Atlanta City Council members passed a $677 million dollar budget Monday that included a pay bump for the city’s firefighters. But, some say it’s not enough. The budget includes a 3.1 percent increase for Atlanta firefighters, other fire rescue personnel and 911 dispatchers. It builds on a similar increase approved last year for firefighters and police officers.
- PUB DATE: 6/21/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WABE 90.1 FM

The Orange County Fire Authority has reversed its decision to encrypt its radio and dispatch communications that was initiated Monday. The encryption was part of the county’s upgrade of its 800 MHz Countywide-Coordinated Communications System, managed by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Officials said the move was meant to improve public safety agencies’ ability to communicate with each other during an emergency, but because it blocks the public from tuning into its communications during disasters, the OCFA decided to reverse the encryption of more than 1,500 radios used by its firefighters and paramedics.
- PUB DATE: 6/21/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Los Angeles Times - Metered Site

A woman who was left living on the streets of Florida with her dog after experiencing hardships was given refuge when a trio of kindhearted firefighters pitched in to get her, and her pup, shelter from the rain. It was around 2 a.m. on Tuesday when the Broward Sheriff’s Office received a call from a disabled homeless woman who complained of pain from standing too long, according to a post from the department’s Facebook page.
- PUB DATE: 6/21/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: People

Seattle authorities have moved firefighters out of a Northgate fire station where worries have long been raised about unhealthy conditions and links to cancer. Mayor Jenny Durkan and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins made the relocation decision this week, citing initial results from environmental testing recently done at Station 31 by the Seattle firefighters union, Local 27.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Seattle Times - Metered Site

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) released its annual “U.S. Firefighter Fatalities in the United States” report, which showed a total of 64 U.S. firefighter fatalities while on duty in 2018. This is the eighth time in the last 10 years that fewer than 70 on-duty deaths have occurred; the death toll is half what it was in the first five years that NFPA conducted this study.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NFPA.org