A state district judge on Tuesday dissolved a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of the voter-approved charter amendment granting pay parity to Houston firefighters and denied further attempts by the city and police union to delay the measure.
State District Judge Randy Wilson, ruling in favor of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, decided that voters were informed of the amendment’s price tag — more than $100 million a year — before the election and approved it anyway. - PUB DATE: 12/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle
An Orange County doctor has been arrested on suspicion of illegally selling powerful narcotics to a man who is suspected in a DUI crash that killed a Costa Mesa fire captain, as well as selling drugs to five people who went on to fatally overdose, local officials with the Justice Department announced Tuesday. - PUB DATE: 12/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTLA News 5
A firefighter who was run over by a pickup truck during last month's deadly Southern California wildfire was sleeping in an unmarked area but received prompt care for his minor injuries, a new state fire report said.
South Kitsap Fire & Rescue Lt. Terry Geiselman, 46, was with a team from Washington state that had arrived to help battle the Woolsey Fire that ripped through communities west of Los Angeles from Ventura County southward to Malibu. - PUB DATE: 12/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Luis Obispo County Tribune
Two Columbus firefighter-paramedics were suspended without pay for taking photographs of medical patients without their permission and sending them to others.
The Department of Public Safety announced the suspensions Monday afternoon.
Firefighter-paramedic Mike McConnell, an eight-year veteran of the division, admitted to taking photographs and video in 2016 of a patient. - PUB DATE: 12/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Columbus Dispatch
When Christine Uhlhorn was in kindergarten and was asked to draw a picture of what she wanted to do when she grew up, she drew a firetruck.
“My family has over 250 years in the fire service,” said Uhlhorn, 50. “I never questioned it. There was nothing else I ever wanted to do.” Uhlhorn, a third generation firefighter, was named Monday by County Executive Calvin Ball as the new fire chief of Howard County’s Department Fire and Rescue Services. - PUB DATE: 12/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Baltimore Sun
The Board of Supervisors in Patrick County declined to pull funding from the JEB Stuart volunteer rescue squad, but it did pass a motion stating the county condemns acts of hate and white supremacy.
This comes after the entire country now knows a part-time paid emergency medical technician in the county frequently co-hosts a podcast, the Daily Shoah, that routinely makes racist jokes and pro-white comments. - PUB DATE: 12/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WSLS-TV
Ron Herrera could have stopped fighting fires years ago. But what exactly, he wonders, would he do with himself then? Honored Monday for wrapping his 45th year with Albuquerque Fire Rescue, the 66-year-old lieutenant has now logged the equivalent of more than two full careers with the department. He once worked alongside the fathers – and, in at least one case, the grandfather – of some of his current peers. - PUB DATE: 12/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Albuquerque Journal
The investigation of a Harlem building blaze that killed a firefighter and disrupted production of a movie starring Edward Norton was rigged so Norton’s production company -- which was using the building for filming – would escape blame, an FDNY fire marshal claims.
Fire Marshal Scott Specht, the lead investigator in the fire, accuses Chief Fire Marshal Thomas Kane, his deputy J. - PUB DATE: 12/17/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News
A former fire chief has filed a federal lawsuit against the Center Township Fire Department for more than 330 hours of overtime.
Ernie Campbell alleges in his suit that he was fired over a time-off request and did not receive his compensatory time or pay for more than eight weeks since he began working for the department in 1989. - PUB DATE: 12/17/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Lebanon Reporter
The Burlington Rescue Squad will hire temporary workers to help fill time slots for emergency medical technicians.
In an agreement between the nonprofit squad and the city, the city will handle the hiring of the temporary workers but their salary will be paid for by the volunteer squad. The squad, a private entity run under the auspices of the Burlington Rotary Club, also serves the Town of Burlington. - PUB DATE: 12/17/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Racine Journal Times
Retired Worcester firefighter John Griffin recalled how much it meant nearly two decades ago when other city employees stepped in to relieve the city’s fire personnel while they mourned their six colleagues killed in the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. fire.
Saturday, Mr. Griffin and some of his fellow retirees from the department will pay that favor forward to the city’s current firefighters when they grieve for Christopher J. - PUB DATE: 12/17/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Worcester Telegram & Gazette
VIDEO: Orlando firefighters are being credited with helping to save a woman and her car after they got stuck on railroad tracks in downtown as a freight train approached.
The rescue was captured on cellphone video by Nolan Thompson on Wednesday night.
According to Orlando fire officials, people started banging on the doors to Fire Station 1 at approximately 11:20 p. - PUB DATE: 12/17/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKMG-TV CBS 6 Click Orlando
For years, they’ve watched from across the street as the trucks go in and out of the Park Avenue fire station, protecting the city and its residents. Now Harris Auto Body is returning the favor, giving two fire trucks a final detailing in preparation for Firefighter Christopher J. Roy’s funeral services. - PUB DATE: 12/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Worcester Telegram & Gazette
At 6:33 a.m. on Nov. 8, a Butte County dispatcher answered what was among the first emergency calls in what would become the deadliest wildfire in California history: A “powerline transformer sparked and there is a fire,” the Magalia caller reported.
By just after 8 a.m., residents of Concow and Magalia were phoning in a panic — some of them trapped and needing rescue and others frantically alerting authorities to parents and grandparents in harm’s way, according to Butte County dispatchers’ logs. - PUB DATE: 12/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle
Two more top Baltimore County officials are leaving as County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. sets up his new administration.
Fire Chief Kyrle Preis and planning director Andrea van Arsdale announced this week that they are retiring. They were two of the department heads who were not included in a list of appointments and reappointments that Olszewski sent to the Baltimore County Council last week. - PUB DATE: 12/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Baltimore Sun
Southwest Airlines recently found itself in hot water and had to apologize for the actions of one of its employees. That person, a gate agent, had joked with coworkers about the unusual name of one of the passengers on the flight, and later posted a picture of that passenger’s boarding pass to her personal social media account. - PUB DATE: 12/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1
The city of Houston has alleged in a legal claim that the voter-approved charter amendment granting firefighters equal pay to police officers is unconstitutional and preempted by Texas’ local government code, echoing a similar contention from the Houston Police Officers’ Union.
The claim, filed in state district court as part of the police union’s lawsuit against the Houston Professional Fire Firefighters Association and the city, comes 10 days after a judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of Proposition B, which passed with 59 percent of the vote last month. - PUB DATE: 12/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle
At least 12 people are recovering from injuries after a massive fire burned through several businesses in Sunnyside, Queens.
The fire broke out inside one store on Queens Boulevard around 2:14 a.m. Thursday and quickly spread.
Dozens of firefighters were called to the scene as the fire grew to five alarms. - PUB DATE: 12/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WABC-TV ABC 7
Austin City Council members on Thursday will consider an ordinance that would require most of the city’s fire vehicles to be staffed with a minimum of four people, a move decades in the making that supporters say will improve safety and efficiency at the Fire Department.
The ordinance would essentially bring into law a policy that the Fire Department has already been implementing to make sure that first responders are able to act immediately during a critical fire incident. - PUB DATE: 12/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Austin American-Statesman
The attorneys for the Ghost Ship defendants are asking the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for an unusual move — to arrest the warehouse landlords and fire department officials for the deadly fire.
Attorneys for Derick Almena and Max Harris announced the motion to compel the arrests on Tuesday, asking for a laundry list of arrests that includes the Ghost Ship warehouse landlord Chor Ng and her two children, Eva and Kai, who served as building managers. - PUB DATE: 12/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Bay Times
