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
Chelsea firefighters wore body armor at an active shooter incident this week in what the department’s chief believes may have been the first time Massachusetts firefighters used the gear, which is typically worn by police SWAT teams.
But it almost never happened.
According to an e-mail provided by Fire Chief Leonard A. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Boston Globe
A West Pierce firefighter is accused of stealing various prescription drugs from ambulances and replacing it with saline to support his addiction.
The 42-year-old paramedic was arrested Thursday and booked into Pierce County Jail on suspicion of unlawful possession of a controlled substance.
He is expected to appear in court Friday. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The News Tribune
The Alexandria Fire Department (AFD) announced the launch of a Mobile Integrated Health/Community Paramedic (MIH/CP) program. MIH/CP is a unique and evolving model of community-based health care, focusing on improving the lives of patients, lowering healthcare costs and using EMS providers as resources to solve healthcare problems within the community. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1.com
The Texas House sent Houston's pension reform package to the governor's desk Wednesday, marking what Mayor Sylvester Turner hopes is the beginning of the end of a 16-year fiscal crisis, and giving him a landmark achievement in his second year in office.
Turner, who has made passing the reforms the centerpiece of his tenure, alternated between grins and gravitas Wednesday night. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse.com
Inman Fire Chief Chris Cothran said Tuesday the city council should begin thinking about funding a 24/7 fire department. At Monday’s budget work session, Cothran proposed $243,000 in new funding to pay for roughly 10 firefighters to cover two 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
He said the number of volunteer firefighters has dropped in recent years, jeopardizing quick response times to a fire. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: goupstate.com
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday took a page out of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s playbook, creating a $3 million program to help up to 100 police officers, firefighters and paramedics purchase homes in “targeted” Chicago neighborhoods.
Daley did the same thing in the early 1990’s with only mixed results. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times
First responders in Miami County have access to more of the overdose-reversing antidote naloxone than ever before after officials received 50 dosages last week from the state’s emergency stash of the drug.
The Indiana State Department of Health last year set up emergency caches of naloxone kits at five sites around the state in the event first responders ran out of the drug and were unable to obtain it through normal means, according to ISDH Director of Public Affairs Jennifer O'Malley. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Kokomo Tribune
It’s no secret that firefighters have a special relationship. They spend every other day together and rely on each other to have their backs. Two firefighters from West Licking Fire Department are proving that bond goes further than just the firehouse. One man needed a kidney, so another firefighter gave him one. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WCMH-TV Columbus
