After seven years of demanding that their death and disability benefits be restored, San Diego City Firefighters finally had their voices heard after the City Council voted unanimously to bring the benefits back.
The council made the decision less than five minutes after the firefighters arrived at City Hall and was met with a standing ovation. - PUB DATE: 8/7/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KGYV NBC 10 San Diego
VIDEO: For firefighters, sometimes the blaze is only half the battle.
"Regardless of who you are on the fire scene you get exposed to chemicals.” Over the past 3 years, Dr. Jeff Burgess, Associate Dean for Research and Professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, and Tucson Fire have researched ways to reduce cancer causing particles. - PUB DATE: 8/7/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOLD-TV CBS 13 Tucson
A state Senate probe of New York's building codes zeroes in on two municipalities with terrible reputations: Mount Vernon, where a lone inspector handles the entire city, and Ramapo, where lax enforcement has led volunteer firefighters and the County of Rockland to step in.
"The key takeaway from this investigation is that there has been a systematic failure to adequately prioritize code enforcement at all levels of government," said state Sen. - PUB DATE: 8/7/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Journal News (LoHud.com)
The State of Montana will pay the volunteer firefighters that fought the North Hills Fire.
Montana DNRC has hired the firefighters under their Emergency Firefighter (EFF) program.
The volunteers will be paid for their hours spent fighting the fire from 12:00 p.m. on July 26 through 12:00 a.m. August 1. - PUB DATE: 8/7/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTVH-TV NBC 12 Helena
VIDEO: South Metro Fire Rescue is trying something it says is “fairly revolutionary” among fire departments.
Monday night, SMFR officially swore in two dogs to the department. Champ and Molson even have their own badges.
“It really, truly solidified them as an employee and gives them the ability to be a part of the department the same that way I am or anybody else,” Molson’s handler, paramedic supervisor JP Piche told FOX31. - PUB DATE: 8/7/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KDVR-TV FOX 31 Denver
VIDEO: A former New York City Fire Department fireboat that served during some of the city's most dramatic moments is getting an "over-hull" in a local shipyard before being relaunched as a museum ship.
The John D. McKean was pulled out of the water last week at North River Shipyard to have its hull repaired and will be there through August. - PUB DATE: 8/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Journal News (LoHud.com)
VIDEO: Fire prevention has been top of mind for Jack Daniel’s Master Distiller Jeff Arnett after a blaze at a Jim Beam warehouse destroyed 45,000 bourbon barrels and littered a nearby river with fish killed by the resulting alcohol runoff.
Destructive fires, explosions and warehouse collapses threaten large distilleries across the country, where highly flammable hard liquor is aged and stored in massive quantities before it’s bottled and shipped around the world. - PUB DATE: 8/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Leaf-Chronicle
The plane that dropped 15 smokejumpers into one of the most infamous firefighting tragedies in U.S. history once again flew over the rugged Montana gulch along the Missouri River on Monday to mark the 70th anniversary of the fire.
The C-47 now called Miss Montana dropped 13 wreaths, one for each firefighter killed in the blaze that caused the U. - PUB DATE: 8/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KNBN-TV NBC 1
Youngstown’s fire chief said he has received a commitment from the mayor that the city will find the money needed to keep his department operating in a safe and efficient manner.
During a public meeting Monday night, Chief Barry Finley stood before 50 people, including 15 firefighters, and told them he was done conceding to cuts. - PUB DATE: 8/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKBN-TV CBS 27 Youngstown
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When large wildfires break out in California, including San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, it's all hands on deck to protect life and property.
Many of those hands have spent time in shackles but as recently passed criminal justice reform laws take full effect, the number of inmate firefighters is down. - PUB DATE: 8/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KSBY-TV NBC/CW+ 6 San Luis Obispo
Muscatine Assistant Fire Chief Mike Hartman remembers the shock on his crew’s faces the day more than 16 years ago they lost a longtime member of their team.
“It was a bad situation all around,” he said. “We did everything we could to get to him, but unfortunately there was nothing we could do.”
After the crew had extinguished the fatal blaze, Hartman said, the loss really settled in. - PUB DATE: 8/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Muscatine Journal
It’s commonplace around firehouses to see firefighters transition to new career paths after two decades of service.
But usually, first-responder crews watch people walk out their doors when they hit about 50. Very few walk through the door fresh to firefighting.
At age 53, however, D.C. fire department paramedic Carmen Hackett is doing that: She graduated Friday as the most senior member and the only paramedic in Firefighter Recruit Class 388. - PUB DATE: 8/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Washington Post - Metered Site
Growing up in the mountains of northern New Mexico, Vidalia Vigil learned all about “roughing it” and hard work at an early age.
The 24-year-old recalled going out for her own wood, learning how to use power tools in her early teens and camping regularly throughout her upbringing around Pecos. This background came in handy when, right out of high school, she became an on-call wildland firefighter in the Pecos/Las Vegas district with the Santa Fe National Forest. - PUB DATE: 8/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Albuquerque Journal
Southwest Nampa has been in need of a fire station for eight years, according to the fire chief, and the mayor says it could be 2024 or later before funding is available.
The city of over 100,000 people has five fire stations and, given the call volume, needs three more, Fire Chief Kirk Carpenter said. - PUB DATE: 8/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Idaho Press
The Kern County Fire Department is losing firefighters to other agencies because of low pay, according to the Kern County Firefighters Association.
A tweet sent out earlier this week announced that two firefighters had resigned to go to other fire departments, and that a total of 41 firefighters were lost for a similar reason since 2014. - PUB DATE: 8/5/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KERO-TV ABC 23 Bakersfield
VIDEO: Minnesota’s Aviation Rescue Team (MART) deployed more times last weekend then they often see in a month, after three calls for help sent teams on rescues to the North Shore and Boundary Waters.
The team is made up of 16 St. Paul firefighters and pilots from the Minnesota State Patrol, and is based at a hangar at Holman Field in St. - PUB DATE: 8/2/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KSTP-TV ABC 5 St. Paul
Cancer in the fire service is a critical issue. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found that firefighters have a 9 percent increase in cancer diagnosis and a 14 percent increase in cancer-related death as compared to the general population. While those numbers may not appear too startling, one must also consider that, while firefighters’ overall cancer diagnoses do not far outpace the general public, their diagnosis of particular types of cancers does. - PUB DATE: 8/2/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse
Congressman Pete Stauber, R-Duluth, and Congressman Jared Golden, D-Maine, introduced legislation Tuesday, July 30, to ensure the infrastructure of fire stations across the nation allow firefighters to efficiently and safely perform their jobs.
The Fire Station Infrastructure Safety Act would direct the U. - PUB DATE: 8/2/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Brainerd Dispatch
For the past school year, the Chester County Intermediate Unit’s Technical College High School (TCHS) students have been hard at work on a new advertising campaign to convince their classmates to join their local, Chester County fire station as junior volunteer firefighters. This fall, the fruits of their labor will finally be on display. - PUB DATE: 8/2/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Daily Local News
One of the biggest challenges facing firefighters across Alaska in the 2019 fire season was smoke. The thick smoke that blanketed much of Alaska made firefighting efforts difficult. Much of firefighting is conducted from the air. Tankers and helicopters drop water and retardant on fires. Fire crews use aircraft to map the blazes, and supplies are dropped in from the air. - PUB DATE: 8/2/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Webcenter11 Fairbanks
