Diamond Point residents look to rally the community and local Boy Scouts to help improve Diamond Point Airport 2WA1’s helipad. Currently, the helipad is a 40-feet-by-40-feet mowed space along the airport’s runway with four inconspicuous white concrete blocks, but with funds and support, members of the Diamond Point Airport Association, or DPAA, hope to create a safer hub for airlifts to Seattle.
- PUB DATE: 2/14/2018 1:48:24 AM - SOURCE: Sequim Gazette

VIDEO - It has been a rough month for first-responders in rural Berkeley County. A few weeks ago a firm hired to assess 26 volunteer departments released its findings from an independent fire study and determined, what a lot of those departments already knew, they are underfunded, understaffed and under pressure.
- PUB DATE: 2/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Berkeley Independent

Roughly two-thirds of the firefighters in South Tucson have now indicated they will resign by the end of the month, leaving residents of the small city wondering if there will be enough personnel to adequately respond to emergencies. A former South Tucson firefighter claimed that due to the mass resignations there are two days next month where only one Fire Department employee is scheduled to work on a specific shift.
- PUB DATE: 2/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Arizona Daily Star

On Feb. 9 passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (H.R. 1892) which funds the federal government through March 22 and raises government spending limits. H.R. 1982 also contains several provisions which address challenges facing the fire and emergency service. H.R. 1892 contains some of the most significant EMS reimbursement reforms that Congress has enacted in several years.
- PUB DATE: 2/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: International Association of Fire Chiefs

Sixty years ago, Firefighter Donald Blaskovich left a theatre where "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" was staged to witness an all-too-real living hell. The 85-year-old FDNY retiree, a member of the now defunct Engine Company 13, is the last firefighter alive to have fought the deadly blaze at the Elkins Paper Company on Wooster St.
- PUB DATE: 2/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse