Spokane County Fire District 4 has a new assistant fire chief, but Howard Johnson is no stranger to the district. He grew up in it and has worked the district since 1993. Johnson grew up on Chattaroy Road not too far from a fire station. His parents, Howard Johnson Jr. and Kay Johnson, were both volunteer firefighters.
- PUB DATE: 11/29/2018 6:51:38 AM - SOURCE: Spokane Spokesman-Review

A report released Wednesday warns that Pennsylvania’s fire and rescue services face a crisis, saying the number of volunteers continues to fall amid funding needs and training challenges. The 95-page legislative study said there were about 300,000 volunteer firefighters in the state in the 1970s, a number that’s fallen to about 38,000 currently.
- PUB DATE: 11/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Bucks County Courier Times

Firefighter Kelly Gall is suing the city of Austin for failing to prevent sexual harassment from former Austin fire Lt. James Baker, who pleaded guilty in October to filming Gall in a fire station restroom. In a civil lawsuit filed in Travis County this week, Gall says the city failed to take action against Baker, her former supervisor, for previous reports of inappropriate behavior.
- PUB DATE: 11/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Austin American-Statesman

Garfield Township Trustee Steve Duell used a metaphor of three farmers to describe why he believes the township should leave the Grand Traverse Metro Fire Department unless changes happen. These three farmers own farms of differing sizes — one small, one big and one medium, but each has equal say in what their neighbors do.
- PUB DATE: 11/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Traverse City Record-Eagle

Gerald Munson, the former chief of the Croton-on-Hudson Fire Department, and member of a family involved in the village fire services for nearly a century, on Wednesday was sentenced to as much as four and a half years in state prison for stealing $313,000 from the department. Westchester County Court Judge Larry Schwartz handed down the sentence two months after Munson pleaded guilty to grand larceny as a crime of public corruption.
- PUB DATE: 11/29/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NY Journal News (Lohud.com)