The city, county and a local fire district recently sued several major pharmaceutical companies and a medical distribution firm, charging them with damaging the local economy by promoting the use of opioid painkillers they knew to be dangerous and extremely addictive. The 52-page complaint was filed in Superior Court late last month by two private law firms on behalf of Stockton, San Joaquin County and the Montezuma Fire Protection District, which serves unincorporated portions of southeast Stockton.
- PUB DATE: 6/26/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Recordnet.com

VIDEO: Community members were invited to help celebrate the opening of a new fire station today. The Chippewa Falls Fire Department held an open house at the station located on Chippewa Crossing Boulevard. The event started with a dedication ceremony and included guided tours around the fire station.
- PUB DATE: 6/25/2017 8:47:07 PM - SOURCE: WEAU-TV 13 News

Six La Crosse families were displaced when a South Side apartment building caught fire early Thursday. The fire at 1113 Fourth St. S. was reported at 3:30 a.m., according to the La Crosse Fire Department. Firefighters arrived to find smoke coming from the first floor of the two-story building and extinguished the fire in the basement room where it started.
- PUB DATE: 6/23/2017 2:08:07 AM - SOURCE: Lacrosse Tribune

Tuesday night the majority of the Wills Point volunteer department walked off in solidarity with Chief Ed Leipply. Leipply's family says he is touched by the loyalty, but adds the decision to walk off was up to each of the volunteers. Hee never commanded or asked them to do so. Dylan Hatten says he's always wanted to serve his community.
- PUB DATE: 6/23/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KHOU-TV CBS 11 Houston

Jeff Gillespie can't pinpoint exactly when blood stopped flowing to his brain. The veteran Poudre Fire Authority firefighter doesn't know exactly how long he stopped breathing, either. It's impossible to say precisely how long his world went black that November afternoon when he was essentially hanged during a training accident.
- PUB DATE: 6/23/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Coloradoan

Kevin Bell, the first Hartford firefighter killed in the line of duty in four decades, had alcohol and a primary substance found in marijuana in his system when he died fighting a fast-spreading house fire, a state toxicology report reviewed by The Courant reveals. But the seven-member panel convened by the city to investigate the death and problems within the fire department never received the toxicology results, according to Hartford Fire Marshal Roger Martin, who was chairman of the board of inquiry.
- PUB DATE: 6/23/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Hartford Courant

A 4 percent raise is in store for the city’s emergency medical technicians and paramedics, the largest increase in its 45-year history, officials said Wednesday. Mayor Mike Duggan unveiled the three-year collective bargaining agreement amendment alongside Fire Commissioner Eric Jones and fire union officials outside St.
- PUB DATE: 6/23/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Detroit News

After several delays to try and attract more FDNY candidates, the filing for the city’s upcoming firefighter exam has finally closed — with historic gains in the number of African-Americans, Asians, Latinos and women who applied. The FDNY had planned to close filing on April 25 for the highly competitive firefighter entrance exam that will be given in the fall.
- PUB DATE: 6/23/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

A 30-year-old Ellsworth man died Thursday, June 22 as a result of injuries he sustained in a head-on collision Wednesday, June 21. A news release from the Wisconsin State Patrol said Jason Hart succumbed to his injuries Thursday morning. Wisconsin State Patrol troopers responded to the scene of the crash at about 4:35 p.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 6:26:43 PM - SOURCE: Rivertowns

A daring rescue near Miller Park Thursday, June 22nd. Neighbors save the lives of several people, including children, trapped in a house fire near 29th and Mount Vernon Avenue. The Milwaukee Fire Department responding to the scene shortly before 5:00 p.m. Neighbors ran to the home, where they saw the family trapped by flames and smoke on the third floor of the home — including an infant.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 5:29:48 PM - SOURCE: WITI Fox Channel 6

A fire near an electrical panel caused about $40,000 in damage to a Janesville home Wednesday night, officials said. The Janesville Fire Department was sent just after 11:30 p.m. to 103 Union St. for a report of smoke alarms sounding in the residence, according to a release. Firefighters found smoke coming from the eaves of the single-family two-story wood frame house, officials said.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 2:51:51 PM - SOURCE: WISC-TV Channel 3000.com Madison

A 24-year-old Greenfield man died after an explosion and fire in a maintenance shed at an apartment complex on Thursday morning, June 22nd. Firefighters were dispatched to the scene at the Willowick Apartments just before 10:00 a.m. When they arrived on the scene, they found the maintenance shed fully engulfed in flames — and a male victim lying outside the shed with extensive burns.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 11:33:04 AM - SOURCE: WITI Fox Channel 6

On June 17, 5 residential fire fatalities were reported by the Nation's news media.

VIDEO: We're learning a battery charging system is likely to blame for a fire at Heil Ginseng in Edgar. The fire was reported at just before 6 p.m. Wednesday on South Third Avenue. Not long after the call came in, first responders were informed the building was being evacuated. The assistant fire chief for the Edgar Fire Department tells NewsChannel 7, a machine shed started a fire.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 7:11:14 AM - SOURCE: WSAW-TV CBS 7 Wausau

The Walnut Street Bridge was closed for about 90 minutes early Thursday when a vehicle got stuck in one of the opening spans. It happened about 2:45 a.m. The driver had gone past the traffic arm and apparently drove his minivan onto one of the opening spans, then coasted back into the opening between the span and the fixed roadway, according to Green Bay Metro Fire Department.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 6:46:33 AM - SOURCE: Green Bay Press-Gazette

Long before “locavore” and “foodie” were trendy words, the Dane Firefighters Festival encapsulated both. From Thursday, June 22-Sunday, June 25, at Bert Deans Park, 120 Railroad St. in Dane, the festival will continue its long tradition of serving bites like burgers, brats and slow-roasted pork. But the meal that tops it all off, in the opinion of Dane Fire Department Lieutenant Sara Grade, is the tantalizingly-tender chicken served on Sunday.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 2:36:20 AM - SOURCE: Lodi Enterprise

A Racine man allegedly set his apartment on fire because he wasn’t invited to a cookout. Nolan J. Williams, 44, of the 1300 block of Douglas Avenue, has been charged with arson and three counts of second degree recklessly endangering safety. On June 2, an officer responded to Williams’ apartment to investigate a fire, according to a criminal complaint.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 2:19:28 AM - SOURCE: Racine Journal Times

In the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire in London, where 79 people died or are presumed dead and many more were injured, serious concerns and questions around flammability of exterior cladding, the lack of fire sprinklers and the notion of “shelter in place,” among other subjects, have been brought to the forefront by the news media and the public at large.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: National Fire Protection Association

Hundreds of police officers and firefighters from across the Midwest joined community members in Kalamazoo Wednesday to honor Comstock Township Fire Chief Ed Switalski, who was hit by a vehicle and killed last week while responding to a call. It took firefighters and police officers about half an hour to file into the Wings Event Center for the funeral.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WOOD-TV NBC 8 Grand Rapids

Except for a Vallejo firefighter who got a $2 million payout for wrongful termination, the list of California’s highest-earning public employees for 2016 is dominated by medical personnel – surgeons, physicians, psychiatrists, hospital directors – and a few investment officers from CalPERS, the world’s largest public employee retirement system.
- PUB DATE: 6/22/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Orange County Register