In the latest volley involving a two-year contract dispute, the city and the firefighters’ union are squabbling over whether firefighters were forced to work on a new community garden located behind the South Massey Street fire station.
The Watertown Professional Fire Fighters Association Local 191 filed an improper practice charge with the state Public Employees Relation Board against the city, claiming firefighters were told by the city that they must work on the vegetable garden behind the city’s Emma Flower Taylor Fire Station. - PUB DATE: 7/21/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: watertown daily times
A Nashville district fire chief is in trouble after several of his Facebook posts were published on a local blog.
District Chief Tim Lankford has been pulled from the field and is now doing administrative work while the Nashville Fire Department continues its investigation.
In a letter to Lankford from Deputy Director Steve Holt, the department began investigating when the posts were published on the blog EastNashville. - PUB DATE: 7/21/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKRN-TV ABC 2 Nashville
A woman was seriously burned and a home was destroyed in the small desert community of Shelter Valley on Tuesday after it took firefighters roughly 30 minutes to respond because the local Cal Fire station was virtually unmanned. Residents say the Shelter Valley station has been mostly empty the past few weeks and they’ve been told the situation won’t change for a while because of staffing shortages. - PUB DATE: 7/21/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: the san diego union-tribune
A new fire chief took office last week just days after five police officers were killed in an ambush and the city was reeling from tragedy.
“You don’t expect to get hired on a job and have five funerals to attend immediately, and that’s heart-wrenching,” said enw Chief David Coatney.
Coatney was hired as chief of Dallas Fire-Rescue after serving as the chief for Round Rock near Austin. - PUB DATE: 7/20/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WFAA-TV ABC 8 Dallas - Fort Worth
The small Susitna Valley city of Houston lost its top emergency official this month when Fire Chief Tom Hood abruptly resigned with just two days' notice.
Houston, the only place in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough where marijuana businesses are currently allowed, is a city of more than 2,000 residents but no active police department. - PUB DATE: 7/20/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: alaska dispatch news
The Orlando fire chief is defending his crew inside Station Five, after an Orlando officer wrote in an incident report that he saw several wounded Pulse victims not being let into the fire station.
Chief Roderick Williams said that one of the ironies of having the station so close to Pulse, was the area was considered part of the crime scene. - PUB DATE: 7/20/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKMG-TV CBS 6 Click Orlando
VIDEO - Hightstown will not take any action against its fire chief in connection with a hip hop video shot at the borough's firehouse recently, the mayor said Tuesday.
Mayor Lawrence Quattrone said the matter was settled at a borough council meeting Monday night. The mayor declined to offer any other comment, saying it was a non issue. - PUB DATE: 7/20/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Trenton Times
A Mendon man was placed on probation Tuesday after pleading guilty to charges of obstructing firefighters' efforts to put out a blaze that leveled his home last year.
David W. Cheschi, 51, formerly of 138 Blackstone St., Mendon, was placed on probation for three years after pleading guilty in Worcester Superior Court to charges of interfering with firefighters, obstructing firefighting efforts and resisting arrest. - PUB DATE: 7/20/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Ingham Township Fire Chief Tim Whipple, who died Saturday at 55, is being remembered as a dedicated community servant and a leader who inspired his fellow firefighters.
“These guys would follow him to the ends of the Earth because of the amount of trust they had for him,” said Delhi Township Fire Chief Brian Ball, who knew Whipple for 20 years. - PUB DATE: 7/19/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: lansing state journal
City officials are mourning the loss of city firefighter Joseph DeMarinis, a Marine Corps veteran who died at age 32 last week.
DeMarinis died Thursday of a "cardiac event" surrounded by his immediate relatives and members of his Clermont Fire Department family, according to the city.
DeMarinis had been with the Clermont department since August 2014 and was assigned to Station 3. - PUB DATE: 7/19/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: orlando sentinel
Arlington’s Fire Station 8 has stood along Lee Highway for nearly a century, founded by African American volunteers who feared that white emergency crews would not protect them or their homes.
