Young cadets Queen Anunay and Kishia Clemencia stood out in their class at the D.C. fire academy as being among the few women in a male-dominated field. Of the department’s 1,550 members at the time, 35 were women. Fast forward nearly three decades, and Anunay and Clemencia are the ones in charge. The two women were appointed in recent months to battalion chief posts at the department — promotions that made them the third and fourth women to hold the positions in the 135-year-old department’s history.
- PUB DATE: 2/11/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Washington Post - Metered Site

Convinced that Buffalo's hiring practices discriminated against minorities and women, U.S. District Judge John T. Curtin ordered the city to desegregate its fire department. Forty years later, Curtin's landmark order is coming to an end. In a decision earlier this week, the federal judge now handling the civil rights case found the city in compliance and dissolved Curtin's 1979 order.
- PUB DATE: 2/11/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Buffalo News

The health study on people exposed to PFAS chemicals at the former Pease Air Force Base is still scheduled to start no later than August. Dr. Frank Bove, the senior epidemiologist for the Agency For Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said the study may even start sooner. “I don’t see why it would be any later than August,” Bove said in response to a question from Portsmouth activist Andrea Amico.
- PUB DATE: 2/11/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Seacoastonline.com

Detroit has seen a dramatic decline in the number of fires over the last five years, which fire department officials credit to the city's aggressive blight elimination, bolstered arson investigations and community education efforts. According to the Detroit Fire Department's data, the average number of structure fires annually in the city has dropped by 42 percent since 2014, the Detroit News reported.
- PUB DATE: 2/11/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WXYZ-TV ABC Detroit

VIDEO: A special event was held on Saturday to provide free wills for firefighters, police and all other first responders. The Pro Bono Committee of the Cincinnati Paralegal Association held “Remember: Wills For First Responders," an event where volunteer lawyers and paralegals came together to provide wills, living wills, and health care proxies to first responders and their spouses free of charge.
- PUB DATE: 2/11/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WXIX-TV FOX 19 Cincinnati