A new state law increases benefits for family members of first responders killed on the job. The legislation, signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Cuomo, increases the cost of living benefits by 3% for spouses of fallen police and firefighters. “Police and firefighters who lose their lives in the line of duty are mothers, fathers, husbands and wives – and the family members they leave behind must be properly cared for,” Cuomo said.
- PUB DATE: 10/23/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

Newport Fire Chief William Darin says the department made nearly 5,000 runs in 2018; that includes fire and medical responses. Darin says less than 1 percent of those are for big structural fires. Newport Fire Union President Jake Silvati says the department is understaffed. "We feel that it's not a matter of if something bad happens, it's a matter of when something that happens and we're very concerned about that or concerned about the safety of the citizens and the firefighters," Silvati said.
- PUB DATE: 10/23/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WKRC-TV 12

When a medical call came in on June 24, 2015, to assist an intoxicated man at a trolley station, San Diego firefighter Ben Vernon thought it would be a routine situation. He had been on this type of call several times in the past, so he was not too worried. Arriving on the scene, however, tensions started to rise between a bystander and several security guards, and a fight broke out.
- PUB DATE: 10/23/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Bakersfield.com

An Atlanta firefighter who lost his leg after getting struck by a vehicle while responding to a call on I-85 said he wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for the quick-thinking actions of his colleagues. Sgt. Darrow Harden was hit by a car in May while responding to a wreck near Cleveland Avenue in the interstate’s northbound lanes.
- PUB DATE: 10/23/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Atlanta Journal Constitution

An East Tennessee landmark is now completely gone after a fire late Tuesday night. Cumberland County Fire Rescue responded to a fire at Minister’s Treehouse in Crossville around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. We’re told the entire building burned to the ground in about 15 minutes. No injuries have been reported.
- PUB DATE: 10/23/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WJHL-TV CBS/ABC 11 Johnson City

Waukesha Assistant Fire Chief Joe Hoffman said the victim was taken to ProHealth Waukesha Memorial Hospital for injuries he described as very serious and very rare. "Not very routine for us. Thinking back anecdotally, I cannot remember one in quite a while," Hoffman said. The circumstances surrounding why the dog was set off remain unknown, but Hoffman said 70% of dog bite incidents involve children.
- PUB DATE: 10/22/2019 4:52:48 PM - SOURCE: WITI Fox Channel 6

One person was safely rescued from a house fire Monday, while a dog inside the home did not survive. The South Shore Fire Department was dispatched to s fire on 16th Street in Mount Pleasant just before midnight. Upon arrival, they found the occupant of the home to be be safely removed from a window by the Mt.
- PUB DATE: 10/22/2019 5:36:19 AM - SOURCE: Today's TMJ4

Mayor Bill de Blasio is being asked to do more to protect first responders in the wake of an attack on a 20-year-old emergency medical technician as he was transporting an emotional disturbed person to the hospital. The ambulance EMT Nicholas Cody used to transport an emotionally disturbed person on Friday night sat parked outside the emergency room at Lincoln Hospital on Monday, the decal warning that it’s a felony to attack a first responder, apparently not much of a deterrent in a city where the number of of mental health 911 calls have nearly doubled in the last decade.
- PUB DATE: 10/22/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WLNY-TV 55 Riverhead

Pennsylvania’s growing shortage of volunteer and career firefighters and EMS providers has reached a point where state lawmakers are calling for action to avert a crisis like the one Rep. Stephen Barrar described at a Monday news conference. “How would you feel if you had a fire or an accident or a life-threatening emergency and when you dialed 911, no one responded? These type of doomsday scenarios are not far-fetched,” said Barrar, R-Delaware County, who chairs the House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee.
- PUB DATE: 10/22/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: PennLive

On the same day that a package of bills was introduced at the State Capitol to help Pennsylvania’s fire and EMS workers, one midstate community is applauding the decision. The Middletown Fire Department is 100% volunteer, so for about two years now, they’ve been offering a live-in program for young firefighters.
- PUB DATE: 10/22/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WHTM-TV ABC 27 Harrisburg

