of the city’s management team not to receive 2 percent salary increases in the newly adopted budget.
The two top fire departments officials have been criticized for not taking the city’s side in a nearly three-year contract dispute with the firefighters’ union. - PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Watertown Daily News
An Anchorage firefighter remains in critical condition at a local hospital Tuesday after being injured during training Monday afternoon, according to an Anchorage Fire Department official.
Ben Schultz, 29, a firefighter and paramedic, has been with the fire department for six years.
Schultz was injured at 4:15 p. - PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Alaska Dispatch News
Growing up in rural West Virginia, Benjamin M. Barksdale remembers hearing the siren blow from the neighboring fire station and asking his mother about the commotion.
Barksdale’s mother explained to him, then a boy of about 6, that the siren signaled volunteer firefighters would soon launch out of the station to help people in the community. - PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Washington Post
A Bronx grand jury handed up manslaughter indictments against two men whose marijuana grow house exploded, killing a firefighter who responded to a report of leaking gas.
Michael Fahy, 44, battalion chief of the 19th division, was killed by falling debris as he and his crew evacuated a house at W. 234th St. - PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News
The first responders on the front line in the battle against the national opioid epidemic got a new guideline Tuesday from the Drug Enforcement Agency on how handle the incredibly deadly drug fentanyl. It's called “Fentanyl: A Brief Guide for First Responders.” And Acting DEA chief Chuck Rosenberg said it should be required reading. - PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC News
The National Fire Protection Association has released its annual report on firefighter fatalities in the United States, and a leading cause of on-duty deaths in the fire service remains cardiac issues despite those deaths hitting an all-time low in 2016.
Last year's total of 69 on-duty deaths marked the fifth time in six years that the number was below 70, according to the NFPA's 2016 Report. - PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse
Matt McFarland, a local firefighter with Humboldt Bay Fire, has filed a grievance through his union after being asked by his boss, Humboldt Bay Fire Chief Bill Gillespie, to stop wearing a “Black Lives Matter” lapel pin on his uniform.
McFarland argues that the pin represents an important message about inclusive justice and that it conforms to his department’s uniform policy, which allows lapel pins provided they are “fire service related and in good taste. - PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Lost Coast Outpost
Ghost Ship master tenant Derick Almena and his second-in-command, Max Harris, were arrested Monday and charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter in conjunction with the Dec. 2 Ghost Ship fire that killed three dozen people. Alameda County prosecutors found the pair hoarded flammable materials from floor to ceiling in the warehouse, created an illegal party space, and even blocked one of only two exits from the second floor the night of the fatal fire. - PUB DATE: 6/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Bay Times
The city of Fayetteville will seek an outside review of its recruitment practices at the Fire Department, which lags behind many other cities at hiring minorities.
City Manager Doug Hewett announced Monday night he has asked the Raleigh office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to review the department’s hiring practices, after several Fayetteville City Council members have grown concerned that only about 3 percent of firefighters are black or another minority. - PUB DATE: 6/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Fayetteville Observer
Anne Arundel County Executive Laura Neuman said Wednesday she'll hire 100 firefighters now that the fire union has won an arbitration case dealing with firefighters' schedules.
Neuman said she'll ask the County Council for $3 million to pay for the new firefighters and add fire training academy classes. - PUB DATE: 6/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Baltimore Sun
