Baltimore City Fire Department is in its first week of a scaled-back response policy. Baltimore City’s Fire Department’s new police now sends two fewer engines to every fire — from five currently — down to three. Its policy change cuts short ladder trucks and battalion chiefs from two down to one. The City’s Firefighter Union said the new policy jeopardized someone’s life Sunday, on the first day it was implemented.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WJZ-TV CBS 13 Baltimore

Pennsylvania’s auditor general wants to reduce restrictions on how firefighters can spend state aid, but Western Pennsylvania fire departments have mixed feelings over whether change is needed. “The law has not kept pace with changing times and, in my view, puts too many restrictions on how relief associations can spend the state aid they receive,” Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said at a news conference Thursday.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: TRIBLive

New York City firefighters who rushed to the remnants of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 terror attacks are dying from health issues — and that may include serious cardiovascular diseases, according to a study published Friday. The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and conducted by doctors at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, "suggest a significant association" between greater exposure at the World Trade Center and a higher risk of long-term cardiovascular disease.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC News

When the Tenaja Fire's flames started threatening structures in Murrieta's Copper Canyon community, Eric, who declined to share his last name, ignored the evacuation order and stayed behind to defend his home. The afternoon winds kicked up around 2 p.m. on Thursday, as usual, and two privately contracted firefighters battled the wildfire flames nearby that sent surrounding oak trees up in hissing flames.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Desert Sun

As calls come in through 911, dispatchers are ready to deliver instructions on how to perform CPR on someone who is not breathing, tell them best way to evacuate a building that is on fire or help guide them through a life-threatening situation. At the same time, dispatchers are on the other side of the call figuring out which emergency response is needed, where it’s needed and how to get them there.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Cleburne Times-Review