The city will not appeal the discrimination and retaliation case it lost to a pregnant firefight last year. That means the court case is over. Tampa Fire Rescue will obey a federal judge’s order and re-hire Tanja Vidovic, the firefighter it fired the day after she filed suit in March 2016. The city will also pay the $245,000 in damages the jury awarded her in December.
- PUB DATE: 3/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Tampa Bay Times

San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin criticized Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White as a residential and commercial building in his district burned, saying that firefighters had been slow to pour water on the blaze and that he had been unable to reach the chief as the emergency unfolded. “This was an abject failure of the Fire Department,” said Peskin, leader of the board’s progressive faction, as smoke poured from the building across from Washington Square Park in North Beach on Saturday night.
- PUB DATE: 3/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate.com)

Limington’s Board of Selectmen has ordered its volunteer fire department to “stand down until further notice” while the town tries to bring its firefighting protective gear into compliance with national standards. Selectmen said in a statement released Sunday that the town’s emergency rescue crews will continue to respond to all medical emergency calls during the stand-down, which is expected to last a few days, but in the meantime the town will rely on mutual aid from neighboring fire departments if a structure fire should break out.
- PUB DATE: 3/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Portland Press Herald

The body of missing Nashville firefighter Jesse Reed has been recovered in Humphreys County. Reed went missing in the Tennessee River on March 6 after his vehicle was submerged. The search for Reed lasted 12 days. He was found around 11:15 a.m. Saturday in a cove about a half mile from where his vehicle went into the water.
- PUB DATE: 3/19/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTVF-TV CBS 5 Nashville

Phillips 66—Lake Charles Manufacturing Complex, Westlake, LA, Inundator Super Pumper. Inferno cab and chassis; Cummins ISX15 600-hp engine; US Fire Pump 5,500-gpm high-velocity pump; 1,000-gallon polypropylene foam cell.