More than four years after a massive blaze destroyed an Edgewater apartment complex and temporarily displaced more than 1,000 residents, legislative attempts to better protect residential structures from fast-spreading fires have stalled. A panel of firefighters, fire safety experts, activists and builders at a public forum in Teaneck weighed in Wednesday night on how best to address the issue.
- PUB DATE: 3/11/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: North Jersey.com (Bergen County Record & Herald News)

The city’s ambulance corps is so busy that an overtime cap applying to all other agencies has been lifted and medics are routinely putting in 60 and 70-hour weeks, union officials said. Normally, city workers can’t make more than 40 percent of their salary in overtime. However, with just 4,133 emergency medical technicians and paramedics to handle nearly 1.
- PUB DATE: 3/11/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Post

Cahokia (IL) Volunteer Fire Department 75-foot aerial ladder quint. Monarch cab and chassis; Cummins ISL 450-hp engine; Hale Qmax 2,000-gpm pump.

The Franklin County Fire Department upgraded its tool kit by getting new Jaws of Life. The Jaws of Life is a tool used by firefighters to pry open cars when they are trying to rescue someone from an accident. The new Jaws of Life they received are battery powered and cordless unlike the previous gasoline powered ones.
- PUB DATE: 3/10/2019 9:42:07 PM - SOURCE: NBCRightNow.com

Spokane Valley firefighter Joseph Conley described his climb up 69 flights of stairs at the Columbia Center in Seattle as the 13 most “grueling minutes of his life.” Conley, along with about 2,000 other firefighters on Sunday, participated in the so-called “stair climb” to raise money for blood cancer research.
- PUB DATE: 3/10/2019 7:40:33 PM - SOURCE: Spokane Spokesman-Review