“I will be talking to the city, and we’ll be dealing with this place.” That is the grim threat made by Oakland police Officer Hector Chavez in March 2015 as he stood in the open doorway of the Ghost Ship warehouse, talking to a party promoter and looking over the inside of the cluttered firetrap for 20 minutes.
- PUB DATE: 9/15/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Cruz Sentinel

The Forest Service has spent more than $2 billion battling forest fires around the country — a record as wildfires blacken the American West in one of the nation's worst fire seasons. Wildfires have ravaged the West this summer with 64 large fires burning across 10 states as of Thursday, including 21 fires in Montana and 18 in Oregon.
- PUB DATE: 9/15/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC News

Thanks in large part to the efforts of Wisconsin Dells residents and Adams County master gardeners Dan and Laura Reger, Smokey the Bear has a new “firewise” garden to call his own at the oft-visited park in front of the local Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources office on River Road. The new garden was dedicated as a new “Firewise Education Site” during a brief ceremony there the afternoon of Sept.
- PUB DATE: 9/14/2017 11:57:47 PM - SOURCE: wisc news

On September 14, 0 residential fire fatalities were reported by the Nation's news media.

As investigators began the painstaking search for clues to explain what caused a house to explode on Madison’s Southwest Side Wednesday afternoon, officials were not ruling out that somebody was inside the house during the blast. The house that exploded at about 2 p.m. at 7806 Stratton Way, near where High Point Road intersects with Highway PD, was deemed a total loss by Madison Fire Chief Steven Davis.
- PUB DATE: 9/14/2017 3:39:14 AM - SOURCE: Madison.com-Wisconsin State Journal-Capital Times

With Tropical Storm Harvey lashing at his city and no official word from headquarters, Houston Fire Capt. Scott Wilkey took matters into his own hands and drove the 35 miles from his home to the Houston fire station he commands. It was Saturday, Aug. 26, and meteorologists were warning of catastrophic flooding in the city.
- PUB DATE: 9/14/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: USA Today

Mesa firefighter Jesse Simpson, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, knew he had to do something, anything, to help “George,” a fellow veteran who had lost everything. In May, Simpson’s crew found George sitting on a toilet in a rundown west Mesa apartment that had been heavily damaged when a maintenance crew accidentally struck a water pipe, causing a flood.
- PUB DATE: 9/14/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Valley Tribune

A brand-new Lexington Fire Department headquarters may cost the town about $19.3 million, according to project architect Jeffery McElravy of Tecton Arcitects. McElravy presented his schematic design for the new facility to Selectmen on Sept. 11. The new facility will go in the same location as the current fire headquarters on Bedford Street.
- PUB DATE: 9/14/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wicked Local Lexington

A government-ordered inquiry into the London tower fire that killed at least 80 people opened Thursday with a minute of silence for the victims — and with its leader acknowledging that survivors feel a "great sense of anger and betrayal." Retired judge Martin Moore-Bick said he hoped his investigation would "provide a small measure of solace" by discovering how such a disaster could occur in 21st-century London, and preventing it happening again.
- PUB DATE: 9/14/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ABC News

A slap in the face is how many Raleigh firefighters and police view new changes to a city policy. It involves all city employees and centers on vacation time, sick leave, holiday pay and promotions. The changes were made as part of the consent agenda that passed at the last City Council meeting. “If I have to work on a Saturday, I already have to take two days off to have that weekend off.
- PUB DATE: 9/14/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WNCN-TV NBC 17

On September 13, 1 residential fire fatality was reported by the Nation's news media.

VIDEO: After traveling thousands of miles for several days, 35 Wisconsin firefighters were back home Wednesday evening. The firefighters are part of Wisconsin’s Urban Search and Rescue Task Force, or Task Force 1, a group that responds to rescue missions across the country. The team was originally activated Sunday afternoon for a 10-day mission to Jacksonville, Fla.
- PUB DATE: 9/13/2017 11:03:33 PM - SOURCE: WMSN-TV Fox 47 Madison

On September 12, 1 residential fire fatality was reported by the Nation's news media.

On September 11, 4 residential fire fatalities were reported by the Nation's news media.

Firefighters who risk their lives to save others stand to get help from an innovative device that can guide them out of smoke-filled buildings. Jeff Dykes, owner and founder of Northern Star Fire, is an Eau Claire firefighter captain who won the 2017 Governor’s Business Plan Contest with a headgear compass to maintain or regain a firefighter’s orientation during a fire.
- PUB DATE: 9/13/2017 4:14:15 AM - SOURCE: Dunn County News

The US House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill Tuesday that would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a registry of firefighters who develop cancer in an effort to study the risks they face on the job. The Firefighter Cancer Registry Act, introduced by Rep. Chris Collins, R-NY, would provide $2 million in federal funds from 2018 to 2022 for the CDC to gather and study data, including the status of a firefighter who developed cancer (volunteer or career, for example), the number of years spent on the job and the number and types of incidents they responded to.
- PUB DATE: 9/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse

A female firefighter who claims she was demoted and told to stay home with her young son has filed a sex-discrimination lawsuit against the Lower Swatara Fire Department. Jessica Etzle contends in the U.S. Middle District Court suit that she was stripped of her post as lieutenant and told by the fire chief in January 2016 that, "'You have a 6-year-old son' and she needed to be home and be a mother to her son.
- PUB DATE: 9/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: PennLive.com

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday directed all land managers and park superintendents to be more aggressive in cutting down small trees and underbrush to prevent wildfires as the smoke-choked West faces one of the worst fire seasons in a decade. In a memo, Zinke said the Trump administration will take a new approach and work proactively to prevent fires "through aggressive and scientific fuels reduction management" to save lives, homes and wildlife habitat.
- PUB DATE: 9/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Montana Standard

Court documents are shedding new light on the incident that left Union head and Deputy Cranston Fire Chief Paul Valletta facing simple assault and disorderly conduct charges. It happened Saturday. An affidavit says problems started when Valletta made "degrading" comments against Lt. Scott Bergantino in front of fellow firefighters.
- PUB DATE: 9/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WLNE-TV ABC 6

Three people died of carbon-monoxide poisoning on Tuesday from a generator that was running inside their Orange County home after Hurricane Irma, the Sheriff’s Office said. Four other members of the multigenerational family were taken to Florida Hospital in very serious condition. Neighbors in the Kingswood Manor neighborhood near Lee Road — who were still without power Tuesday night — found out about the incident mostly through word of mouth, as helicopters and media arrived on the scene.
- PUB DATE: 9/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orlando Sentinel