The Garden City Village Board voted Tuesday night to eliminate its paid fire department. The board voted 6-1, with trustee Stephen Makrinos dissenting, to abolish the paid department effective Aug. 27. All paid firefighters were placed on administrative leave and told not to report to work Thursday.
- PUB DATE: 7/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Newsday

After voluntarily shutting down in March due to outdated equipment discovered during an investigation by the West Virginia State Fire Marshal’s Office, the Northfork Volunteer Fire Department reopened Wednesday morning, according to a news release from the fire marshal. Over the past four months, the department invested in new airpacks — the breathing apparatuses used by firefighters in structural fires — and sent all its trucks away for upgrades and maintenance, said John Adams, who began serving as chief of the Northfork VFD a little over a month ago.
- PUB DATE: 7/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Charleston Gazette-Mail

The highest-ranking fire chief punished in the aftermath of a drinking and test-cheating scandal at Cal Fire’s academy in 2014 could get his job back. A San Francisco Superior Court judge this month ruled that former Cal Fire Assistant Chief Michael Ramirez should get another chance to return to work three years after the department dismissed him.
- PUB DATE: 7/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Sacramento Bee

Tapping reserves. Reducing spending. Hiring more firefighters and police officers. Those are some of the measures the City of Newburgh is discussing to plug an expected hole in this year’s $44.6 million budget and then reduce fire and police department overtime that is on pace to fall far short of more than $700,000 in hoped-for cuts, Mayor Torrance Harvey said.
- PUB DATE: 7/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Times Herald-Record

A man was arrested on suspicion of setting multiple fires in southwest Riverside County on Wednesday, including one that burned homes and forced evacuations in the Idyllwild area, officials said. Temecula resident Brandon N. McGlover, 32, is accused of sparking a series of blazes along Highway 74 in the San Bernardino National Forest, according to a news release from officials at the national monument.
- PUB DATE: 7/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ktla.com