Almost 300 state firefighters whose promotions were suspended after Cal Fire discovered suspected cheating on a November 2016 exam can move up the ranks as long their individual results are vetted one more time, according to a Thursday decision from the State Personnel Board.
The board voted to allow Cal Fire to promote from an exam that it dismissed last month when it reported that it found “irregularities” on a test that captains must pass before advancing to battalion chief. - PUB DATE: 6/2/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Sacramento Bee
PHOTOS - Sixty people are without a home today after a seven-alarm blaze tore through a Reading condo complex, where about 100 firefighters were called to help contain the fire.
Abby Brennan, who lives on the fourth floor, said she heard a fire alarm go off, opened her door and made her way down through the smoke with her 4-year-old son. - PUB DATE: 6/2/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Boston Herald
Houston's firefighters pension fund sued Mayor Sylvester Turner and numerous city officials late Tuesday over the pension reform plan that passed the Legislature last week, arguing the landmark legislation is unconstitutional.
The Houston Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund argues the reform plan unlawfully undercuts the board's legal authority to "select legal counsel and an actuary and adopt sound actuarial assumptions" and seeks to have a court permanently block the city from acting as though the reforms will become law. - PUB DATE: 6/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle
One person was killed and several others injured in a late Wednesday explosion and fire at a corn milling plant in Columbia County. Two of the 16 employees that were on shift at the Didion Milling plant on Highway 146 in Cambria were still missing as of about 5 a.m. Thursday, Sheriff Dennis Richards said during a press conference at the Cambria Village Hall on Edgewater Street. - PUB DATE: 6/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WISN-TV ABC 12 Milwaukee
An Ontario councilman used racial slurs to refer to an ousted Ontario fire chief, according to legal papers filed in San Bernardino Superior Court on Wednesday.
Floyd E. Clark first filed his lawsuit nearly 11 months ago. In February, he retained new trial lawyers, who amended the complaint to add specific, incendiary language a councilman used in referring to him, including “n-----” and “token black. - PUB DATE: 6/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
The man was still, mouth open, head back in a white Crown Victoria stalled in the middle of a neighborhood street.
A paramedic pushed a flexible tube in the man's vein to pump in lifesaving naloxone to block the effects of whatever opioid he had taken and, if all worked well, revive him. Routine work. - PUB DATE: 6/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
A volunteer firefighter in Lancaster County is being credited with saving the life of his 5-year-old son, after the boy slipped away from his family and nearly drowned in a backyard pool.
It happened shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday at a family birthday party in the Unity community, just south of the state line, reports the Lancaster News. - PUB DATE: 6/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Charlotte Observer
Pittsburgh City Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to advance legislation that would provide training for 100 firefighters to operate a $542,750 fireboat the city ordered from Lake Assault Boats of Superior, Wis., this year.
If approved, the legislation would authorize up to $300,000 in fees to be paid to the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators of Lexington, Ky. - PUB DATE: 6/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Volunteer firefighters in Ozark County could only watch as a fire destroyed their own station early Tuesday morning.
The fire at the Gainesville Fire Department occurred one month to the day after flash flooding left a mess inside the station. The department hadn’t fully cleaned up from the flood waters when the fire occurred. - PUB DATE: 5/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KSFX/KOLR-TV FOX 27 Ozarks First
Upland Fire Chief Daniel Smith has settled a federal civil rights lawsuit against the borough, former police chief Nelson Ocasio and former council president Ed Mitchell, according to online court records.No details on the settlement were available Tuesday, but the suit filed by attorney Jacqueline Vigilante on behalf of Smith last year claimed Mitchell and Ocasio conspired to create false allegations against him and threatened bogus criminal charges unless he resigned from council in the wake of a dustup over improvements at the fire house. - PUB DATE: 5/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Delaware County Daily Times
When a New York City firefighter dies in the line of duty, the fire bells ring 20 times: five rings, followed by a pause, and again, and again, and again.
The 5-5-5-5 code rang for Bronx fireman Ray Pfeifer, who died Sunday at the age of 59 from cancer, years after he spent eight months following the attacks of Sept. - PUB DATE: 5/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News
When first responders arrived to the burning home on Eugene Street in Manchester, New Hampshire just after 2 am on January 27, half the home was already up in flames. It was a big fire, but relatively routine: Working in the dark, the firefighters made sure the two residents got out unharmed, and got to work. - PUB DATE: 5/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wired.com
As the first responders to most emergency calls, firefighters often handle many other tasks beyond just putting out fires.
But it's not every day their line of duty calls for cooking skills.
Latoya Riley, who lives in an apartment on Ashley Hall Plantation Road in West Ashley, was recently preparing pork chops for dinner for her two sons when the grease she was heating up caught fire. - PUB DATE: 5/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Charleston Post and Courier
A beloved FDNY hero who tirelessly toiled at Ground Zero for eight months after 9/11 and was a driving force in getting much-needed benefits for sick first responders lost his battle to cancer on Sunday.
Ray Pfeifer, who once said he spent “27 years, 220 days and nine hours” as one of the city’s Bravest, died at age 59, according to officials. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News
Rivalries between police officers and firefighters are not uncommon — usually just lighthearted fun among public safety workers. But the animosity between Santa Fe police Sgt. David Webb Jr. and city firefighter Jeffrey Valdez is genuine, creating a yearslong personal conflict that intensified this week. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Fe New Mexican
Late Monday night, The Missouri State Highway Patrol released the names of the two firefighters involved in a deadly Memorial Day fire truck crash in northeast Missouri.
Investigators said the driver of the fire truck, Jesse Ketchum, 33, of Downing, was killed in that crash.
His passenger, volunteer firefighter, John Chancellor, 27, also of Downing, suffered serious injuries. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTVO-TV ABC 3 Kirksville
Police officers and firefighters could receive a 7.5 percent salary increase in the city’s upcoming budget — a pay raise proponents say is necessary to retain good employees and compete with neighboring communities for new ones.
“We’ve never fallen this far behind,” said City Councilman Mike Barber, who proposed the increase earlier this month. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: News & Record
A 15-year-old girl died Monday night in a crash involving a fire truck on I-94 in Ypsilanti, closing westbound lanes for several hours while Michigan State Police completed an accident investigation.
The crash happened at about 11:15 p.m. near Grove Road. The Ypsilanti Fire Department said one of its rigs was assisting in an earlier rollover accident when a Ford Escape slammed into the back of the fire truck. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WDIV-TV NBC 4 Detroit
An inmate firefighter died due to injuries sustained while working on a fire line Wednesday, according to the California Department or Corrections Rehabilitation(CDCR).
According to the CDCR, the inmate, 26-year-old Matthew Beck, died after a 120-foot-tall tree fell on him while he was working on a fire line in Humboldt County. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: krctv.com
The 2014 fatal crash of an air tanker fighting a forest fire in Yosemite National Park came just after the pilot was warned to avoid a tree to the right but then struck trees to the left, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report.
Soon after the plane went down investigators came to believe its left wing probably struck a tree. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Mercury News
