The Dallas Police and Fire Pension System's Board of Trustees suspended lump-sum withdrawals from the pension fund Thursday, staving off a possible restraining order and stopping $154 million in withdrawal requests. The system was set to pay out the weekly requests Friday. Pension officials said allowing the withdrawals would leave them without the liquid reserves required to sustain the $2.
- PUB DATE: 12/9/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Dallas Morning News

NFPA was recently awarded an Assistance to Firefighters Grant to develop a national fire data system (NFDS) that meets the priority needs of the U.S. fire service for quality local and national data for both operational and community risk reduction decision making. NFPA’s focus is on helping local agencies in the collection, management and utilization of their data to make decisions where they count most—right in your community.
- PUB DATE: 12/9/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: National Fire Protection Association

The man who Youngstown firefighters say was harassing them on the night their truck was shot up is in jail Thursday evening. Police say Cameron Dyer, 30, was at the fire scene at Halleck and Elm streets Monday night. He was picked up on a probation violation, and police say he could be charged with misconduct at the fire scene.
- PUB DATE: 12/9/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKBN.com

An armed robber stuck a handgun in a Trenton fire captain's face while he was on a call in the Chambersburg neighborhood Tuesday night, fire officials said. The fire captain, from Engine Co. 7 on Hamilton Avenue, was not injured during the 6:45 p.m. incident on Cummings Place, officials said. Trenton police detectives are investigating the crime.
- PUB DATE: 12/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Trenton Times

Authorities have made two arrests -- both teenagers -- in last week's deadly wildfires. Authorities made the announcement Wednesday during an afternoon news conference at the Sevier County Courthouse. The teens remain in custody in Sevier County, charged with aggravated arson, said Jimmy Dunn, 4th Judicial District attorney general.
- PUB DATE: 12/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Knoxville News-Sentinel

Investigators were beginning to get a sense of the final chaotic moments for the 36 people killed in a fire at a converted Oakland warehouse, as they made progress on the search for the cause of the blaze. Oakland’s planning director, meanwhile, admitted that the building had not been inspected for three decades, despite what neighbors said were numerous complaints about accumulated trash, graffiti and other blight.
- PUB DATE: 12/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: SFGate.com

The union representing Youngstown's firefighters is taking action after Mondays' shooting that wounded one of their members. A representative of the Youngstown Professional Firefighter's union says the department will investigate the possibility of allowing captains to carry firearms during calls. They also say they'll look into buying bullet proof vests for firefighters.
- PUB DATE: 12/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WFMJ-TV Youngstown NBC 21

One by one, retired Dallas police and firefighters came to the pension fund to get their money. “I think instead of filing a lawsuit … it would have been a lot cheaper (for the mayor) just to get a billboard that said make a run on the bank,” retired firefighter George Snowden told News 8 outside the pension office.
- PUB DATE: 12/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WFAA-TV ABC 8 Dallas - Fort Worth

More city employees in Petersburg are quitting their jobs over budget cuts. Chief T.C. Hairston says the Petersburg Fire Department has lost 14 firefighters since the city implemented a mandatory 10 percent pay cut for all city employees. Some people who live in Petersburg are now concerned about safety.
- PUB DATE: 12/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WRIC.com

A date which will live in infamy was also a day the Honolulu Fire Department unexpectedly went to war. On Dec. 7, 1941, Engine 6 was the first to respond to Hickam Airfield. “They were used to seeing practice anti-aircraft artillery and they knew that to be white smoke, white puffs in the sky,” said Capt.
- PUB DATE: 12/7/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KHON2

The recovery effort from the aftermath of a devastating Fruitvale District warehouse fire that killed 36 people has been completed, authorities announced Wednsday morning. The death total did not rise as crews combed through the final 10 percent of the building known as the “Ghost Ship.” Authorities did not say what time they finished the search.
- PUB DATE: 12/7/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Mercury News

Last December an unlikely confrontation unfolded during a fire at a home in Hyattsville. Prosecutors allege two volunteer firefighters fought a career female firefighter over who got to enter the home first and be in charge of the scene. Authorities claim Chris Kelly, out of the West Lanham Hills station, hit the career female firefighter knocking her off the front porch.
- PUB DATE: 12/7/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WJLA-TV ABC 7 Washington

A Flint apartment complex fire that left three firefighters injured last month pushed the Flint Fire Department to its limits that day. Not only did it require every firefighter on duty that day -- 14 in all -- the fire at Village Shores Apartments also forced the city to call in mutual aid because the department's two ladder trucks were both in the repair shop.
- PUB DATE: 12/7/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: mlive.com

As Youngstown firefighters begin their day Wednesday following a shooting Monday night that left a firefighter with a gunshot wound to the leg, many are wary and contemplative as they execute their duties. Captain Chris Weaver said the Youngstown Police Department is doing a good job keeping tabs on firefighters following the shooting, but the unsettling feeling is still there.
- PUB DATE: 12/7/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKBN27.com

Youngstown police confirmed that a Youngstown firefighter was shot Monday after responding to a fire. It began when crews were called about 9 p.m. to a house fire at Halleck and Elm streets. As crews were leaving the scene around 10:30 p.m., shots were fired and bullets came through the fire truck, hitting a firefighter in the leg.
- PUB DATE: 12/6/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKBN-TV (Youngstown)

Derick Almena, the manager of the Oakland, California warehouse that went up in flames during a weekend party and killed at least 36 people, defended his role as landlord for the building which was used as a residential artist community. “I’m only here to say one thing: I’m incredibly sorry and that everything that I did was to make this a stronger and more beautiful community and to bring people together,” he said Tuesday on TODAY during an emotional interview.
- PUB DATE: 12/6/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Today.com

A hatch on the side of the single-engine Pilatus plane opened, exposing the flag-draped casket to the small crowd of family, friends and officials huddled in the biting wind outside Missoula’s smokejumper hangar Sunday afternoon. Four honor guards, two full-dressed representatives each from the Bureau of Land Management and the U.
- PUB DATE: 12/6/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Missoulian

Schriever Fire Chief Ken Pitre remembers when a truckload of about 1,500 butane bottles caught fire, causing U.S. 90 to shut down. "We watched the fireworks," he said. "All these bottles started exploding. It really caught me off guard in a way. It was in the middle of the night, and I remember coming out the door and all I heard was 'boom.
- PUB DATE: 12/6/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Thibodaux Daily Comet

Manuel Jimenez was four miles short of finishing a charity marathon in Memphis, Tennessee, on Saturday when a doctor pulled him from the race after noticing the paramedic firefighter from Northport was struggling to stay on his feet. No one could fault Jimenez for being fatigued -- he'd just run 22 miles wearing his full, 60-pound set of firefighting gear in an effort to raise money for St.
- PUB DATE: 12/6/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse

The death toll in the devastating Oakland warehouse fire climbed to 36 early Monday as officials said the search for more bodies had to halted due to precarious conditions just after they found what they suspect is the area where the blaze started. The number of victims recovered from the gutted building grew by three overnight, but work on recovering more bodies was stopped just after midnight due to a “wobbly” wall that was leaning inward and making the situation too dangerous for firefighters to continue, said Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton of the Oakland Fire Department.
- PUB DATE: 12/5/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: SFGate.com