A fire engine ran out of water before a second engine crew was able to re-establish a water supply to fight a fatal fire in Elgin this year, according to documents obtained by The Courier-News. Elgin fire Chief David Schmidt said that, according to radio communications, firefighters at the scene were without water for 77 seconds while trying to extinguish the blaze in a mobile home in which a 63-year-old man died.
- PUB DATE: 2/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Tribune

A “sarcastic” firefighter got a verbal reprimand recently for his response to a caller who asked firefighters to rescue a cat from a tree, according to the fire chief. A young girl posted on social media on behalf of her mother that the firefighter who took the call was “extremely rude” and that he suggested the cat would eventually get out of the tree on its own: He said he had never seen a cat skeleton in a tree before, and that cats have nine lives.
- PUB DATE: 2/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Worcester Telegram

Fighting fires is Alan Ziff's life's work. More than that, it is his passion. Ziff, 62, has been involved in fire fighting for 34 years. He quit counting the structure fires he battled when the number hit 1,000. What makes someone run into a burning building, while the first reaction of most people (or rats, cockroaches and just about every other mobile organism) is to get the heck out of there? "It takes a certain type of person," said Ziff, who is the chair of the Fire Science Department and Fire Academy director at Pueblo Community College.
- PUB DATE: 2/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Pueblo Chieftain

At 27 years old, Bob Stewart and two friends made a road trip that would change his life. On a whim, the three drove from Salem, Ore., to Yakima — a town Stewart says at the time he couldn’t have pointed to on a map — to take a test to become firefighters. Some 30 years after that road trip, Stewart will retire — on Wednesday — from his post as chief of the Yakima Fire Department.
- PUB DATE: 2/26/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Yakima Herald - Metered Site

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