A former Autaugaville Volunteer Fire Department chief committed suicide two days before he was to be sentenced on ethics violations. Ernest Stoudemire was found dead Sunday, said Sheriff Joe Sedinger. The death has been ruled a suicide, the sheriff said. He declined to release specifics, given the nature of the case.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: montgomery advertiser

One morning the newspaper headlines read that research discovered that eggs are the perfect food for perfect health. The next day they read that scientists have found that eating eggs for breakfast is like holding a loaded gun to your head. It is so confusing that it makes you just want to eat a donut, doesn't it? This scientific double talk isn't confined to breakfast foods.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: firerescue1

A Burnet Fire Department ambulance rear-ended a semi Friday evening. The Burnet Fire Department has identified the paramedic driving the ambulance was firefighter and EMT Daniel Hampton. Hampton died as a result as his injuries. Hampton was a two year veteran of the Burnet Fire Department and is survived by his spouse and four children.
- PUB DATE: 9/21/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KXAN-TV NBC 36 Austin

The 2015 IAFF firefighter memorial was held Saturday, Sept. 19 at Memorial Park. Thousands of people were there to pay tribute to firefighters across America and Canada. A newly renovated memorial was unveiled with the names of those who paid the ultimate price. “This event here means everything to the firefighters,” President of Colorado Springs Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 5, Justin Koch said.
- PUB DATE: 9/21/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FOX21News.com

White smoke from a fire is billowing out the windows of a two-story home, and somewhere inside are three victims. Rigs from San Francisco Fire Station 7 squeal onto the scene. The firefighters pry open the metal front door. A child is rescued from under the living room couch, and two adults are saved from an upstairs bedroom.
- PUB DATE: 9/21/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: firerescue1

A nationwide push allowing schools to buy portable barricade devices they can set up if an active shooter enters their building has school security and fire experts questioning whether they're really safe. Those opposed to the devices say they're complicated to install under stress and could lead to dangerous unintended consequences — including blocking authorities from an attacker inside a classroom.
- PUB DATE: 9/21/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: u.s. news & world report

California fire officials said a wildfire north of San Francisco destroyed another 162 homes, raising the number of homes destroyed to 1,050 and making it the fourth worst wildfire in the state's history. The tally announced on Sunday brought the total number of homes destroyed in two wildfires burning in Northern California to nearly 1,600, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
- PUB DATE: 9/21/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: sacramento bee

Just days before a series of deadly, record-setting wildfires began exploding across Washington, the acting chief pilot for the state’s wildfire-attack helicopters wrote a letter to his superiors. Unfilled pilot positions were grounding some helicopters, John Adolphson wrote to senior staff at the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
- PUB DATE: 9/18/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Seattle Times

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) today announced the official launch of its 2015 U.S. Needs Assessment survey, the fourth distributed since 2001. The survey works to capture the level of resources and staffing among U.S. fire departments, and to identify where fire departments are meeting the needs of their communities and where there are gaps in the service they provide.
- PUB DATE: 9/18/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: National Fire Protection Association

When Platte Fire Chief Rick Gustad arrived on the scene of a fire that killed six people Thursday in Platte, the one-and-a-half-story house was almost completely destroyed. "It's not a real common occurrence to have a fully engulfed structure fire on arrival," Gustad said. "The house was pretty well destroyed when we arrived on the scene.
- PUB DATE: 9/18/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: INFORUM-Fargo

Mayor Kasim Reed is vowing to fire any city employee who had a role in an embarrassing photo scandal in which an Atlanta fire station was used as a backdrop for escort advertisements. “We’re going to fully investigate it, get to the bottom of it, and fire the people involved,” Reed said on Thursday.
- PUB DATE: 9/18/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Brainerd is considering restructuring its fire department, saving almost $266,000 a year by eliminating full-time firefighter positions stationed in its fire hall. The department currently has five full-time equipment operators who work over three shifts to staff the fire hall 24 hours per day. There is also 38 paid on-call firefighters.
- PUB DATE: 9/18/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Bemidji Pioneer

Sheriff Steve Loftis said a driver who ran over a Greenville County deputy, hit and killed a motorcyclist after deputies ended a "wild high speed chase" Thursday on US 25 north of Travelers Rest. Lieutenant Ty Miller said deputies responded to investigate a possible stolen vehicle at TD's gas station on SC 253.
- PUB DATE: 9/18/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: fox carolina

A battalion chief died Wednesday morning after suffering a cardiac arrest. Firefighter Close Calls reported that an ambulance was transporting Batt. Chief Maywood Gaskins, 56, with the Santee Circle (S.C.) Fire Department, after he suffered a cardiac arrest in his home following training at the firehouse.
- PUB DATE: 9/17/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: firerescue1

Cal Fire Capt. Scott Rohrs and his three crewmen were racing to the scene of the Valley Fire when the foreboding news crackled over radio dispatch: Four elite firefighters had been overrun by flames, suffering serious second-degree burns. The fire was barely an hour old, but driven by fierce winds and the most intense, dry conditions of California's four-year drought, those men had been forced to deploy their silver shelter bags, survival gear of last resort.
- PUB DATE: 9/17/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: san jose mercury news

A deputy was injured and a firefighter killed Thursday after a high-speed chase ended in a fatal wreck in northern Greenville County, authorities said. North Greenville firefighter Jordan Barry Howard, 30, of Marietta, was on his motorcycle heading to work at about 7:30 a.m. when he was struck head-on by a Ford pickup, Deputy Coroner Kent Dill said.
- PUB DATE: 9/17/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: greenville online

Standards are intended to provide a set of criteria by which firefighters can have some confidence that their turnout gear provides a minimum level of protection. For the past 40 years, NFPA 1971 has provided these criteria and undergone seven major revisions going from a dozen pages to the current 145 pages.
- PUB DATE: 9/17/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: firerescue1

San Antonio firefighters have received an internal memo asking that they do not wear their uniforms while going to and from work. "We had heard information that there had been a Houston fire captain that had been targeted, some other firefighters in the Houston area that had been targeted just by having uniforms on," SAFD Chief Charles Hood said.
- PUB DATE: 9/17/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KSAT-TV ABC 12 San Antonio

Four children were injured Wednesday in a late-night house fire in southeast Atlanta, and a neighbor Thursday described the dramatic rescue of the children by other neighbors and firefighters. When firefighters arrived at the home on Valley View Road about 10:30 p.m., a mother and her 9-year-old daughter were already outside, but they indicated that three other children were still inside the burning house, Channel 2 Action News reported.
- PUB DATE: 9/17/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Trained to jump off helicopters and launch early attacks on wildfires with only the tools on their backs, four firefighters took off from the Boggs Mountain Helitack Base in a Super Huey chopper Saturday during the Valley fire’s first explosive moments. Firefighters Niko Matteoli, Richard Reiff, Logan Pridmore and Capt.
- PUB DATE: 9/16/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: the press democrat