Despite serving a city with fewer than 100,000 people, the Brockton Fire Department is one of the busiest in the country. Brockton’s Squad A Rescue Unit responded to more calls in 2016 than any other heavy rescue unit in the country, according to Firehouse Magazine’s 2016 national run survey of 248 departments.
- PUB DATE: 8/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Brockton Enterprise

Houston firefighters may be stymied in their push to achieve a voter-approved pay raise this November in part by a competing referendum petition that even its organizers no longer view as crucial. The fire union again accused Mayor Sylvester Turner in a Monday press conference of failing to ensure a petition they submitted last month seeking "parity" in pay with police officers of corresponding rank is certified in time to appear on the ballot this fall.
- PUB DATE: 8/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

Dan Miller works in a big city, but he knows all about small-town life. “I really like small-town Nebraska values,” Miller said. That’s part of what drew him to the fire chief position in Columbus. Miller grew up in rural Nebraska and still enjoys camping, fishing and hunting in his free time. Although he’s worked for the Omaha Fire Department since 1998, serving as a captain, chief of training and special operations and battalion chief, Miller still resides in Yutan, where he got his start in firefighting.
- PUB DATE: 8/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Columbus Telegram

A 23-year-old man, who was once part of a fire department explorer program, has been charged with multiple counts of arson in connection with eight different fires in San Bernardino County. The San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office filed the charges against Jarrod Anthony Samra, of Highland, on Monday.
- PUB DATE: 8/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: abclocal.go

San Antonio firefighters rescued a driver who was stuck on top of an SUV in high, rapid waters on the city's west side Monday morning. The incident happened on Pinn Road near Highway 151. The young man, who was on his way to work, ended up stranded on top of his SUV for 45 minutes. Firefighters attempted to extend a unit ladder to the young man.
- PUB DATE: 8/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KENS5.com San Antonio

Chicago Fire Department battalion chief saw one of his firefighters fall to his death seconds after the chief radioed crews to be on the lookout for openings in the floor that weren't secured or covered, according to a federal safety report. Daniel Capuano, 42 years old and a 15-year veteran of the department, fell through a 7-foot-square elevator shaft while fighting a fire in a former slaughterhouse in the 9200 block of South Baltimore Avenue in December 2015.
- PUB DATE: 8/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Tribune

American Medical Response, the Colorado-headquartered ambulance business of Envision Healthcare Corp., will be sold to New York buyout firm KKR & Co. LP in an all-cash deal worth $2.4 billion, Envision said today. KKR plans to combine Greenwood Village-based AMR with its Texas-based portfolio company, Air Medical Group Holdings (AMGH).
- PUB DATE: 8/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Denver Business Journal

Tensions between Fayetteville City Councilman Chalmers McDougald and the city fire chief flared Monday night in a council work session when Ben Major appeared to update council members on progress to increase firefighter diversity in his department. “It seems as though this department is really not willing to reach people,” McDougald said.
- PUB DATE: 8/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fayetteville Observer

At 10 a.m. on Monday, South Zanesville Fire Chief Russell Taylor met with engineers at the Owens-Illinois glass plant on State Street to discuss the possibility of a tank rupture. A few hours later, the bottom of a tank ruptured. "Basically like a volcano," Taylor said. Three hundred thousand tons of molten glass spilled into the facility, he said.
- PUB DATE: 8/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Cincinnati Enquirer & Cincinnati.com

Oklahoma City's former fire chief has been sworn in as United States Fire Administrator. Keith Bryant was sworn in August 4 in the special ceremony at the Oklahoma City National Memorial by Federal Judge Timothy DeGiusti. Bryant will be responsible for leading fire and EMS services on the national level under the Trump administration.
- PUB DATE: 8/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOKH-TV FOX25

Twelve people, including one firefighter, were injured Sunday morning after a flammable liquid leaked from a shipping container in the Port of Long Beach, officials said. The spill of the unidentified chemical from the 6,000-gallon container was reported shortly before 9:30 a.m., a spokesperson for the Long Beach Fire Department said.
- PUB DATE: 8/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: abclocal.go

A city firefighter who resigned after hanging up on a 911 caller attempting to save a wounded friend has filed a lawsuit alleging he was terminated days into a new job with the Bernalillo County Fire Department when a commissioner expressed concern over his hiring. Matthew Sanchez was a 10-year veteran of the Albuquerque Fire Department when he fielded a call June 26, 2015, from a frantic teenage girl attempting to render aid to Jaydon Chavez-Silver.
- PUB DATE: 8/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Albuquerque Journal

For 3 1/2 hours on July 18, when somebody called 911 in Cincinnati, they couldn't reach a dispatcher. Police, firefighters and paramedics don't know how many people needed help but didn't get it. It was the worst failure in years for the city's 911 emergency system. But it wasn't the only one. Since the middle of 2016, the system that residents count on to get help quickly for life and death emergencies has suffered a series of blackouts and breakdowns.
- PUB DATE: 8/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Cincinnati Enquirer & Cincinnati.com

Firefighters are always looking out for each other, even if they haven’t answered an alarm in more than three decades. A 90-year-old retired FDNY firefighter who had been missing for 36 hours was safely returned home early Saturday after a keen-eyed smoke eater — 63-years his junior — saw him wandering down a Bronx street.
- PUB DATE: 8/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

Firefighters and national chemical safety groups are praising Maine's new law banning flame retardants in furniture. Maine lawmakers this week overrode Republican Gov. Paul LePage's veto of a law that supporters said would reduce firefighters' exposure to carcinogens. Starting in 2019, a person can't sell upholstered furniture whose materials contain more than one percent of a flame-retardant chemical.
- PUB DATE: 8/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: MainePublic.org

Houston firefighters are accusing Mayor Sylvester Turner of standing between them and a voter-approved pay raise by failing to ensure a petition they submitted last month is certified in time to appear on the November ballot. Turner rejected any suggestion that he has involved himself in the City Secretary's effort to verify their petition, and his office on Thursday said an offer by the fire union to cover any staffing costs needed to count their signatures is being examined as a possible attempt to improperly influence a public official.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

The turf war is back on between the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County Fire Authority over whose helicopters should respond to rescue calls. A proposed agreement in which both agencies would share rescue calls was pulled from next week’s Board of Supervisors agenda because of opposition from fire officials and city council members in Santa Ana, Tustin and Yorba Linda.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orange County Register

PHOTO - Sometimes, when a tree falls in the woods, someone is there to see it. In the case of a Richmond volunteer firefighter, he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunately, the 45-year-old Richmond resident, a 13-year veteran of the department, escaped serious injury after a large branch suddenly broke off of a tree along the north side of Division Road at about 7:30 p.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Voice

Former Kinloch Mayor Darren Small, 51, and his wife, Jayna Small, 40, have pleaded guilty to a federal charge and admitted stealing money from the city’s fire protection district, the U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday. Darren Small pleaded guilty Thursday to two felony counts: conspiracy to commit access device fraud and access device fraud.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A fire department participated in a viral trend that involves getting out of your vehicle to attempt a slam dunk in a basketball hoop and driving away. Arlington Fire Department tweeted a video of one of their crewmembers wearing a T-Rex costume and attempting to slam dunk at a neighborhood basketball hoop as part of the #DriveByDunkChallenge.
- PUB DATE: 8/4/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1