The county wants to replace the cramped, outdated facility with a modern one farther north, where response times lag well behind the county standard. - PUB DATE: 7/19/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Washington Post - metered site
Two construction workers had to jump to safety after a welding blanket caught fire on a scissor lift basket at the new Simplot headquarters in downtown Boise.
Boise Fire says the construction workers were treated for smoke inhalation and minor burns, but were released on scene.
"They were on the lift and it was a long ways for them to be able to make it over to the side of the building to jump off," Boise Fire safety spokesman Jason Lewis said. - PUB DATE: 7/19/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KBCI-TV 2 Boise
Buffalo firefighters are being urged by their union and the New York State Professional Fire Fighters Association (NYSPFFA) to be cautious, after the state association found threatening comments against firefighters on social media.
The NYSPFFA says the threats come from a subject claiming to be from an extremist group, but the group has not been named. - PUB DATE: 7/19/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKBW-TV ABC 7 Buffalo
Flames appeared out the front of Guerneville’s downtown medical clinic as the first fire engine arrived.
Monte Rio Fire Chief Steve Baxman, in his pickup, pulled up just behind the Guerneville engine and as the highest-ranking fireman, took control. He sent firefighters inside and up ladders to the roof while others tried to salvage medical supplies. - PUB DATE: 7/18/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: the press democrat
Loyalist Fire has confirmed that one of their firefighters is dead after battling a fire at an Amherstview apartment building early Saturday evening.
Patrick Pidgeon, 45, succumbed to injuries sustained while battling the working structure fire at 339 Amherst Drive.
"Patrick was a decorated and honoured Canadian Forces veteran who served in many overseas conflicts including two tours in Afghanistan," said Loyalist Fire Chief Fred Stephenson. - PUB DATE: 7/18/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: kingstonregion.com
The Providence City Council has hired one of the state’s most prominent attorneys to be its eyes and ears when it comes the ongoing dispute between the Elorza administration and the city’s firefighters.
Max Wistow, who is currently representing the state of Rhode Island in its high-profile lawsuit against former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling and other key players from the failed 38 Studios deal, will earn $250 per hour to advise the council on how settlement negotiations between the city and firefighters’ union are progressing, according to Council President Luis Aponte. - PUB DATE: 7/18/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WPRI-TV Providence 12
A Rostraver man refused to leave his burning home Thursday and fought with firefighters, tossing one of their helmets from a second-floor balcony and pulling the oxygen masks off others, according to police.
A township police officer had to go inside the burning Indian Hill Road home and arrest homeowner Donald Panepinto Jr. - PUB DATE: 7/18/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Troubling allegations of hazing and even racist abuse at the San Francisco Fire Academy have emerged as the city is shelling out $100,000 a day in overtime to account for a significant shortage of firefighters, NBC Bay Area has learned.
Currently, some 54 firefighter recruits are undergoing training at the Division of Training to join the ranks of 1,500 firefighters in the city – 250 firefighters short of the department’s authorized strength. - PUB DATE: 7/18/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KNTV-TV NBC 11 Bay Area
Residents and town officials in East Granby are mourning the loss of Fire Chief Peter Ahlstrin, who died in a crash along Route 20 in Windsor Thursday night.
At approximately 10:40 p.m. Thursday, State Police responded to Route 20 near the Hamilton Road South exit on a report of a crash. Upon arrival, troopers discovered that a vehicle being driven by 28-year-old Ahlstrin, had struck a wire rope guard rail on the right shoulder of the roadway, then rolled down an embankment. - PUB DATE: 7/15/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTNH-TV ABC 8 New Haven
The Temple Hills homeowner who prosecutors say shot and killed a Prince George’s County firefighter and injured a second in April will not face a murder charge, state’s attorney Angela Alsobrooks announced Thursday. Instead, Darrell Lumpkin, 61, has been indicted on six counts related to illegal possession of firearms. - PUB DATE: 7/15/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTOP-AM 1500 Washington
