VIDEO - J.J. Watt is one of the best defensive ends in the league. He takes on big players and makes huge tackles. To say he's tough might be an understatement. But what happens when he spends the day as a firefighter in his home town?
Watt and his father, John Watt, visited the Pewaukee (Wisconsin) fire station so that Watt could see what it's like to train as a firefighter in full gear. - PUB DATE: 8/11/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KPRC-TV NBC 2 Houston
GoodCall, a data analytics company, released a study listing the best places for first responders to live in the United States. According to their research, more metropolitan areas from the Pacific Northwest ranked in the top 20 than any other region of the country.
Nearly 1,000 metropolitan areas were analyzed in terms of safety, affordability of housing and pay, among other factors. - PUB DATE: 8/11/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1
A Cowlitz 2 firefighter has found another way to serve his community.
Brad Yoder, a Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue Firefighter/EMT, will donate his right kidney to Dana Clayton, a local woman who is lifelong friends with Yoder’s wife, Laura, according to a Cowlitz 2 press release.
The surgery will take place Monday at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland. - PUB DATE: 8/11/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Daily News
When one firefighter is seriously hurt a ripple is felt throughout the FDNY — but Tuesday it was more like a wave.
Three firefighters were critically injured in a massive inferno that ripped through five buildings in the Bronx. Officials say more than 170 firefighters responded to the fire which broke out at about 12:30 p. - PUB DATE: 8/10/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WNBC-TV NBC New York
In the latest show of support for police, hundreds of firefighters and staff Tuesday started wearing Back the Blue T-shirts on duty.
“It’s not only for our local Police Department but officers across the country,” Assistant Fire Chief Bill Murphy said Tuesday.
North Texas law enforcement agencies have been flooded with cards, emails and food from residents showing their support for officers, starting in the hours after Dallas police were ambushed July 7, leaving five officers dead. - PUB DATE: 8/10/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fort Worth Star-Telegram
VIDEO - Police in Kentucky are looking for a man caught on surveillance video attempting to torch a barbershop -- and in the process lighting himself ablaze.
Investigators in Madisonville -- located roughly 150 miles southwest of Louisville -- said two suspected arsonists in a white Ford minivan targeted the business Sunday morning. - PUB DATE: 8/10/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WHAS-TV ABC 11 Louisville
Fire departments that service unincorporated areas of the county are requesting funds from potential future income tax revenues that largely would pay for more personnel.
“Fire service, as a whole, outside the city limits is in dire need of personnel,” Ellettsville Fire Department Chief Mike Cornman told a committee of the Monroe County Income Tax Council on Monday night, speaking on behalf of Richland Township, which his department serves. - PUB DATE: 8/10/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firerescue1
Matthew A. Jurado told North Tonawanda police Thursday that he poured a bottle of lighter fluid on the couch in the apartment of Kenneth D. Walker, the city’s only African-American firefighter, and lit it.
However, Jurado said he did it because he was angry about being suspended from the Fire Department – not because of Walker’s race. - PUB DATE: 8/10/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Buffalo News
As the Soberanes Fire in Big Sur rages into its third week, the Cal Fire firefighters union is bringing its contract negotiations argument to the Monterey area.
The Sacramento-based Local 2881 took out an advertisement in The Monterey Herald titled “Cal Fire is proud to serve our community in time of disaster” and highlighted its claim that Cal Fire firefighters are underpaid when compared to other fire departments, ranging from minimum wage pay for entry-level firefighters to a salary lag of between 33 and 89 percent behind the state average. - PUB DATE: 8/9/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Cruz Sentinel
The state’s workers’ compensation commission will need to take a second look at a Homewood firefighter’s claim for coverage for post-traumatic stress disorder, after a state appeals court ruled legal precedent exists to support his claim and the commission was too hasty to toss his claims.
An arbitrator had found Lt. - PUB DATE: 8/9/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Cook County Record
The origin of a fatal motel fire in Newport came from a ground-level room but the incident killed four guests on the second floor, police said in an update Monday morning.
The fire, which ignited before 6 a.m. at the City Center Motel, killed two people from Portland and two from Springfield, Newport police Lt. - PUB DATE: 8/9/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Portland Oregonian
For almost three years now, Cindy Schuenke has had a court order demanding that she be reinstated as a firefighter with the Community Fire Protection District in north St. Louis County. The order makes it clear the district is to give the Pacific woman, 52, back pay to Aug. 9, 2009, when the fire district’s board illegally fired her. - PUB DATE: 8/9/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A former Oatman firefighter was arrested Sunday when he tried to help efforts to put out a fire but refused orders to stand down.
Jonathan Bradley Blake, 33, of Oatman, was arrested on suspicion of obstructing governmental operations, according to Mohave County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Trish Carter. - PUB DATE: 8/9/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Mohave Daily News
On July 7, shooter Micah Johnson fired a barrage of bullets towards officers and citizens in downtown Dallas.
Those who were struck were not alone, however. That night, Dallas paramedics risked their own lives to try and get to the wounded.
"I had guys who got back to the station who said they had bullets whizzing by their heads,” said Cristian Hinojosa, the president of the Latino Firefighters Association. - PUB DATE: 8/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WFAA-TV ABC 8 Dallas - Fort Worth
Tyler Townsend, the chief spokesman for the Kern County Fire Department, made $174,266 in overtime in 2015, on top of his $95,962 salary. That’s the most earned by anyone in the entire county.
He was able to bring home $283,952 in 2015, according to the independent watchdog site Transparent California. - PUB DATE: 8/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Bakersfield Californian
An official with a local police union said it is unacceptable not to pay the police officers and firefighters of Fairfield. Fairfield City Council voted Friday to withhold first responders checks until more funds come in next week. David Crews, immediate past president of the Birmingham area Fraternal Order of Police, said other city employees received their pay. - PUB DATE: 8/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: AL.com
A retired San Jose firefighter who tried to grab the man who stabbed to death a retired teacher in London this week says anyone would have tried to stop the attack.
Martin Hoenisch, 59, said he was just a tourist who knew what to do in a dire situation – namely try to subdue a man wielding a knife Wednesday in London’s Russell Square, near the British Museum. - PUB DATE: 8/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orange County Register
The Isonville Volunteer Fire Department is facing a lawsuit by an Elliott County man over a lack of payments in a $1 per year deal with the previous property owner.
Roger Howard, who lives near the fire department, recently bought the property that includes the fire department’s garage.
The garage has been on the property since 1995, and the fire department later entered into an agreement with Willis Lyon. - PUB DATE: 8/8/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Daily Independent
New York state has issued 14 violations to two fire departments regarding the Dec. 19 line-of-duty death of Mount Marion volunteer firefighter Lt. Jack Rose.
The Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau of the state Department of Labor issued the violations in early May. The Times Herald-Record obtained the reports on the two departments through a request under the Freedom of Information Law. - PUB DATE: 8/5/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Middletown Times Herald-Record
Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics now have access to ballistic kits that can protect against rounds from high-powered rifles, like those used in the ambush on Dallas police officers last month.
The kits are part of a modification to the active-shooter policy for DFR that will ultimately include collaboration with DPD. - PUB DATE: 8/5/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WFAA-TV ABC 8 Dallas - Fort Worth
