A city firefighter has been paid since 2013 for doing absolutely nothing, The Post has learned. Arnaldo Rodriguez, 40, has been sitting at home for 2¹/2 years — raking in about $125,000 in salary plus benefits — as the FDNY apparently tries to make up its mind about what to do with him. “It’s crazy.
- PUB DATE: 1/29/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: new york post

Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the city has made its first required $15 million payment to the Firefighters Union, a few days before it was due. The city said it wired the money as part of the $75 million settlement with the union that was reached last October. In April 2016, the City will go to the voters for a 2.
- PUB DATE: 1/29/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WWL-TV New Orleans Channel 4

The D.C. fire lieutenant set to retire with benefits after a 1-year-old boy died from choking on a grape under his watch has been told he cannot retire before he appears before a review panel, a D.C. fire department spokesman said. The lieutenant was charged in July with neglect of duty, incompetence and failure to provide assistance to the public after the little boy died in March.
- PUB DATE: 1/29/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: nbc washington

Rigo Landeros, Fillmore's fire chief, assistant city manager and acting public works director, committed suicide this month while on duty in his city car, officials confirmed this week. Landeros, 51, shot himself in the head in his fire chief's car on a rural section of Goodenough Road on Jan. 7, Ventura County sheriff's, coroner's and Fillmore officials said in response to inquiries from The Star.
- PUB DATE: 1/29/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Ventura County Star

As the Fire Department Safety Officers Association’s (FDSOA) apparatus symposium concluded, its annual safety forum opened with an overlap presentation by Gordon Graham, a long-time champion of public safety responders. For more than three hours, Graham educated and entertained firefighters from all over the country with a simple, yet profound message focused on risk management and how firefighters can better protect themselves.
- PUB DATE: 1/29/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: firehouse

On January 27, 7 residential fire fatalities were reported by the Nation's news media.

On January 26, 11 residential fire fatalities were reported by the Nation's news media.

On January 24, 7 residential fire fatalities were reported by the Nation's news media.

Two firefighters and an emergency medical technician, were injured Wednesday night on the southeast side when an SUV slammed into a two-vehicle wreck the crews were working on. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers took Kaitlyn M. Carlson, 22, into custody following the crash. She was preliminarily charged with a DUI.
- PUB DATE: 1/28/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: indianapolis star

Two firefighters and an emergency medical technician, were injured Wednesday night on the southeast side when an SUV slammed into a two-vehicle wreck the crews were working on. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers took Kaitlyn M. Carlson, 22, into custody following the crash. She was preliminarily charged with a DUI.
- PUB DATE: 1/28/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: indianapolis star

A Claremore firefighter, who nearly lost his life during a storm, is back at work – eight months after being knocked unconscious and suffering life-threatening injuries. Lieutenant Zane James is now on the road to recovery, but missing his fellow firefighter and friend, Captain Jason Farley, who drowned to death.
- PUB DATE: 1/28/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOTV-TV CBS 6 Tulsa

In the wake of a fatal shooting in South Seattle, the chief of the fire department won't let his firefighters and medics enter homeless encampments unless they have police to back them up. "Last night, after the shooting, I issued a directive to the Seattle Fire Department that we are not going in these areas unless we have Seattle Police Department there to support us, for a fire call or a medical calls, because we know what's in there," said Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins.
- PUB DATE: 1/28/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: mynorthwest.com

Almost all Texas fertilizer plants like the one that exploded nearly three years ago in West - killing 15 people and injuring hundreds - are within a quarter-mile of a residence and little has been done to protect the public, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board says in a report to be released Thursday. While the precise cause of the blast will probably never be known, the CSB's 265-page final report describes in painstaking detail a host of failures by the West Fertilizer Company, the government, fire officials, insurance companies and others that allowed tens of thousands of pounds of ammonium nitrate to detonate.
- PUB DATE: 1/28/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

A plan to outsource the city Fire Department and add a parcel tax of $148 per year took a big step forward Wednesday with the unanimous approval of the agency in charge of overseeing that process. The Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, voted to move forward with San Bernardino’s proposal to annex the 137-year old San Bernardino Fire Department into Fire Protection District Service Zone FP5-5, giving responsibility for fire and emergency medical response to the county fire department.
- PUB DATE: 1/28/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Bernardino sun

On January 26, 8 residential fire fatalities were reported by the Nation's news media.

On January 25, 10 residential fire fatalities were reported by the Nation's news media.

When it came time to build his administration last fall, Mayor Kenney didn't hesitate to turn to some familiar faces. Richard Ross was appointed the city's police commissioner. Mike DeBerardinis was tapped to be managing director. Debbie Mahler, Kenney's longtime aide in City Council, was named deputy mayor for intergovernmental affairs.
- PUB DATE: 1/27/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Philadelphia Daily News

A garbage truck exploded after catching fire on a street in Hamilton Tuesday and blasted a hole in the front of a nearby house, though no injuries were immediately reported. A total of four houses were damaged in the 2 p.m. explosion. One the truck's four natural gas tanks exploded in the fire and rocketed into the front of Doris Pattley's home on Fitzrandolph Street, just off Lalor Street, officials said.
- PUB DATE: 1/27/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Trenton Times

New Orleans' fire chief said a massive six-alarm fire that broke out on Canal Street early Wednesday morning (Jan. 27) has spread to a second building and that the four-story structure initially found burning is in danger of collapsing onto the pavement below. "Collapse is always an issue, as it is in this situation here," New Orleans Fire Department Superintendent Tim McConnell said on the scene at 1018 Canal Street, between South Rampart Street and Roosevelt Way.
- PUB DATE: 1/27/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New Orleans Times-Picayune & Nola.com

A firefighter who was badly injured in the same Blue Hills Avenue fire in which his colleague Kevin Bell was killed has returned to duty, the fire department said Tuesday. Jason Martinez, a member of the tactical unit, was back on full duty Tuesday for the first time since the deadly fire on Oct. 7, 2014.
- PUB DATE: 1/27/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: hartford courant