Fire season has already made its mark on the Inland Northwest and now, crews are getting ready for the heat of summer. Dozens of firefighters took training to new heights Wednesday. As part of the Eastern Washington Interagency Fire Training Academy, crews worked to load rigs onto a helicopter during a 16-hour course.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 6:09:55 PM - SOURCE: KXLY-TV ABC 4

Fire district officials recently announced two changes that may affect some islanders financially. Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR) has discontinued its membership program, Your Call, created to offset islanders’ costs of ambulance transport to area hospitals. Additionally, the Washington Surveying and Rating Bureau recently downgraded the fire protection rating for islanders at the far north and south ends of Vashon and the southern half and eastern edge of Maury Island.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 1:48:12 AM - SOURCE: Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber

The City of Buffalo will pay a total of $1.2 million to a dozen white Buffalo firefighters who claimed they were passed over for promotion because of their race. The $1.2 million settlement was approved Tuesday by the Buffalo Common Council and brings to a close a 2007 lawsuit that accused the city of illegally allowing two promotional lists to expire because minority firefighters had performed poorly on civil service exams.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Buffalo News

Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern toured three of the city’s eight firehouses June 6, calling the conditions at Monday’s City Council meeting “extremely disturbing.” Firefighters were sleeping on mattresses with holes. Floors were being held together by duct tape. Some stations didn’t have carbon monoxide detectors or Wi-Fi, McGovern said.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wicked Local Cambridge

A Lehigh Acres firefighter went into cardiac arrest, and fellow firefighters resuscitated him inside Station 105 to save his life. Rick Pride, 47, was on the treadmill inside the firehouse workout room when the nearly 13-year firefighting veteran wound up unresponsive on the floor in the firehouse. "Our firefighters reacted very quickly that day, immediately going into emergency mode and starting to help him," Chief Robert DiLallo said of his team at Station 105 of the Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District.
- PUB DATE: 6/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WZVN-TV ABC 7 Naples/Ft. Myers