The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and the IAFC Volunteer and Combination Officers Section (VCOS) today released a Yellow Ribbon Report exploring emotional and behavioral health issues in the fire and emergency service. “Under the Helmet – Performing an Internal Size-up: A Proactive Approach to Ensuring Mental Wellness” brings awareness about the fire and emergency services’ emotional and behavioral health problem and emphasizes the importance of changing the culture.
- PUB DATE: 7/24/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: International Association of Fire Chiefs

A former New York firefighter said stupidity, not racism, spurred him to set a fire that destroyed a black colleague's apartment. Matthew Jurado was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for the blaze at Kenneth Walker's home last August. Jurado pleaded guilty in May to arson. "What happened was a moment of stupidity and not thinking," Jurado said Friday.
- PUB DATE: 7/24/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Syracuse Post-Standard & Syracuse.com

When Moon Yun Pellerin's parents bought a 27th-floor apartment in a high-rise overlooking Waikiki about 15 years ago, they didn't realize the wave-shaped building had no fire sprinklers. "We didn't even consider it," Pellerin said. But a week after a massive fire broke out one floor below her apartment, killing three neighbors, Pellerin and her family "definitely want sprinklers" installed - even if it means spending thousands of dollars.
- PUB DATE: 7/24/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KHNL/KGMB-TV Hawaii News Now

A firefighter battling the Detwiler blaze in Mariposa County was airlifted to a Fresno hospital after a firetruck crashed Friday morning. The truck reportedly rolled down an embankment and crashed through a gate into a field next to Mt. Bullion Cutoff Road. The firefighter, an unidentified male, was taken to Community Regional Medical Center.
- PUB DATE: 7/24/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fresno Bee

Recently retired Rochester Fire Chief Norm Sanborn says he can’t stay silent about his shock and displeasure that a longtime colleague wasn’t chosen to replace him. The city announced this week that Bedford Deputy Fire Chief Mark Klose will succeed Sanborn as the head of the Rochester Fire Department.
- PUB DATE: 7/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fosters.com

Fresh from a two-day break in his first season as a wildland firefighter, Trenton Johnson was about to begin his first initial attack on a fire when disaster struck. The 19-year-old Missoula man had just finished a two-week deployment mopping up a fire in Utah for Grayback Forestry Inc., an Oregon-based business with a firefighting contract to the U.
- PUB DATE: 7/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KPVI-TV NBC 6

A 40-year member of the Jamesport Fire Department was temporarily suspended and could face departmental charges for his role in a fight that broke out at a fire scene July 3. Tom Brady, 65, a former chair of the Jamesport Fire District board of commissioners, says he wasn’t the aggressor in the fight, which was caught on video by a Riverhead Town employee.
- PUB DATE: 7/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Suffolk Times

Firefighting is an evolving career and adapting is essential when someone's life depends on it. Construction has changed. Buildings are now more efficient and eco-friendly. That is great for many community members, but most people don't realize it puts firefighters in much more danger. "If you look at the traditional woods, mill wood, lumber, things they used to build houses with, and then they would fill in the gaps with plaster, with lath materials to make it insulated.
- PUB DATE: 7/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KSAT-TV ABC 12 San Antonio

PHOTO - A young man and boy suffered serious burns Thursday when the sedan in which they were traveling on Landmarks Boulevard left the road, hit a light pole base and burst into flames. The unidentified victims are being treated in St. Louis; their conditions were not available late Thursday. The Alton Police Department’s Traffic Division continues investigating the crash.
- PUB DATE: 7/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Alton Telegraph

In a society that is flooded with email, text messaging and tweets, forming strong relationships with grant makers can be the difference between funding your initiative or cutting it due to your continuously decreasing budget. Relationship currency can be the most vital strength for a grant proposal.
- PUB DATE: 7/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

A firefighter has died while fighting a fire in the Lolo National Forest. According to a press release sent from Grayback Forestry, a 19-year-old and a Missoula resident was killed in the line while fighting a fire on the Seely Lake Ranger District. The Grayback Forestry employee was part of a 20-person attack crew.
- PUB DATE: 7/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KULR-TV NBC 8

In promotional brochures, a U.S. company boasted of the "stunning visual effect" its shimmering aluminum panels created in an NFL stadium, an Alaskan high school and a luxury hotel along Baltimore's Inner Harbor that "soars 33 stories into the air." Those same panels — Reynobond composite material with a polyethylene core — also were used in the Grenfell Tower apartment building in London.
- PUB DATE: 7/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WBAL-AM 1090 Baltimore

The village of Carpentersville is mourning the unexpected death Tuesday of Fire Battalion Chief Todd Middendorf. "He was basically one of the cornerstones of the department," Fire Chief John-Paul Schilling said. "He was well-loved within the entire region." Middendorf, 46, was a resident of Carpentersville and member of the local fire department for 23 years, starting as a part-timer in 1994 and moving to full time in 1997, Schilling said.
- PUB DATE: 7/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Tribune

VIDEO - Miami-Dade firefighters were saved by one of their trucks during an emergency call on the Palmetto Expressway. Overnight, fire crews were called to assist in a hit and run accident in the southbound lanes of the highway between Okeechobee Road and NW 74th Street. Arriving crews used a fire engine to block off two lanes of traffic while they helped the injured driver.
- PUB DATE: 7/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CBS Miami

Firefighters sprayed Narcan up the nose of a 6-year-old boy this week, reviving the unconscious child from a suspected opioid poisoning — a traumatic event that, according to authorities, could be the youngest overdose victim ever in the Granite State’s biggest city. “The fact is that it’s a kid that could be our own kids’ age,” said Christopher Hickey, who oversees the Manchester Fire Department’s emergency medical services.
- PUB DATE: 7/20/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Boston Herald

New details from fire officials paint the dangerous, and ultimately deadly, scenario at Marco Polo as changes are considered that could prevent a future disaster. Assistant chief Socrates Bratakos says the five-alarm fire that broke out on Friday, July 14, on the building’s 26th floor posed a major challenge for firefighters.
- PUB DATE: 7/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KHON-TV FOX 2

It didn’t take long for some local firefighters to save a life, even though they had just finished their training. The three new hires made a life-saving rescue in their own fire station.Brock Trimmer, of Beloit, Sebastian Zlotkowski of Cleveland, and Ronnie Simone, of Warren, were all hired as Warren City firefighters earlier this year.
- PUB DATE: 7/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WJW-TV MyFox Cleveland

An entire California town was evacuated on Tuesday evening due to a 25,000-acre wildfire that had already destroyed eight structures, officials said. California fire officials issued an evacuation order for the town of Mariposa, which has a population of about 2,000, on Tuesday as the wildfire threatened to burn some 1,500 homes and structures, according to fire officials.
- PUB DATE: 7/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC News

A senior living complex where three people died and six were injured in a blaze this weekend did not have a fire alarm, according to the city’s Fire Department. Chesapeake Crossing Senior Community Apartments was not required to have such an alarm, said fire department spokesman Capt. Scott Saunders.
- PUB DATE: 7/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Virginian-Pilot

Some experienced volunteer firefighters have a tough time adjusting to technological advances that are being used on emergency vehicles, the chief of a rural department said Tuesday. Cumberland County’s Public Safety Task Force talked about computer software and how it is used by emergency workers at the task force’s meeting Tuesday.
- PUB DATE: 7/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fayetteville Observer