Willow Street Fire Company Chief Michael Reese, who spent four decades as a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician, died this week unexpectedly. “Chief Reese’s life was dedicated to helping others,” fire company president Bob Kiesel wrote in a statement announcing Reese’s passing. Reese, 53, passed away suddenly at his home in Willow Street on Thursday after he responded to a vehicle accident earlier that morning, Kiesel wrote.
- PUB DATE: 8/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Lancaster Online

Wichita residents could see a substantial shift in the way first responders handle thousands of medical calls to 911 each year. Early next year, the Wichita Fire Department will test sending emergency medical technicians on “what some have called band aids and aspirin” medical calls, Mayor Jeff Longwell said at a recent City Council meeting.
- PUB DATE: 8/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wichita Eagle & Kansas.com

The job of a firefighter isn’t what it used to be. Take Charlottesville, Va., for example, where in just the past 18 months the fire departments in the city and surrounding Albemarle County have searched the wreckage of a plane crash in a hard-to-reach wooded area, performed water rescues after spring floods, responded to the derailment of a passenger train carrying Republican members of Congress and, most memorably, provided medical assistance during white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, including one incident that left three people dead last summer.
- PUB DATE: 8/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Governing.com

According to a majority panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, a group of Pittsburgh firefighters did not prove that a different design for a fire truck siren they say permanently damaged their hearing would have been safer. On Aug. 20 in a 2-1 decision, Superior Court judges Mary Jane Bowes and Paula Francisco Ott upheld a granting of summary judgment to Federal Signal Corporation and dismissing the case brought by firefighters Ronald M.
- PUB DATE: 8/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Pennsylvania Record

A longtime township fire chief in Pickaway County who was fired this month has sued to get his job back. Porter “Chip” Welch had been chief of the Scioto Township Fire Department in the northern part of the county since 2005. Township trustees met on Aug. 16 and fired him. Trustee Ralph Wolfe told The Dispatch that no one from the township could comment.
- PUB DATE: 8/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Columbus Dispatch