A Centralia firefighter climbed 30 feet up a fir tree Sunday to rescue an 11-year-old boy who became stranded while trying to catch a cat that had earlier suffered the same fate. The Riverside Fire Authority responded at 12:15 p.m. Sunday to an address in the 2500 block of Colonial Drive in Centralia.
- PUB DATE: 2/20/2018 3:13:26 AM - SOURCE: Centralia Chronicle

Two city firefighters were injured Monday when a wall collapsed while multiple fire crews were battling a massive blaze in a large storage building on Newell Street. The two unidentified firefighters were taken by ambulance to Samaritan Medical Center, one on a stretcher. Fire Chief Dale C. Herman confirmed one of the injured firefighters was later transferred to a Syracuse hospital.
- PUB DATE: 2/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Watertown Daily Times

Fairfax County’s fire chief announced his retirement Friday, a little more than a week after county officials said they would investigate allegations that the department had failed to curb sexual harassment. Richard R. Bowers Jr. has received high marks during his five-year tenure for the department’s firefighting work, but was dogged by complaints and a handful of lawsuits claiming that women were mistreated in the ranks.
- PUB DATE: 2/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Washington Post

In 2003, John Bernardo worked occasional nights as a DJ in bars throughout the state, hired to bring in people who wanted to dance and buy drinks. After Feb. 20, 2003, the night 100 people — including two of his friends — were killed and more than 200 injured, many severely, in the Station nightclub fire in West Warwick, that all changed.
- PUB DATE: 2/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Providence Journal

Emily Avin was supposed to come home that day in September. Her parents had arranged it: Avin would move back into their country home in the small Florence County town of Pamplico, where she grew up playing softball and cheering for her high school football team as the mascot. It would be a break, for a month or so, from her job as a paramedic, a career the young woman loved but now found emotionally draining.
- PUB DATE: 2/20/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Charleston Post and Courier