The Chippewa Falls Fire Department is saying goodbye to a long-time member. Friday marked the final day Lee Douglas held the title as Fire Chief, as he moves on to retirement. Douglas had been chief since 2019, but he had been working in the fire department for 32 years. He said that he's proud of the people he works with and how they are able to work with great professionalism and poise.
- PUB DATE: 1/7/2023 1:45:00 AM - SOURCE: WQOW-TV ABC 18 Eau Claire

The Holmen Area Fire Department is expanding. Thanks to a successful November referendum, the department will hire six firefighters this year for a full crew of about 12. The department is also in the early stages of recruiting a new fire chief. The department’s shared service agreement with the City of La Crosse ended at the end of 2022.
- PUB DATE: 1/6/2023 1:55:24 AM - SOURCE: WKBT-TV CBS 8 La Crosse

The need for more staffing is affecting fire departments across the state. Thursday night, the Lake Country Fire and Rescue squad held a meeting to unveil their plan to get more people on the job. Lake Country Fire services seven communities in Waukesha County’s Lake Country area, covering around 28,000 residents.
- PUB DATE: 1/5/2023 8:23:41 PM - SOURCE: WTMJ-TV NBC 4 Milwaukee

Two people suffered non-life-threatening injuries in a fire at a home in Janesville Thursday morning, the city’s fire department said. The fire broke out just before 5:50 a.m. at a home in the 1000 block of North Oakhill Avenue. In a news release, the Janesville Fire Department said firefighters got to the scene to find smoke visible from outside and flames visible in the home’s basement.
- PUB DATE: 1/5/2023 4:50:19 PM - SOURCE: WISC-TV CBS 3 Madison

An industrial fire at a central Wisconsin dairy plant caused ‘significant’ damage after it was started in a room storing butter, which then melted and spread throughout the building. According to the Portage Fire Department, firefighters responded to Associated Milk Producers Inc. (AMPI) at 301 Brooks Street around 9:15 p.
- PUB DATE: 1/4/2023 11:59:04 PM - SOURCE: WFRV-TV CBS 5 Green Bay

Milwaukee firefighters found a body in building Wednesday that they fought a fire at on Tuesday. The fire department said it was called Tuesday afternoon for smoke coming out of a building near Greenfield Avenue and Layton Boulevard. Firefighters extinguished the fires and conducted multiple searches of all accessible areas and investigated for cause and origin with the Milwaukee Police Department, the fire department said.
- PUB DATE: 1/4/2023 8:50:00 PM - SOURCE: WISN-TV ABC 12 Milwaukee

The Wisconsin Rapids Fire Department says it received a record number of calls for service once again in 2022. Chief Todd Eckes says the department responded to 4,747 calls in 2022, after fielding 4,600 in 2021 and just under 4,000 in 2020. He adds there has been an increased need in medical services, which could correlate with the number of older adults that call the city home.
- PUB DATE: 1/4/2023 5:42:00 PM - SOURCE: WAOW-TV ABC 9 Wausau

One person was found dead following a house fire in Dodgeville on Tuesday, according to fire officials. A statement from the Dodgeville Fire Department said fire crews were called to the intersection of North Main Street and Jewett Street for a house fire at 1:38 p.m. on Tuesday. Fire crews arrived on scene to find heavy smoke and were able to quickly put out the fire.
- PUB DATE: 1/4/2023 8:53:00 AM - SOURCE: WKOW-TV ABC 27 Madison

Mike Romsos was doing some soul searching in May 2022, after a residential fire in Barron that cost the lives of a man and his two children (see the “Year in Review published in the Dec. 28 edition of the News-Shield). “It was a heartbreaker,” said Romsos, the Barron-Maple Grove fire chief, during a Dec.
- PUB DATE: 1/4/2023 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Barron News-Shield

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest in Monday night's game against the Cincinnati Bengals. In a cardiac emergency, timing is a matter of life or death. Paramedics quickly began performing CPR on Damar Hamlin and used an automatic external defibrillator (AED) on the football player.
- PUB DATE: 1/4/2023 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTMJ-TV NBC 4 Milwaukee

