Fidget spinners have become a must-have toy for many central Indiana children, but they may be more dangerous than parents realize. Some of the parts are very small and could pose a choking hazard if they pop off, as a Decatur Township firefighter discovered this week. The firefighter shared his story on the department’s Facebook page Thursday.
- PUB DATE: 6/9/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fox59.com

Neil Svetanics, former chief of the St. Louis Fire Department and the Lemay Fire Protection District, died Wednesday (June 7, 2017) after a brief lung illness. He was 77 and lived in St. Louis Hills. Mr. Svetanics joined the St. Louis Fire Department in 1962 and moved up in ranks, serving as chief from 1986 to 1999.
- PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: St. Louis Post Dispatch

Warren firefighters, digging with their bare hands and metal shovels, rescued a Howell man trapped in a collapsed trench on Tuesday, Warren Mayor Jim Fouts said. The 37-year-old man was rushed to Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, where he was in serious condition, the mayor wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday.
- PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Detroit Free Press

The risk firefighters face for developing job-related cancers was well known in the fire service long before elected officials and the national news media started taking more notice in recent years and cast a brighter light on the issue. There are 37 states that have passed cancer presumption laws for firefighters, which provide workers' compensation benefits for those with certain types of cancers directly attributed to the job.
- PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse.com

The Tulsa Fire Department is removing blue stripes from fire trucks. The chief thinks the stripes may send the wrong message to some people. "It hit me in my heart that this was the right thing to do for the City of Tulsa and for the citizens," Chief Ray Driskell said. TFD added the stripe after the Dallas police shooting as a symbol of solidarity with law enforcement, but Driskell said he's following his heart and taking the stripes off.
- PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: newson6.com

Fire Chief Dale C. Herman and Deputy Chief Russell J. Randall were the only members of the city’s management team not to receive 2 percent salary increases in the newly adopted budget. The two top fire departments officials have been criticized for not taking the city’s side in a nearly three-year contract dispute with the firefighters’ union.
- PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Watertown Daily News

An Anchorage firefighter remains in critical condition at a local hospital Tuesday after being injured during training Monday afternoon, according to an Anchorage Fire Department official. Ben Schultz, 29, a firefighter and paramedic, has been with the fire department for six years. Schultz was injured at 4:15 p.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Alaska Dispatch News

Growing up in rural West Virginia, Benjamin M. Barksdale remembers hearing the siren blow from the neighboring fire station and asking his mother about the commotion. Barksdale’s mother explained to him, then a boy of about 6, that the siren signaled volunteer firefighters would soon launch out of the station to help people in the community.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Washington Post

A Bronx grand jury handed up manslaughter indictments against two men whose marijuana grow house exploded, killing a firefighter who responded to a report of leaking gas. Michael Fahy, 44, battalion chief of the 19th division, was killed by falling debris as he and his crew evacuated a house at W. 234th St.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

The first responders on the front line in the battle against the national opioid epidemic got a new guideline Tuesday from the Drug Enforcement Agency on how handle the incredibly deadly drug fentanyl. It's called “Fentanyl: A Brief Guide for First Responders.” And Acting DEA chief Chuck Rosenberg said it should be required reading.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC News

The National Fire Protection Association has released its annual report on firefighter fatalities in the United States, and a leading cause of on-duty deaths in the fire service remains cardiac issues despite those deaths hitting an all-time low in 2016. Last year's total of 69 on-duty deaths marked the fifth time in six years that the number was below 70, according to the NFPA's 2016 Report.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse

Matt McFarland, a local firefighter with Humboldt Bay Fire, has filed a grievance through his union after being asked by his boss, Humboldt Bay Fire Chief Bill Gillespie, to stop wearing a “Black Lives Matter” lapel pin on his uniform. McFarland argues that the pin represents an important message about inclusive justice and that it conforms to his department’s uniform policy, which allows lapel pins provided they are “fire service related and in good taste.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Lost Coast Outpost

Ghost Ship master tenant Derick Almena and his second-in-command, Max Harris, were arrested Monday and charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter in conjunction with the Dec. 2 Ghost Ship fire that killed three dozen people. Alameda County prosecutors found the pair hoarded flammable materials from floor to ceiling in the warehouse, created an illegal party space, and even blocked one of only two exits from the second floor the night of the fatal fire.
- PUB DATE: 6/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Bay Times

The city of Fayetteville will seek an outside review of its recruitment practices at the Fire Department, which lags behind many other cities at hiring minorities. City Manager Doug Hewett announced Monday night he has asked the Raleigh office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to review the department’s hiring practices, after several Fayetteville City Council members have grown concerned that only about 3 percent of firefighters are black or another minority.
- PUB DATE: 6/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Fayetteville Observer

Anne Arundel County Executive Laura Neuman said Wednesday she'll hire 100 firefighters now that the fire union has won an arbitration case dealing with firefighters' schedules. Neuman said she'll ask the County Council for $3 million to pay for the new firefighters and add fire training academy classes.
- PUB DATE: 6/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Baltimore Sun

The City Council on Tuesday night is expected to approve taking two former Fort Worth firefighters to court in an attempt to recover more than $92,400 they were overpaid when they left their jobs. The payments were compensation for unused vacation, holiday and sick leave that workers were provided when they retired or left their jobs.
- PUB DATE: 6/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Star-Telegram

Firefighters are at an elevated risk of getting the deadly skin cancer, melanoma. In fact they are three times more likely to get it than the general population. That’s according to a recent study. But now cutting-edge technology has just arrived in Tucson to help protect our first responders. “The first time you hear somebody say you have cancer – it’s definitely a shocking thing,” Northwest Fire Deputy Chief, Ryder Hartley said.
- PUB DATE: 6/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Tucsonnews.com

A 29-year-old Los Angeles Fire Department firefighter died Monday, two days after he fell from an aerial ladder during a training exercise in downtown, officials said. "The LAFD is heartbroken to announce the loss of one of our members, Firefighter Kelly Wong," a two-year veteran of the department, according to a news release.
- PUB DATE: 6/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: abclocal.go

A firefighter was critically injured Saturday morning when he fell from an aerial ladder during a training exercise in downtown, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. The incident occurred about 9:43 a.m. in the 300 block of Main Street, said Amy Bastman, a spokeswoman for the department. The injured firefighter was treated by his colleagues at the scene and transported to a nearby trauma center, Bastman said.
- PUB DATE: 6/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: abclocal.go

Investigators in Fort Worth and Grapevine are still trying to determine what caused overnight fires at a warehouse and a vacant restaurant. Firefighters responding to a warehouse fire in Fort Worth were pulled out of harms way before the structure’s roof collapsed, according to a Fort Worth fire official.
- PUB DATE: 6/5/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Star-Telegram