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
Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert’s opponents are again criticizing her record on public safety, drawing a rebuke Wednesday from the city’s police and fire chiefs.
The commercial in question, paid for by Firefighters for Better Government, says Stothert’s policies are “stretching Omaha’s police too thin.” It also criticizes Stothert for police patrols near her home. - PUB DATE: 5/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Omaha World-Herald
California’s firefighting agency plans to discipline two employees blamed for forcing the state to redo a battalion chief examination for nearly 500 employees, the department’s director said Thursday.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection notified 488 applicants that they will have to retake the promotion exam this summer because the initial test “had significant irregularities. - PUB DATE: 5/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOVR-TV CBS Sacramento
An Adair County woman has admitted deliberately setting a blaze that led to the death of a firefighter.
Brandi Pritchard, 41, of Columbia pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Bowling Green to one charge of arson and one charge of mail fraud, according to her plea agreement.
Pritchard admitted taking part with her husband, Steve Allen “Boo” Pritchard, in a plan to set fire to the house they rented in order to collect insurance payments. - PUB DATE: 5/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Lexington Herald-Leader
In zero visibility conditions, Toledo Fire Capt. Luke Harman described for a jury in Lucas County Common Pleas Court today how he crawled on his hands and knees, feeling with his hands every inch in front of him when he felt what would turn out to be a face mask. “My hand dipped into an opening in the debris and grabbed what was without a doubt a human leg,” he said. - PUB DATE: 5/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Toledo Blade
A trio of Los Angeles city firefighters have earned the dubious distinction as the top public employee overtime earners in California, thanks to a generous overtime policy.
Transparent California found that Charles F. Ferrari, a Los Angeles City Fire Captain II, collected $334,655 in overtime, to earn a total of $483,770 in 2016. - PUB DATE: 5/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KCAL-TV Los Angeles
After a marathon mediation in the Matthew Badger lawsuit against the city, Legal Affairs Director Kathryn Emmett announced late Tuesday the parties have settled for an undisclosed amount, three weeks before a trial was to begin.
S. Campbell Badger, brother of Matthew — who died in February — the city, Operations Director Ernie Orgera and Chief Building Official Robert DeMarco have resolved the claims in the civil suit "without reflecting any liability or fault on the part of the defendants," Emmett said in an email. - PUB DATE: 5/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Stamford Advocate
A toddler laughing while firefighters worked to free him from a locked car has gone viral.
Today.com reported that 14-month-old Brandon Emery locked himself in his mother's car. His mother had put him in the back seat while she unloaded groceries into the trunk. After closing the trunk with the car keys still inside, the toddler pushed the power locks. - PUB DATE: 5/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1
A Gibbsboro firefighter died Friday from complications involving a leg injury he suffered during a mandatory training exercise nearly three weeks earlier.
According to the U.S. Fire Administration, Gibbsboro volunteer firefighter William "Bill" Gerace died because of a pulmonary embolism, which an autopsy found was directly attributed as a complication of a leg fracture he sustained during live burn training April 10. - PUB DATE: 5/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse
A Toledo firefighter who had been inside the Magnolia Street building where two of his fellow firefighters would die from the intense heat and smoke broke down on the witness stand today as he recounted the rescue efforts.
Lt. Aaron Hague told the jury hearing the trial of Ray Abou-Arab that the turnout gear of both Pvts. - PUB DATE: 5/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Toledo Blade
An overdose victim tried to kill the first responders who had just saved his life Monday, according to the O’Fallon Fire Protection District.
Two O’Fallon, Mo., firefighters and a St. Charles County Ambulance District paramedic went to a man’s home about 10 a.m. Monday, O’Fallon Fire Chief Tom Vineyard said. - PUB DATE: 5/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Amid questions why an ambulance driver passed two hospitals before taking a wounded officer to Beaumont Hospital, Oakwood, on Sunday, the city’s fire commissioner said the emergency technician did the right thing.
The officer, a 14-year veteran, was with his partner responding to a domestic violence call when he knocked on the door of Oakman Apartments on the city's west side. - PUB DATE: 5/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Detroit News
A firefighter's kung-fu style video has gone viral.
The Decatur Fire Department posted the video on Facebook of the rookie firefighter dancing to Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting" disco song.
"After a long day of closing roads and directing traffic, the rookie gets a little bored but knows how to boost the moods of all the firefighters," the post read. - PUB DATE: 5/3/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1
