A beloved FDNY hero who tirelessly toiled at Ground Zero for eight months after 9/11 and was a driving force in getting much-needed benefits for sick first responders lost his battle to cancer on Sunday.
Ray Pfeifer, who once said he spent “27 years, 220 days and nine hours” as one of the city’s Bravest, died at age 59, according to officials. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News
Rivalries between police officers and firefighters are not uncommon — usually just lighthearted fun among public safety workers. But the animosity between Santa Fe police Sgt. David Webb Jr. and city firefighter Jeffrey Valdez is genuine, creating a yearslong personal conflict that intensified this week. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Fe New Mexican
Late Monday night, The Missouri State Highway Patrol released the names of the two firefighters involved in a deadly Memorial Day fire truck crash in northeast Missouri.
Investigators said the driver of the fire truck, Jesse Ketchum, 33, of Downing, was killed in that crash.
His passenger, volunteer firefighter, John Chancellor, 27, also of Downing, suffered serious injuries. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTVO-TV ABC 3 Kirksville
Police officers and firefighters could receive a 7.5 percent salary increase in the city’s upcoming budget — a pay raise proponents say is necessary to retain good employees and compete with neighboring communities for new ones.
“We’ve never fallen this far behind,” said City Councilman Mike Barber, who proposed the increase earlier this month. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: News & Record
A 15-year-old girl died Monday night in a crash involving a fire truck on I-94 in Ypsilanti, closing westbound lanes for several hours while Michigan State Police completed an accident investigation.
The crash happened at about 11:15 p.m. near Grove Road. The Ypsilanti Fire Department said one of its rigs was assisting in an earlier rollover accident when a Ford Escape slammed into the back of the fire truck. - PUB DATE: 5/30/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WDIV-TV NBC 4 Detroit
An inmate firefighter died due to injuries sustained while working on a fire line Wednesday, according to the California Department or Corrections Rehabilitation(CDCR).
According to the CDCR, the inmate, 26-year-old Matthew Beck, died after a 120-foot-tall tree fell on him while he was working on a fire line in Humboldt County. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: krctv.com
The 2014 fatal crash of an air tanker fighting a forest fire in Yosemite National Park came just after the pilot was warned to avoid a tree to the right but then struck trees to the left, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report.
Soon after the plane went down investigators came to believe its left wing probably struck a tree. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Mercury News
Chelsea firefighters wore body armor at an active shooter incident this week in what the department’s chief believes may have been the first time Massachusetts firefighters used the gear, which is typically worn by police SWAT teams.
But it almost never happened.
According to an e-mail provided by Fire Chief Leonard A. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Boston Globe
A West Pierce firefighter is accused of stealing various prescription drugs from ambulances and replacing it with saline to support his addiction.
The 42-year-old paramedic was arrested Thursday and booked into Pierce County Jail on suspicion of unlawful possession of a controlled substance.
He is expected to appear in court Friday. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The News Tribune
The Alexandria Fire Department (AFD) announced the launch of a Mobile Integrated Health/Community Paramedic (MIH/CP) program. MIH/CP is a unique and evolving model of community-based health care, focusing on improving the lives of patients, lowering healthcare costs and using EMS providers as resources to solve healthcare problems within the community. - PUB DATE: 5/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1.com
The Texas House sent Houston's pension reform package to the governor's desk Wednesday, marking what Mayor Sylvester Turner hopes is the beginning of the end of a 16-year fiscal crisis, and giving him a landmark achievement in his second year in office.
Turner, who has made passing the reforms the centerpiece of his tenure, alternated between grins and gravitas Wednesday night. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse.com
Inman Fire Chief Chris Cothran said Tuesday the city council should begin thinking about funding a 24/7 fire department. At Monday’s budget work session, Cothran proposed $243,000 in new funding to pay for roughly 10 firefighters to cover two 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
He said the number of volunteer firefighters has dropped in recent years, jeopardizing quick response times to a fire. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: goupstate.com
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday took a page out of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s playbook, creating a $3 million program to help up to 100 police officers, firefighters and paramedics purchase homes in “targeted” Chicago neighborhoods.
Daley did the same thing in the early 1990’s with only mixed results. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times
First responders in Miami County have access to more of the overdose-reversing antidote naloxone than ever before after officials received 50 dosages last week from the state’s emergency stash of the drug.
The Indiana State Department of Health last year set up emergency caches of naloxone kits at five sites around the state in the event first responders ran out of the drug and were unable to obtain it through normal means, according to ISDH Director of Public Affairs Jennifer O'Malley. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Kokomo Tribune
It’s no secret that firefighters have a special relationship. They spend every other day together and rely on each other to have their backs. Two firefighters from West Licking Fire Department are proving that bond goes further than just the firehouse. One man needed a kidney, so another firefighter gave him one. - PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WCMH-TV Columbus
A Macon County firefighter died Tuesday after suffering a traumatic brain injury in an accident on the job Saturday afternoon.
Darrell Plank, 29, was hit in the head by a metal coupling as a fire hose snagged on the truck at the scene of a fire off Ga. 128 near Taylor County.
The 10-year veteran’s skull was seriously fractured and, according to a Facebook page devoted to prayers for his recovery, he suffered a stroke on the left side of his brain. - PUB DATE: 5/24/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Telegraph
San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said Tuesday that any firefighter who wants to attend the upcoming funeral of firefighter Scott Deem will be able to, dispelling rumors to the contrary.
Hood said he alone made the decision to not use outside agencies to staff SAFD stations on Friday because other firefighters aren’t familiar with San Antonio’s operating system, air refilling systems, radios or terminology. - PUB DATE: 5/24/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: mysanantonio.com
The death of a Butler County firefighter serves as a sobering reminder of the dangers firefighters face long after the flames are extinguished and the smoke clears.
"It was a badge of honor back in the day to be a smoke-eater and to have the dirtiest fire gear," Cincinnati firefighter Gerald Rosemeyer said. - PUB DATE: 5/24/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse.com
The Texas Senate unanimously passed a bill Tuesday that seeks to fix the broken Dallas Police and Fire Pension System. The bill barely made it out of committee last week but was saved by last-minute negotiations between the city, police and fire associations and pension officials.
"This is not just a Dallas issue. - PUB DATE: 5/24/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Dallas News
A Renton firefighter, along with firefighters from Nampa, Idaho, and Grants Pass, Ore., aided an unconscious man aboard a flight from Baltimore to Sea-Tac on Friday night. This is the second in-flight rescue by a Renton firefighter this month.
On Friday, Firefighter Chris Kyrstofiak was traveling back to Seattle from training in Baltimore when Alaska Airlines flight attendants made an emergency announcement asking for help from any doctors or firefighters aboard the flight. - PUB DATE: 5/24/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Renton Patch
