An Okanogan Assistant Fire Chief has been receiving overwhelming support from the community and from fellow firefighters after being badly burned fighting the Spring Coulee Fire last weekend. The Washington State Council of Fire Fighters Burn Foundation has been supporting Christian Johnson and his family as he undergoes treatment and recovery from the second and third-degree burns he sustained on over 60 percent of his body.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 10:46:28 AM - SOURCE: KAYU-TV MyFox Spokane

Washington has seen fewer wildfires this year than expected, according to officials at the Pullman fire department. Pullman Fire Chief Mike Heston said this wildfire season in Pullman was predicted to be similar to 2015, with lots of fires and smoke. This year, the wildfire season is slower because there are better resources like aerial firefighters, and the department has been extinguishing fires more quickly.
- PUB DATE: 9/6/2019 12:35:38 AM - SOURCE: Daily Evergreen

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