For years, Rohnert Park had a bad reputation among local fire departments.
Fire bosses in neighboring cities said Rohnert Park’s firefighters lacked training and supervision, were understaffed and relied too heavily on outside agencies to extinguish fires and call the shots.
City Hall and public safety officials have flatly dismissed the criticisms. - PUB DATE: 11/17/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: santa rosa press democrat
Austin city officials announced the temporary suspension of a fire battalion chief for being involved in what they described as a preventable car crash involving one of the fire department's vehicles.
Battalion Chief Jeff Pine was suspended for three days, with his suspension starting Tuesday, a disciplinary memo from Austin fireChief Rhoda Mae Kerr said. - PUB DATE: 11/17/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: firehouse
Town Council voted Monday night to bring charges against two of its four remaining suspended volunteer firefighters. The unspecified charges will be handled by a hearing officer, who will decide the firefighters' fates in the company, officials said.
Town Solicitor Brian Howell, who along with Town Business Administrator Jerry Barberio has investigated allegations against six firefighters, did not name the two who will face a hearing. - PUB DATE: 11/17/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: press of atlantic city
The city of Flagstaff is looking to try something new when it comes to training its firefighters for leadership positions.
Flagstaff Fire Chief Mark Gaillard will propose a two-year pilot program with Summit Fire District at Tuesday’s Flagstaff City Council meeting. The program would involve the city making one of the Fire Department’s battalion chiefs an acting deputy chief and assigning that person to Summit Fire for day-to-day operations. - PUB DATE: 11/16/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Arizona Daily Sun
Being a volunteer firefighter meant everything to Pat Hardison, but when an accident during a rescue mission left his face severely burned, he thought he would never be the same again.
“It was terrible,” Hardison, 41, told “Nightline." “I mean, I left home one day a normal dad, leaving to go to work, just a blonde-haired, blue-eyed-- that had everything going, I thought, and just like that everything changed drastically. - PUB DATE: 11/16/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: abc news
Attorneys representing a man accused of setting a fire in 1995 that killed three Pittsburgh firefighters called prosecutors' attempt to get a new judge “pure gamesmanship” in a motion filed Friday.
Gregory Brown, 38, is awaiting a retrial based on evidence that prosecutors didn't share with jurors and the defense that a federal agent and a prosecutor promised two key witnesses cash rewards in exchange for their testimony. - PUB DATE: 11/16/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Mendocino Redwood Co. is challenging a tiny fire protection district’s new parcel tax, calling it unlawful.
It’s one of two fronts on which the timber corporation is wrangling with the 44-square-mile Albion-Little River Fire Protection District, which has about 3,000 residents along the Mendocino County coast. - PUB DATE: 11/16/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Rosa Press Democrat
VIDEO - A viral video of a dog nearly burning down a house in Waterbury is now being used around the country to teach fire safety.
The video shows three dogs left alone with a couple of pizzas on a stove. One of the dogs jumped up to take a sniff, and wound up turning on the cooktop. The pizza box burst into flames. - PUB DATE: 11/16/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTNH-TV ABC 8 New Haven
The family of firefighter Kevin Bell, who died while fighting a house fire last year, will sue the city, claiming among other things that the lieutenant who entered the burning house with him may have left Bell behind to die because of "personal animus" between the two men. At a press conference Thursday in the office of their attorney, Paul Levin, Bell's widow and his brother said they hope the lawsuit will provide answers to why Bell was left behind last October and why no one searched for him for eight minutes even though a "mayday call had been made. - PUB DATE: 11/13/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: hartford courant
An influential advisory committee backed a proposal Wednesday to streamline Sonoma County’s tangled mix of 40-plus fire agencies and request about $9.5 million in annual funding, ending a 14-month study that explored ways to reshape the county’s complex fire services network.
About three dozen fire officials from throughout the county hammered out the final decisions at an almost four-hour meeting that touched on the most sensitive issue — the identity of local fire agencies. - PUB DATE: 11/13/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Lights flashing and siren blaring, the ambulance stopped at a red light, checking for traffic. The firefighter at the wheel eased forward. Halfway through the intersection, his partner saw the truck.
“I said, ‘This is going to hurt,’ ” Montgomery County firefighter Robert Sito, 27, told accident investigators later that day at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. - PUB DATE: 11/13/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: the washington post
The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) is partnering on a project with the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) and Drexel University in Philadelphia to research the occurrences and effects of violence against firefighters and EMS responders.
The study will examine the circumstances surrounding these acts and determine ways to mitigate workplace/on-duty incidents of violence against responders. - PUB DATE: 11/13/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: firehouse
The ACLU has filed a sex discrimination charge with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights and the E-E-O-C on behalf of Former Harmony EMT and Firefighter Kimberly Perreault.
"I just think that the board and the chief should be held accountable for their actions,” said Perreault.
Perreault had been with the volunteer fire district for 12 years working primarily as an EMT. - PUB DATE: 11/13/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WLNE-TV ABC 6
Federal officials have rejected a call to toughen the fire-resistance of railroad tank cars that carry highly flammable crude oil, hundreds of which pass through the Chicago area each day. The U.S. Department of Transportation is standing by its decision issued last spring that new and retrofitted tank cars be required to withstand being engulfed in a pool of burning liquid for 100 minutes without exploding. - PUB DATE: 11/12/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: chicago tribune
A Denver Fire Department report following the July death of firefighter John Whelan calls for numerous changes including a dedicated safety officer, better internal information flow, and a variety of warnings to firefighters about the kind of lightweight skylight Whelan fell through on June 28.
The veteran firefighter stepped through a fiberglass skylight on a warehouse roof in North Denver as he helped deal with a dumpster fire. - PUB DATE: 11/12/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KCNC-TV CBS 4 Denver
The town of Carmel wants to slash its 2016 fire-protection contract with the Mahopac Volunteer Fire Department by 32 percent as part of the fallout of a probe into up to $5 million of missing funds from the department. In addition, a Journal News investigation has learned: Several municipalities have severed ties with Buckshollow Emergency Equipment Corp. - PUB DATE: 11/12/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NY Journal News (Lohud.com)
When it comes to fire safety, we all know the saying, “Stop, Drop and Roll.” But you may not have heard this one, “Close your bedroom door at night.”
An NBC 5 investigation found new research showing how sleeping with the bedroom door closed could provide lifesaving time to escape a house fire — a message not often promoted by the nation’s leading fire safety groups. - PUB DATE: 11/12/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KXAS-TV NBC 5 Dallas - Fort Worth
A state court on Monday said the City Commission did not engage in nepotism by promoting the mayor’s son over another qualified firefighter.
Firefighter Daniel Dunn, in a complaint to the Civil Service Commission, said he was bypassed for the promotion in 2013 in favor of Ernie Troiano III because Troiano is the son of Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. - PUB DATE: 11/12/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: press of atlantic city
The American West needs a new kind of firefighter that fights fires that aren't only wild or urban, but burn in the space between.
This was the main finding from a group of researchers who studied the 2012 Waldo Canyon fire, Colorado's second most destructive wildfire and one that has come to epitomize the transformation of wildfires into massive urban disasters. - PUB DATE: 11/10/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: colorado springs gazette
Jessamine County paramedic John Mackey, who was struck by a car last week, died Monday, and his former supervisors remembered him as a caring professional.
"He was a great employee, a dependable employee," said Jerry Domidion, former director of Jessamine County's Emergency Medical Services. "He was fun to be around and he took his job seriously. - PUB DATE: 11/10/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: lexington hearld-leader