One person has died in an overnight house fire on Mequon Road early Tuesday morning. According to a Southern Ozaukee Fire & EMS press release, a witness driving to work reported seeing flames coming from a residence located in the 12000 block of W. Mequon Road at approximately 2:49 a.m. The witness advised authorities that he did not see anything else out of the ordinary while passing the home.
- PUB DATE: 1/3/2023 11:28:00 PM - SOURCE: Ozaukee County News Graphic

One family is without a home after a Tuesday morning fire in Outagamie County. According to firefighters from the Town of Ellington Fire Department, a fire broke out at a home across the road from the fire station on Highway 76 at around 9:30 a.m. The family was home at the time but managed to evacuate safely.
- PUB DATE: 1/3/2023 11:25:49 PM - SOURCE: WFRV-TV CBS 5 Green Bay

The annual “Keep the Wreath Green” campaign did not go as well as firefighters hoped. For this campaign, local departments hang a wreath outside their stations between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every time participating departments respond to a structure fire, they switch a bulb on the wreath from green to red.
- PUB DATE: 1/3/2023 4:06:44 PM - SOURCE: WKBT-TV CBS 8 La Crosse

Emmanuel Mielke was nervous when he started his first day as a firefighter in February at a station in downtown Madison. But he had a head start. Mielke already met some of his colleagues when they were his instructors at the NextGen Responders Academy, an emergency medical responder and fire training certification program for high schoolers.
- PUB DATE: 1/3/2023 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wisconsin Public Radio

The Eau Claire fire department thanked the community for their support after what was an extremely busy year. On Facebook Monday, the fire department said they responded to 10,641 calls in 2022. That is nearly 1,000 more calls than 2021, which is also one of the biggest jumps in calls for service in the past decade.
- PUB DATE: 1/2/2023 11:56:00 PM - SOURCE: WQOW-TV ABC 18 Eau Claire

Four family members on Madison’s south side were displaced Sunday morning after a fire started in the walls of their home, according to Madison Fire Department. MFD said it responded just before 6 a.m. Sunday to calls of a fire on the 200 Block of West Lakeside St. When crews arrived at the two-story home, they saw heavy smoke coming from the roof.
- PUB DATE: 1/1/2023 12:18:14 PM - SOURCE: WMTV NBC 15 Madison

Sun Prairie Fire & Rescue Assistant Chief Bill Sullivan provided an update on the Statz Bros. dairy farm that caught fire Friday. Sullivan said before crews arrived on scene, smoke and flames were seen from a distance and additional firetrucks were called to bring in water. Eleven fire departments, four EMS agencies, and Dane County Sheriff's Office assisted in controlling the incident.
- PUB DATE: 12/31/2022 12:01:00 AM - SOURCE: WKOW-TV ABC 27 Madison

The Marshfield Common Council on Tuesday unanimously directed the city’s Fire and Police Commission to draft a referendum question regarding public safety staffing to discuss at its Jan. 10 meeting. The move comes after Fire Chief Pete Fletty and Police Chief Jody Geurink presented to the council the struggles their departments are facing — after the city cut their budgets by 4% to deal with shortfalls and after the fire department had to cut three positions earlier this year because the Emergency Medical Services Enterprise Fund had come up short of projections.
- PUB DATE: 12/22/2022 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Marshfield News Herald - Metered Site

Children who are likely to spend Christmas in the hospital are getting a major gift from area first responders. Firefighters Local 127 made two stops Wednesday. First to Gundersen followed by Mayo Clinic Health System. They delivered red blankets donning the La Crosse Fire Department logo. The gifts are an annual tradition.
- PUB DATE: 12/21/2022 11:30:00 PM - SOURCE: WXOW-TV ABC 19 La Crosse

The Lake Mills City Council voted to create a unified fire and EMS department, taking a step forward after a year of murky debate on the future of EMS service in the city. Alders voted 3-1, with one abstention, to have the City Manager blueprint the new service model, which will entail hiring four new full-time staffers while continuing to rely heavily on volunteer and paid-on-premise responders.
- PUB DATE: 12/21/2022 7:33:00 AM - SOURCE: Cambridge News / Deerfield Independent