City Council tonight approved an agreement that will expand the Rockford Fire Department’s mobile integrated health program, could reduce congestion in area emergency rooms and decrease the number non-emergency ambulance rides. Chief Derek Bergsten said under the program, Rockford firefighter paramedics will provide what is sometimes called “paramedicine.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Rockford Register Star

A Raytown Fire Department station was burglarized on Labor Day while firefighters were raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Police were dispatched to the station at 6020 Raytown Trafficway about 2:30 p.m. A Fire Department employee discovered that his wallet and other items were taken from his bedroom at the station while he had been participating in the fundraiser.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Kansas City Star

PHOTO - A Tinder date ended worse than anyone could have expected when firefighters had to rescue a woman from in between two window panes. According to his GoFundMe campaign, Tinder user Liam Smith and his date went to his house after dinner to watch a documentary. Smith said his date used the restroom, and came back with a panicked look on her face.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

The Salisbury firefighter hit by a fire vehicle Sunday is out of surgery and doing well, according to a Salisbury Fire Department Facebook post. A crew of Maryland State Police troopers flew the injured firefighter to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore after the Sunday afternoon incident.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Delmarva Now

Flames came down around Dave Ferrera’s La Tuna Canyon home Saturday as he scrambled around his property to douse the small fires igniting everywhere. Fueled by triple-digit heat, wind and dry brush, the flames could not be stopped and he called out for help. The firefighters who had been there earlier in the day hadn’t gotten to the flames above in time, he said, so the blaze just chewed its way down the canyon and wrapped around his home, the one that sat on 10 acres at the end of La Tuna Canyon Road.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Los Angeles Daily News

A desperate Queens mom climbed halfway out of her window, then steeled herself to do the unthinkable — and the unavoidable — drop her baby from the third floor of a burning building, officials said. Just then, mother and child were saved. When firefighters arrived at the Rockaway Beach fire on Beach 91st St.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

For the sixth year, the IAFC received a grant from Motorola Solutions Foundation to fund another year of the Fire Service Executive Development Institute (FSEDI). FSEDI is a program developed by the IAFC to provide new and aspiring chiefs with the tools they need for successful and productive tenures.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: International Association of Fire Chiefs

VIDEO - The top floor of a Worcester three-family home was destroyed by a fire on Labor Day. Firefighters responded to a call around 4 p.m. for active flames at a building on Farwell Street. Officials said heavy smoke poured from the top floor of the building, with winds adding intensity to the fire and causing it to spread.
- PUB DATE: 9/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WCVB-TV ABC 5 Boston

Firefighters had to swim to a fire hydrant while rescuing a family from a burning home. In a Washington Post video, a crew from the Houston Fire Department responded to a fully-involved house fire in a flooded neighborhood. The house was surrounded by three feet of water, according Senior Fire Captain Jay Dillon.
- PUB DATE: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

There is new fallout from the fierce debate over Cleveland Browns players kneeling during the national anthem. Cleveland safety forces have backed out of a plan to hold a large flag on the field for the opening game. A dozen Browns players created a firestorm during a recent preseason game by not standing during the anthem.
- PUB DATE: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WJW-TV MyFox Cleveland

The Pismo Beach man who was killed Thursday morning in a collision on Highway 41 in Kings County was a Santa Maria-based U.S. Forest Service battalion chief. Gary Helming, 47, sustained fatal injuries in the collision, which occurred south of Highway 33, according to the Kings County Coroner’s Office and the California Highway Patrol.
- PUB DATE: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Luis Obispo County Tribune

A frantic mother rang the doorbell of the Orlando Fire Department’s Station One about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. Her 26-day-old son was cradled in her arms, lifeless and blue after he’d stopped breathing moments before, OFD Lt. Tim Capps said. A firefighter took the baby from his mother, rushing him through the fire department’s largest station at 78 West Central Blvd.
- PUB DATE: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orlando Sentinel

Firefighters had to swim to a fire hydrant while rescuing a family from a burning home. In a Washington Post video, a crew from the Houston Fire Department responded to a fully-involved house fire in a flooded neighborhood. The house was surrounded by three feet of water, according Senior Fire Captain Jay Dillon.
- PUB DATE: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

Poor preparation by park crews and a massive failure of imagination allowed the November wildfire that began in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to grow, pick up speed and sweep through Gatlinburg and surrounding parts of Sevier County, leaving death and destruction in its wake, according to a federal review released Thursday.
- PUB DATE: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Knoxville News Sentinel

Cuts in the Fire Department budget have resulted in layoffs for the town's 18 per-diem firefighters who will lose their jobs at the end of September. Town Manager Vic Hodgkins in an Aug. 30 letter to each per-diem firefighter, wrote that the layoffs were the result of voters' decision at the June 17 town meeting to cut the Fire Department budget by $145,629.
- PUB DATE: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Sun Journal

Ten Harris County deputies were exposed to a 'non-toxic irritant' after a release of pressure from multiple small containers holding chemicals at the Arkema plant in Crosby. The incident was first reported by emergency officials as two explosions. Law enforcement later began referring to the situation as containers popping, spewing black smoke, and being on fire.
- PUB DATE: 8/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KHOU-TV CBS 11 Houston

A Baltimore Fire captain was suspended and transferred from his post on Wednesday after giving a television interview about his engine being directed away from the scene of a house fire on Friday, a department spokesman said. Capt. John Parker, of Engine 31, which is housed in the 3100 block of Greenmount Avenue in Waverly, was transferred to Engine 6 in Oldtown, according to an internal Fire Department document obtained by The Baltimore Sun.
- PUB DATE: 8/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Baltimore Sun

A recent, but long overdue, external audit has discovered $6.2 million in a county bank account that the financially strapped East Contra Costa Fire District should have received as savings from staff reductions and fire station closures over the past three years. The revelation, coming after years of station closures, deep budget cuts and failed ballot measures to raise revenue, drew a strong response from state Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, who had been seeking to pass a bill in the Legislature to help the district stay afloat.
- PUB DATE: 8/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Bay Times

This is an immediate request for unused fire/rescue/EMS department or company t-shirts of any and all sizes to be distributed to Texas Firefighters (and their families) who have suffered property losses. The shirts will provide them with something new to wear after losing so much, and it also allows them to wear the logo of those departments, locals, associations and fire companies that were able to help.
- PUB DATE: 8/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FirefighterCloseCalls.com

There was never a doubt in Patti Valero's mind that she could overcome the loss of her leg and get back on the job. After all, the retiring Hillsborough County firefighter had grown accustomed to facing adversity throughout not only her career but her personal life as well. "I never cried," Valero said in a recent interview with Firehouse.
- PUB DATE: 8/31/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse