Members of Montgomery County Fire/EMS are mourning the loss of a longtime firefighter who died following his shift.
Firefighter/Paramedic James "Dewon" Wells, 52, worked an eight-hour shift on May 5. Twice before he left the station around 4 p.m. he told colleagues he wasn't feel well, including suffering numbness to the mouth. - PUB DATE: 5/10/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse
Authorities are on the scene of a sanitary tanker fire on Dauphin Street just west of I-65. News 5 cameras captured the dramatic moments as a firefighter narrowly escaped injury. The video shows the firefighter approaching the truck, as he walks towards it a tire suddenly explodes. The blast sends him reeling as a small amount of debris blasts towards him. - PUB DATE: 5/10/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKRG-TV News 5 Mobile
The 23 fire engines set for their Boston debut this year will be equipped with foam that can be powerfully effective in helping quash certain blazes and are intended to decrease the risk of cancer for city firefighters, officials said Tuesday.
Fire Commissioner Joseph E. Finn said that foam will be used only on dumpster and vehicle blazes, which are most hazardous to firefighters’ health. - PUB DATE: 5/10/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Boston Globe
In response to hazing scandals resulting in lawsuits, FDNY Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro recently announced that he would meet in person with every fire officer on the New York City Fire Department, over 900 of them. Groups of officers would attend meetings at the Randall’s Island training facility. - PUB DATE: 5/10/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1
A Fairfax County supervisor says she’s “fit to be tied” over comments condoning bullying allegedly made by fire department captain.
WUSA9 broke the story of a letter written by a parent of a fire recruit, one year after the suicide of Fairfax County paramedic Nicole Mittendorff, who was bullied online by people who appeared to be firefighters. - PUB DATE: 5/10/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WUSA-TV 9 DC
The Texas House easily passed Houston's pension reform bill Monday, but not without making several changes friendly to firefighters, setting the stage for a reconciliation showdown between the upper and lower chambers.
The House accepted four amendments to the bill the Senate passed last week before voting 112-28 to preliminarily approve Houston's reform measures. - PUB DATE: 5/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse
A Chicago Fire Department chief suffered a massive heart attack and died Sunday afternoon.
Chief Michael V. Murphy, 56, was taking part in an aquatic event at Mount Carmel High School on the South Side with his 16-year-old son when he suffered a massive heart attack, according to a statement from the Chicago Fire Department. - PUB DATE: 5/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WLS-TV ABC 7 Chicago
Two volunteer firefighters are set to go on trial Monday for the 2015 assault of a career firefighter outside a burning home near Hyattsville, Maryland.
Jeffrey Miller and Christopher Kelly — both members of West Lanham Hills Volunteer Company 28 — were indicted on a charge of fighting with a career firefighter unit over who should go inside a house that was ablaze Dec. - PUB DATE: 5/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTOP-AM 1500 Washington
Annoyed with how much sick time firefighters use, the City Council on Monday night informally agreed to reduce the amount of overtime in the proposed 2017-18 budget from $631,000 to $570,000.
Mayor Joseph M. Butler Jr. recommended cutting the fire department’s overtime by $61,000 after a lengthy discussion about sick time. - PUB DATE: 5/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Watertown Daily Times
After a week of silence and speculation, former Sioux Falls Fire Chief Jim Sideras was arrested Monday, charged with possessing child pornography.
State police and county deputies removed CDs, hard drives and computers from the fire chief's home last Tuesday, hours before his employment with the city was abruptly terminated. - PUB DATE: 5/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Argus Leader
VIDEO - A Facebook Live tour of a Memphis fire truck is now under investigation. Two men saw the truck, hopped in, and streamed the whole thing on Facebook.
Memphis Fire said the fire engine was never stolen, not even moved from the spot where it was parked on Monday afternoon near Lamar Avenue and Prescott. - PUB DATE: 5/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WMC-TV Action News5 Memphis
Emergency radio recordings show that helicopter pilots with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County Fire Authority bickered, and that sheriff pilots ignored a direct order to “stand down,” during a pair of rescues in Laguna Beach and Orange on Saturday, April 29, revealing an escalating battle between the two agencies over helicopter-related emergencies and who responds to them. - PUB DATE: 5/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orange County Register
For the first time in the FDNY’s 150-year history, more women and black, Latino and Asian applicants have filed for the upcoming firefighter exam than white men.
The latest numbers mark a significant change for the department — which has been the city’s least diverse agency for decades, despite also being one of its largest with 10,000 members. - PUB DATE: 5/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News
Diana Matty joined West Palm Beach Fire Rescue fresh out of high school, in October 1994.
She was 18.
Work hard and someday you’ll be chief, they told her.
“I took that to heart. I’ve been a hard worker all of my career,” Matty said.
They made good on their promise Tuesday at 5 p.m. — on an interim basis, anyway — when City Administrator Jeff Green called to tell Asst. - PUB DATE: 5/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Palm Beach Post
Two years before 36 partygoers died in the Ghost Ship warehouse inferno, Oakland firefighters toured the cluttered firetrap, even dancing in the same second-story performance space where the victims would huddle in their final moments, according to witnesses and documents.
The visits started Sept. 26, 2014, a Friday, when firefighters extinguished a couch fire outside the warehouse artists’ collective on 31st Avenue before touring the eclectic interior, people who saw them inside the building said. - PUB DATE: 5/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Bay Times
PHOTO/VIDEO - Five people were injured when a Hudson-Bergen Light Rail train crashed into a fire truck and derailed in Jersey City on Friday evening, fire officials said.
Four firefighters and the train's operator suffered minor injuries in the collision near Washington Boulevard and Sixth Street, officials said. - PUB DATE: 5/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC New York
Fire Chief John A. Pond said Thursday that six firefighters deserve commendations for work that included rescuing seven people from a burning building on Jan. 1 while others have been ordered to undergo ladder truck retraining.
Two men and a woman died and 49 tenants were displaced in a blaze at 106 North East St. - PUB DATE: 5/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Republican
Crews who battle wildfires will have to wait at least another year before getting better fire shelters than those that failed to save 19 firefighters trapped by flames in Arizona four years ago, officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The deaths pushed the U.S. Forest Service to speed up work to get an upgraded shelter in place this year, but the effort has been delayed a year after prototypes could not outperform the shelter developed in 2002. - PUB DATE: 5/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC News
"Good Morning America" anchors Michael Strahan and Jesse Palmer marked International Firefighters' Day today by shadowing Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) firefighters as they fought a simulated fire at the FDNY training facility on Randall's Island in New York.
The facility, nicknamed "The Rock," features a mock restaurant that can be lit on fire. - PUB DATE: 5/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC News
The interim Sioux Falls fire chief sent a department-wide email Tuesday night ordering firefighters to bar former Chief Jim Sideras from any fire stations or the fire headquarters building.
The warning from Interim Chief Brad Goodroad came hours after news broke that authorities had served a search warrant at Sideras' Sioux Falls home on Tuesday. - PUB DATE: 5/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Argus Leader