Gov. Kate Brown has appointed a financial oversight team and will hire an independent contractor to address a cash flow crisis caused by the Oregon Department of Forestry’s failure to promptly bill and collect money it is owed for wildfire costs. The 13-member team, chaired by the governor’s chief of staff, is tasked with identifying the structural changes needed to expedite and standardize how the agency processes financial transactions related to wildfires.
- PUB DATE: 10/22/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Portland Oregonian, Hillsboro Argus, Oregon Live.com

Officials are urging residents throughout the San Diego region’s most fire-prone areas to prepare for this year’s peak wildfire season. The county is slated to mail out its “personal disaster plan” to roughly 200,000 homes and businesses starting next week. The recently updated 16-page document will be sent to those living in areas designated by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection as “very-high fire severity zones.
- PUB DATE: 10/22/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The San Diego Union Tribune - Metered Site

VIDEO: A death investigation is underway in Eau Claire Monday, after a body was found over the weekend. Eau Claire Police and Fire Department responded to a fire on Congress Street early Saturday morning. When firefighters entered the home, they found the body of 21-year-old Jaime Thayer-Vega. Police were called to the residence for a report of an intruder and the home was on fire.
- PUB DATE: 10/21/2019 4:44:41 PM - SOURCE: WKBT-TV CBS 8 La Crosse

A duplex is severely damaged after a late night fire in Eau Claire. The Eau Claire Fire Department says crews were called to the scene at 5576 Normandale Drive just after 11 p.m. Sunday night. Inside the home, firefighters found a working fire in the kitchen of a single-story residential duplex. The fire extended from the kitchen into the attic.
- PUB DATE: 10/21/2019 8:10:03 AM - SOURCE: WEAU-TV 13 News

Firefighters extinguished a blaze at an apartment Sunday night after a child playing with smoking materials lit a mattress on fire. Fire crews responded to the blaze around 8:30 p.m. at an apartment complex on Eisner Court, according to the Sheboygan Fire Department. Officials said firefighters found a mattress burning outside of the apartment complex.
- PUB DATE: 10/21/2019 7:34:25 AM - SOURCE: Sheboygan Press

Madison police arrested a woman after a fire Sunday night appeared to have been intentionally set. Rose M. Galloway, 34, of Madison, faces arson and first degree reckless endangerment charges, according to a release by the Madison Police Department. Madison firefighters responded to a home on Starling Lane at 10:09 p.
- PUB DATE: 10/21/2019 1:49:01 AM - SOURCE: WISC-TV Channel 3000.com Madison

A firefighter with the Homer Fire Department died Saturday after falling ill at a training, according to the fire chief. Firefighter Robert Bush was feeling ill during a training, and his fellow firefighters offered him medical help immediately, chief Mahlon Irish Jr. said in a Facebook post. “Bush was transported to the local hospital where revival efforts continued.
- PUB DATE: 10/21/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Syracuse.com

Over the last few years, national firefighter organizations have put an emphasis on cancer preventions. Firefighters face higher rates of cancer diagnosis and cancer-related deaths than the general population. Innovative work by the Xenia Fire Department will help them be more diligent about keeping gear clean to prevent the inhalation of carcinogens as suggested by many national firefighter organizations.
- PUB DATE: 10/21/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WDTN-TV NBC 2 Dayton

Two national experts on firefighter safety were at the Vermont Fire Academy Saturday sharing what they know with leaders in the state’s firefighting and emergency services community. “The entire class today is focused on firefighter health and safety,” Chief Craig Haigh, a 36-year veteran of the Hanover Park, Illinois, Fire Department, and a field staff instructor at the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute.
- PUB DATE: 10/21/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Rutland Herald - Metered Site

San Francisco’s Marina was ravaged by fire during the Loma Prieta earthquake, centered 60 miles away. Thirty years later, experts say, as much as a third of the city is still largely unprotected against the massive fires they fear will be sparked by the Big One. “The way the situation is now, we are going to have some major conflagrations in the city,” said Charles Scawthorn, an engineer and earthquake fire modeling expert, who predicts as many as 100 separate fires across the city, fueled by broken natural gas lines.
- PUB DATE: 10/21/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KNTV NBC 11 San Jose