Fire officials on Tuesday will ask the Board of Supervisors to approve a $42 million annual plan calling for more firefighters and new fire stations to plug response holes in the county — with a recommendation of a half-cent countywide sales tax hike to voters next year to fund it. The plan would add about 175 paid firefighters, many of them paramedics, to bolster the county’s current paid firefighting force of 400.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Fire chiefs from across the world are gathered in Dallas for the annual Fire-Rescue International Conference put on by the International Association of Fire Chiefs. This year the association says it’s dedicated to addressing bullying and harassment within fire department ranks. Retired South Fulton, Georgia Fire Chief David Daniels is leading a task force on the issue at the conference.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CBS Dallas Fort Worth

No one was home at a house deep in the woods of Josephine County, Oregon. The people who live here had evacuated days ago along with hundreds of their neighbors. As flames from the Taylor Creek Fire got closer and closer, the firefighters showed up. They came to prepare for the worst so that if the wind picked up, they’d be ready to dash down the driveway and save this house, even if the forest burned around it.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Oregon Public Broadcasting

On Kevin Leago’s July CT scan, his torso looks like it has been riddled with birdshot. Dark splotches speckle his liver, his pancreas, his spine, marking where his neuroendocrine cancer has spread. The pain in his bones has left the 38-year-old Houston Fire Department senior captain unable to work since the end of May.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

Arson is blamed for a four-alarm fire Saturday morning at a Yakima warehouse that required fire crews from as far away as Kittitas County and caused an estimated $20 million in damage. It was the second time in 48 hours that fire broke out at Fruit Packers Supply Inc.Both fires are under investigation by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
- PUB DATE: 8/13/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Seattle Times