Crews began removing the wreckage from the Aurora Bridge Thursday evening. Police officers and other officials watched as the Duck vehicle was loaded onto a flatbed tow truck. A 17-member, interdisciplinary team from the National Transportation Safety Board, along with an NTSB board member, are due to arrive in Seattle Friday to begin their inquiry into the crash.
- PUB DATE: 9/25/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Seattle Times

Fighting wildfires isn’t cheap, not with all the boots on the ground, the engines and dozers, the airplanes and fuel. And this year’s fire season — which is shaping up to be one of the most destructive in the modern history of the West — is also on track to be the costliest. That’s a problem, particularly for those writing checks in Washington, who are having to move millions from one part of the federal budget to another to balance the books.
- PUB DATE: 9/25/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1.com

Roy Salmon, 60, whom Salado Fire Chief Shane Barrier rescued from the porch of a burning home last week, was jailed Wednesday, charged with arson in connection with the blaze. Salmon, who smashed out a window and jumped from the burning two-story home to escape the flames, was unconscious from smoke inhalation when Barrier pulled him to safety on Sept.
- PUB DATE: 9/25/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: kwtx.com

Pope Francis is visiting the National Sept. 11 Memorial at ground zero. To a cheer from the gathered crowd, he walked toward the two massive waterfall pools that mark the footprints of the World Trade Center's twin towers before they were felled by the 2001 terrorist attacks. Francis visited the site after a speech at the United Nations.
- PUB DATE: 9/25/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: abc7ny.com

For his entire adult life, Barry Miller was a giver and “a huge figure in the town of Bergen.” That was evident in the outpouring of grief in Bergen Wednesday after Miller, chief of Fire Department Emergency Medical Services and a county coroner, was killed on his way to a call in Riga. “His connection to the community is indescribable,” said Donald Cunningham, town supervisor and close friend of Miller’s.
- PUB DATE: 9/24/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: the daily news online

Stuart Hardy, the Burton firefighter who suffered a medical event while on duty Sept. 13, died Thursday morning, according a Burton Fire District news release and a Facebook post from his family. Hardy was responding to a car crash earlier this month when he was stricken. Doctors didn't know as of Wednesday what caused the event.
- PUB DATE: 9/24/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Beaufort Gazette

A mishap Wednesday morning at an accident scene that sent St. Mary’s Sheriff Tim Cameron to a hospital with a leg injury prompted a review by a prosecutor, one that the sheriff’s office reports led to citations issued against a Leonardtown firefighter. Cameron was treated at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown and released after the 7:36 a.
- PUB DATE: 9/24/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Southern Maryland Newspapers

State fire officials presented the city with $20,000 Wednesday to cover the fire department's costs in extinguishing a 2013 fire in a hi-rise building that had unresolved fire code violations, which hampered firefighting efforts. Trenton Fire Department Director Qareeb Bashir accepted the check from Louis Kilmer, chief of the Bureau of Fire Code Enforcement in the state's Division of Fire Safety, at Trenton fire headquarters.
- PUB DATE: 9/24/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Trenton Times

School districts in Omaha will have to pay for ambulances at high school football games next year because of a policy change by the Omaha Fire Department. On Jan. 1, the department will end its free standby ambulance service at varsity games and other events, Fire Chief Bernie Kanger said Tuesday. The chief said he’s looking for ways to make his department more efficient and has to put 911 calls ahead of the standby service.
- PUB DATE: 9/24/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: omaha world-herald

A criminologist recently suggested St. Louis City should consider using firefighters to fight violent crime during their downtime. University of St. Louis-Missouri criminologist Rick Rosenfeld, who is also an informal advisor to St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson, brought up the idea during a St. Louis Safety meeting Tuesday.
- PUB DATE: 9/23/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KMOV-TV CBS 4 St. Louis

Drunken rants were spewing from scanners Friday night over radio channels usually used to alert first responders to emergencies in Westmoreland County. The thief who stole Greensburg Fire Chief Ed Hutchinson's portable emergency radio from the department SUV parked in his drive apparently was having a good old time.
- PUB DATE: 9/23/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Citing what he called the “toxic political environment” in the bankrupt Central Coventry Fire District, the district’s acting chief said Tuesday he was resigning, effective Sept. 30. Shawn Murray, a former fire chief in New Hampshire and ex-director of the Massachusetts Fire Academy, said last week’s decision by the state to abandon its efforts to implement a financial reorganization of the bankrupt fire district, a plan he called “a roadmap to the future sustainability” of the district, was the reason for his resignation.
- PUB DATE: 9/23/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: providence journal

PHOTO/VIDEO - The Tuesday reunion of veteran firefighter Lt. Victor Milukas and 2-year-old Justin Pierre lacked the drama of their first encounter — not that anyone complained. The FDNY odd couple shared hugs, handshakes and gifts Tuesday as they said hello nearly a month after the heroic Milukas plucked the youngster from a raging Brooklyn fire.
- PUB DATE: 9/23/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: new york daily news

Delaware state police are investigating a note left outside an ambulance dispatching facility in Camden that threatened police officers, firefighters and EMTs. The note, discovered last Friday, advises agencies to “give all your employees bullet prof (sic) vest. We’re after all EMS, fire and police.
- PUB DATE: 9/23/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wilmington News Journal (Delaware Online)

After traveling almost 2,000 miles to Colorado, a group of Fort Lauderdale firefighters didn't expect to deal with any emergencies. Then they heard screaming. Running to see what the commotion was about, they found a young woman had been bitten by a rattlesnake while walking her dog in Pulpit Rock Park, on the north end of Colorado Springs.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: sun sentinel

The Brainerd City Council Monday night approved a resolution restructuring the Brainerd Fire Department from a mix of full-time and paid on-call firefighters to a fully paid on-call department. A group consisting of Fire Chief Tim Holmes, city officials and representatives from the Minnesota Professional Firefighters, the firefighters union, have been working on restructuring discussions for about three months.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: brainerd dispatch

The live-fire training facility tucked into the northwest corner of Billings Logan International Airport isn’t only noteworthy because of what it’s made of, but also because of how much it cost to construct — $85,000. Built from 12 recycled food industry shipping containers, the new facility can be set on fire time and again and remain standing, ready for the next training session.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: billings gazette

A former Autaugaville Volunteer Fire Department chief committed suicide two days before he was to be sentenced on ethics violations. Ernest Stoudemire was found dead Sunday, said Sheriff Joe Sedinger. The death has been ruled a suicide, the sheriff said. He declined to release specifics, given the nature of the case.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: montgomery advertiser

One morning the newspaper headlines read that research discovered that eggs are the perfect food for perfect health. The next day they read that scientists have found that eating eggs for breakfast is like holding a loaded gun to your head. It is so confusing that it makes you just want to eat a donut, doesn't it? This scientific double talk isn't confined to breakfast foods.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: firerescue1

A Burnet Fire Department ambulance rear-ended a semi Friday evening. The Burnet Fire Department has identified the paramedic driving the ambulance was firefighter and EMT Daniel Hampton. Hampton died as a result as his injuries. Hampton was a two year veteran of the Burnet Fire Department and is survived by his spouse and four children.
- PUB DATE: 9/21/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KXAN-TV NBC 36 Austin