After four days of terrorizing Wine Country and surrounding regions, the Northern California wildfires on Thursday became the deadliest in state history, with 31 confirmed fatalities and more expected. The most destructive of those, the Tubbs fire, killed at least 15 people, and new figures told of its destruction.
- PUB DATE: 10/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: East Bay Times

By Christmas, all 855 members of the Cincinnati Fire Department will have received their custom-fitted bulletproof vests. I'll repeat that -- slowly. Bullet. Proof. Vests. If this is a new reality, it runs counter to how I have always viewed this honorable occupation. In my mind's eye, a firefighter is a hero who would climb a ladder and pluck Morris from a towering oak tree.
- PUB DATE: 10/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Cincinnati Enquirer

A firefighter fell through a staircase and landed in the basement of a burning house off Lalor Street early Thursday, fire officials said. The firefighter was on the first crew climbing to the second floor with a hose at a house on Benton Road at about 3:10 a.m., fire spokesman Capt. Ferdinand Mather said.
- PUB DATE: 10/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NJ.com

In a recent column about building character in young firefighters, I wrote that trust should be given to all members of the organization; that trust should be assumed unless violated. Trust should not have to be earned through popularity or individual achievement. At least one reader took issue with this statement.
- PUB DATE: 10/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

City firefighters are being credited with saving the life of a suicidal man found with a rope around his neck on the top deck of the Elliot Hospital parking garage Thursday around 2 a.m. “I looked across the top level, and I saw a man on the other side of the guardrail, on the opposite side of the garage from me,” 16-year veteran Lt.
- PUB DATE: 10/13/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Manchester Union Leader