Bellingham city officials are confident that its emergency services can keep the public’s trust in the wake of several incidents involving first responders. The Bellingham Fire Department disclosed on Monday that a ranking officer resigned and another retired in the wake of “serious misconduct” regarding a late July incident in which a deceased patient’s body was used for an unauthorized training exercise.
- PUB DATE: 9/26/2018 5:03:11 AM - SOURCE: Bellingham Herald

Clallam County Fire Rescue 2 plans to purchase 46 state-of-the-art self-contained breathing apparatus air packs for firefighters using a $311,239 grant. The Assistance to Firefighter Grant (AFG) by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is part of the fiscal year 2017 AFG program.
- PUB DATE: 9/26/2018 3:04:45 AM - SOURCE: Port Angeles Peninsula Daily News

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