Hernando County commissioners shut down the Hernando Beach Volunteer Fire Department on Valentine’s Day 2017. They did so for good reason. The volunteers were failing to respond to 911 calls. They’d ignored a state requirement to hire a medical director. For more than two years, they never produced a financial audit to show how they were spending taxpayer dollars.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Tampa Bay Times

Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare said Monday he plans to conduct yet another search for a permanent fire chief, but it will likely begin after the City Council considers a proposal to remove the mandatory retirement age for high-ranking members of the fire and police departments. Pare told the Council Finance Committee the city’s search for a fire chief is nearing the three-year mark due in large part to an existing ordinance that requires firefighters to retire when they turn 60.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WPRI-TV Providence 12

Roy and Ted Wagner were there at the beginning when their father played a big part in their central New Jersey hometown forming a volunteer fire company — and they're still going strong half a century after joining the ranks themselves. Long after following their father into service with the Plainsboro Volunteer Fire Company, the identical twin brothers were feted by colleagues this week for dedicating the last 50 years to their community.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse

VIDEO - Dramatic cellphone video of a ball-cap-wearing man catching a baby dropped from a burning second-floor apartment has ignited something of a mystery in Anderson, South Carolina. The 8-second video has gotten thousands of views on Facebook, yet media outlets around the world have yet to ferret out the name of the hero.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Charlotte Observer

Prompted by a federal investigation, the mayor of Akron has put an end to the illegal, off-the-books tracking of overtime in the city’s police and fire departments. For more than 30 years, countless overtime hours — presumably tens of thousands — were often never recorded through the city’s formal payroll process, making it impossible for federal officials to get a true accounting of whether employees were being properly compensated.
- PUB DATE: 6/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Akron Beacon Journal