Mayor Joseph M. Butler on Monday night received no support for hiring the same consultant that completed a study on the operations of the city’s fire department three years ago. City Council members Cody J. Horbacz. Mark C. Walczyk and Ryan Henry-Wilkinson voted against paying $24,000 to Center for Public Safety Management, a Washington, D.
- PUB DATE: 3/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Watertown Daily Times

President Donald Trump told the city’s first responders they are saving lives — and “the whole country is talking about it” — during a brief visit Monday afternoon to Manchester Central Station, the birthplace of the city’s Safe Station program. First lady Melania Trump, Mayor Joyce Craig and Gov. Chris Sununu joined the President when the presidential motorcade stopped at Central Fire Station en route to Manchester Community College, where Trump gave a speech detailing his “Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse.
- PUB DATE: 3/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Manchester Union Leader

Volunteers in Lycoming County aren't sure how long it will take for a firefighter to recover after she was critically injured Sunday on the job. The 62-year-old woman was helping to put out a fire when a truck ran over her. The injured firefighter asked that we not use her name in the story but tells Newswatch 16 she's doing well.
- PUB DATE: 3/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WNEP-TV Newswatch 16

Expected subsidization from AT&T could mean that FirstNet subscribers will pay little or no upfront money to purchase new Sonim Technologies devices—a development that is just part of the economics “sea change” happening within the industry, Sonim Technologies CEO Bob Plaschke said last week during IWCE 2018.
- PUB DATE: 3/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Urgent Communications

KD. Katie. Zombie. A common street name for a variety of drugs, KD has taken on a frightening form on the city's east side. Users writhing on the ground, wide-eyed and struggling to breathe. Standing but moving in slow motion. Sweating. Convulsing. Indianapolis firefighter Scott Lebherz told IndyStar this variation of KD can take many forms — marijuana, spice, tobacco, even banana leaves — but shares a common trait: all laced with a heavy-duty bug spray, like Raid.
- PUB DATE: 3/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Indianapolis Star

A firefighter accidentally shot himself in the groin while battling a grass fire off westbound 1-94, authorities said. The Athens firefighter had a concealed-pistol license, police told WWMT Newschannel 3. Emmett Township on Monday, March 19, called for an ambulance to the 100 mile marker of I-94 to a report that a firefighter had been shot in the groin area.
- PUB DATE: 3/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: MLive

With Springfield Fire Chief Barry Helmerichs retiring at the end of the month, Mayor Jim Langfelder is interviewing Springfield Fire Department members to find a replacement. Langfelder is mandated to limit his search to the existing force because of a clause in the firefighters’ contract that stipulates the hire must be internal.
- PUB DATE: 3/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: State Journal-Register

The city will not appeal the discrimination and retaliation case it lost to a pregnant firefight last year. That means the court case is over. Tampa Fire Rescue will obey a federal judge’s order and re-hire Tanja Vidovic, the firefighter it fired the day after she filed suit in March 2016. The city will also pay the $245,000 in damages the jury awarded her in December.
- PUB DATE: 3/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Tampa Bay Times

San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin criticized Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White as a residential and commercial building in his district burned, saying that firefighters had been slow to pour water on the blaze and that he had been unable to reach the chief as the emergency unfolded. “This was an abject failure of the Fire Department,” said Peskin, leader of the board’s progressive faction, as smoke poured from the building across from Washington Square Park in North Beach on Saturday night.
- PUB DATE: 3/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate.com)

Limington’s Board of Selectmen has ordered its volunteer fire department to “stand down until further notice” while the town tries to bring its firefighting protective gear into compliance with national standards. Selectmen said in a statement released Sunday that the town’s emergency rescue crews will continue to respond to all medical emergency calls during the stand-down, which is expected to last a few days, but in the meantime the town will rely on mutual aid from neighboring fire departments if a structure fire should break out.
- PUB DATE: 3/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Portland Press Herald

The body of missing Nashville firefighter Jesse Reed has been recovered in Humphreys County. Reed went missing in the Tennessee River on March 6 after his vehicle was submerged. The search for Reed lasted 12 days. He was found around 11:15 a.m. Saturday in a cove about a half mile from where his vehicle went into the water.
- PUB DATE: 3/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTVF-TV CBS 5 Nashville

At least six fatalities have been confirmed following the collapse of a pedestrian bridge over Tamiami Trail on Thursday. But at a press conference held Friday morning at the Florida International University Tamiami campus, Miami-Dade Police Department director Juan J. Perez said the names of the people killed in the collapse would not be made public until their families had been notified.
- PUB DATE: 3/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Miami Herald

Hillsborough County firefighters and paramedics will vote on a new union contract next week that for the first time would require random drug testing. Union leadership says it is up in the air whether the contract will pass, citing growing discord between the rank and file and Fire Rescue Chief Dennis Jones.
- PUB DATE: 3/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: tbo.com

For many of the firefighters who worked for hours to free a teenager from a North Side cave last week, it was the first time they were required to do so, as cave rescues in the San Antonio-area are extremely rare. On March 8, the San Antonio Fire Department’s technical rescue team was called out to the Robber Baron Cave, which stretches for a mile about 30 to 80 feet underground.
- PUB DATE: 3/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Antonio Express- News

Researchers recently conducted a study that suggests firefighters are still absorbing toxic chemicals through their skin despite wearing full turnout gear. A study conducted by University of Ottawa researchers found that firefighters had anywhere from three to more than five times the amount of toxins in their urine after battling a blaze than they did before.
- PUB DATE: 3/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1.com

Utica fire Chief Russell Brooks is back to Square One. A motion to reargue his lawsuit against the City of Utica -- in which he claimed the city rejected an application for benefits offered to responders affected by health conditions related to 9/11 recovery efforts -- was denied Thursday in state Supreme Court in Rome.
- PUB DATE: 3/16/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Observer-Dispatch

A newly-installed portion of a pedestrian bridge connecting Florida International University with the city of Sweetwater collapsed Thursday. According to the Florida Highway Patrol, there are "several fatalities." The 950-ton section of the $14.2 million bridge at Southwest Eighth Street and Southwest 109th Avenue was installed Saturday.
- PUB DATE: 3/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WPLG-TV ABC Local10.com - Miami & Fort Lauderdale

Firefighter Ralph A. Brown II from the Cobb County (GA) Fire and Emergency Services is the recipient of the 2018 Ray Downey Courage and Valor Award. Ralph A. Brown II has been a member of the fire service since 2005 and serves with Cobb County’s Technical Rescue Team, Squad 4 on C-Shift. He joined the technical rescue team in 2011.
- PUB DATE: 3/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fire Engineering

Some friends forget to call Pittston Mayor Mike Lombardo on his birthday, but they always remember to reach out every March 15. Tragedy struck the Pittston area that day in 1993 when his brother John, 25, a Pittston firefighter, and Leonard Insalaco, 20, a West Pittston fireman, died in a ferocious blaze on North Main Street in the city.
- PUB DATE: 3/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wilkes-Barre Citizens' Voice

A local firefighter who served in the U.S. Navy and had his home destroyed during Hurricane Sandy was sexually harassed and discriminated against for being a black Muslim, a new lawsuit filed against the FDNY alleges. Raheem Hassan, 30, of Staten Island, the fire eater arrested for allegedly threatening to "kill" his colleagues at a Brooklyn firehouse, endured being called a "n-----" and was asked to apologize for the Sept.
- PUB DATE: 3/15/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Staten Island Advance