The risk firefighters face for developing job-related cancers was well known in the fire service long before elected officials and the national news media started taking more notice in recent years and cast a brighter light on the issue. There are 37 states that have passed cancer presumption laws for firefighters, which provide workers' compensation benefits for those with certain types of cancers directly attributed to the job.
- PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse.com

The Tulsa Fire Department is removing blue stripes from fire trucks. The chief thinks the stripes may send the wrong message to some people. "It hit me in my heart that this was the right thing to do for the City of Tulsa and for the citizens," Chief Ray Driskell said. TFD added the stripe after the Dallas police shooting as a symbol of solidarity with law enforcement, but Driskell said he's following his heart and taking the stripes off.
- PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: newson6.com

Fire Chief Dale C. Herman and Deputy Chief Russell J. Randall were the only members of the city’s management team not to receive 2 percent salary increases in the newly adopted budget. The two top fire departments officials have been criticized for not taking the city’s side in a nearly three-year contract dispute with the firefighters’ union.
- PUB DATE: 6/8/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Watertown Daily News

Phoenix (AZ) Ladder 4 staging at a barn fire.

A group of Vancouver Fire Department battalion chiefs is suing the city for allegedly not paying them overtime they were owed. The suit claims the city of Vancouver violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal law establishing overtime pay requirements. For workers who earn an hourly wage and work more than 40 hours in a 7-day work week, they must be paid overtime, according to the Washington state Labor and Industries website.
- PUB DATE: 6/7/2017 8:50:47 PM - SOURCE: Vancouver Columbian