The state Senate passed legislation Saturday to sharply restrict the sale of a class of firefighting foams linked to water pollution in Washington and elsewhere in the nation. State Senate Bill 6413, approved 39-8, would largely prohibit — as of 2020 — the sale of firefighting foams containing polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl chemicals — known as PFAS.
- PUB DATE: 2/11/2018 3:05:35 AM - SOURCE: Longview Daily News

Graham Fire & Rescue Chief Pat Dale wants voters in Pierce County Fire District 21 to know that a little item on Tuesday’s special election ballot could make a big difference for a small department contending with runaway growth. The district’s maintenance and operations levy, last approved by voters in 2014, is up for renewal.
- PUB DATE: 2/11/2018 2:41:28 AM - SOURCE: Tacoma News Tribune - Metered Site

The girls might as well have been invisible, coated in soot in a room flooded with smoke. Three stories of flames had been beaten down by Engine 7, just enough for Capt. Nick Adsero and firefighter Brent Duckworth to skirt past a broken sliding glass door and into a burning living room at the Olin Fields Apartments.
- PUB DATE: 2/10/2018 10:46:55 PM - SOURCE: Everett Herald - Metered Site

It was a life or death situation with little chance of making it. A Spokane area firefighter and medic went into cardiac arrest at his home on Mt. Spokane. Luckily someone close to him who he trained more than three decades ago was there. “If she wasn’t here I would have died,” Rick Stone said. It was a Saturday night and Carol Stone and her husband had just gotten home from dinner when he told her something was wrong.
- PUB DATE: 2/10/2018 5:04:47 PM - SOURCE: KAYU-TV MyFox Spokane

Washington state lawmakers are currently working on the details of a proposed bill that would increase the presumptive disease coverage for firefighters by nine cancers as well as MRSA and stroke. The bill would also apply the presumptions to publicly employed fire investigators and paramedics. The new cancers recognized as presumptive would include mesothelioma, stomach, esophageal, buccal, pharyngeal, nonmelanoma skin cancer and adenocarcinoma.
- PUB DATE: 2/10/2018 4:59:11 PM - SOURCE: KXLY-TV ABC 4