The City of Chicago is suing a Rockford-based coffee company for trademark infringement, claiming the company’s logo is an imitation of the Chicago Fire Department’s symbol. Fire Department Coffee and the Fire Department both feature logos that consist of the letters D, F and C intertwined in a stylized monogram, which is likely to confuse consumers into thinking the city has endorsed or sponsored the business, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday.
- PUB DATE: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Sun Times

A Vancouver firefighter is heading across the state to become Kennewick’s new fire chief. Chad Michael is leaving a spot as the deputy chief of operations at the Vancouver Fire Department to return to his roots in Eastern Washington. He starts March 16 and will be sworn in at the March 17 city council meeting.
- PUB DATE: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Tri-City Herald

Top Fire Department officials told a City Council committee Jan. 28 that the department’s policy of “promoting” Emergency Medical Technicians to become Firefighters, who are paid tens of thousands of dollars more a year, had produced a major gap in Emergency Medical Service staffing. As a consequence, they conceded that even as the city continued to set records for EMS call volume, and response times for those calls were rising, there had been a decline in the number of ambulance crews available, a circumstance they said would take “a couple of years” to rectify.
- PUB DATE: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Chief Leader - Metered Site

When Brian Kernohan complained to his doctor of merciless headaches two summers ago, he expected to get a prescription for a sinus infection, not a diagnosis of brain cancer. The 37-year-old firefighter’s eardrums were curved inward, so his doctor suggested a CT scan. It found a tumor the size of a golf ball sitting on his right cerebral artery, daring a stroke with every heartbeat.
- PUB DATE: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WUFT-TV PBS 5 Gainesville

Residents displaced when flames tore through a 1960s-era Los Angeles apartment tower and injured 13 people this week are wondering why the management company didn't install sprinklers after another destructive blaze seven years ago. City officials said after the 2013 fire “that it shouldn’t take another tragedy” to get sprinklers into older buildings that are exempt from retrofitting rules, City Councilman Mike Bonin said Thursday.
- PUB DATE: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KNBC-TV NBC 4 Los Angeles