Mayor Sylvester Turner has instituted a hiring freeze across the city government’s roughly 21,400 positions, ordering department directors seeking exceptions to meet with him or his chief of staff in person. The directive, he wrote in a memo dated Friday, will be reviewed “at a later date this year.
- PUB DATE: 9/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

Firefighters on patrol are safer than at the station where they’re at risk of a heart attack when the alarm sounds, Mayor Tony George said Tuesday in further explanation of why he’s ordered the department to conduct community fire watches. The department had been conducting the watches, but for the past 40 days stepped them up at the direction of the mayor by driving apparatus in the neighborhoods, not only to serve as a deterrent, but also to detect fires.
- PUB DATE: 9/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Wilkes Barre Times Leader

Since 2005, the Orlando Fire Department has trained its paramedics on how to work with police officers to rescue victims from active shooter situations. In 2013, administrators began updating the department’s policy and buying equipment. But the project wasn’t finished until after the June 12, 2016, shooting at the Pulse nightclub.
- PUB DATE: 9/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Propublica

Metropolitan fire chiefs from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom met last week for the National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) annual Urban Fire Forum (UFF) aimed at reinforcing the critical role urban chiefs play in ensuring safe communities. The forum was held at NFPA headquarters in Quincy, MA, and featured special guests such as the head of the U.
- PUB DATE: 9/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse.com

Martin Pang, who set fire to a Seattle warehouse in 1995 in hopes of collecting an insurance payout — a blaze that killed four firefighters in the worst loss of life in the department’s history — will be released from prison on Thursday. Pang, now 62, set fire to a frozen-food warehouse owned by his parents in the Chinatown International District on Jan.
- PUB DATE: 9/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Seattle Times