For more than four hours, no one heard from Braden Varney. The 10-year veteran of California’s firefighting force had been dispatched to bulldoze a firebreak on a precarious ridge near Marble Point in Mariposa County, an effort to contain the stubborn Ferguson Fire near Yosemite. It was before dawn on July 14, and the blaze that ignited a day earlier in Sierra National Forest was pushing toward the tiny town of Jerseydale.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle

More than 10,000 fire and emergency service leaders, experts, exhibitors, guests and industry partners from around the globe will assemble August 8-11 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, for Fire-Rescue International (FRI), the annual conference and expo of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC).
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: International Association of Fire Chiefs

Authorities say a St. Louis man broke into a Kinloch firehouse for five hours Monday, ate a tub of ice cream, took a shower and stalked the building with a butcher knife and a fireman's tool before he was discovered. Thomas Robertson, 28, of the 400 block of Thomas Street in St. Louis, was charged Tuesday with felony second-degree burglary.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Much like Class D fires, political fires require special resources to extinguish ... water doesn’t work well. For all of the hyperbole about how “things burn differently in my town,” we hear all so often, there are some things affecting the fire service that do indeed “burn differently” from community to community.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

A city firefighter faces a felony theft charge after he allegedly forged several doctor's notes to receive paid sick time off last year. Bethlehem officials said it cost more than $4,500 to pay James Delgrosso Jr., 40, of Bethlehem for the missed time and for someone to cover his shifts. Delgrosso was also charged Monday with forgery for the notes he allegedly submitted to get time off from February through November, according to Northampton County court records.
- PUB DATE: 8/3/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Allentown Morning Call