After a 2011 civil grand jury report excoriated Oakland’s building services division, concluding that some inspectors were keeping property records in their desk drawers rather than a central database, the city purchased a multimillion-dollar software system to bring the department into the 21st century.
- PUB DATE: 4/10/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle

Upper Augusta Volunteer Fire Company, Sunbury, PA, pumper-tanker. Western Star 4700 cab and chassis; Cummins ISL 450-hp engine; Darley LSP 1,000-gpm pump; APR polypropylene 3,000-gallon tank.

Not all classrooms are set in school buildings and lecture halls. In the common area of South Whidbey Fire/EMS Station 31 in Freeland, an eclectic group of students surround a patient sitting upright. A retired physician, an aspiring armed serviceman in his 20s and an active medical researcher work together to apply a neckbrace and Kendrick Extrication Device — basically a back brace — before lifting the patient and laying him on the ground.
- PUB DATE: 4/9/2017 1:11:03 PM - SOURCE: South Whidbey Record

A firefighter’s sense of security was burned after a crook smashed his windows and took gear out of his car. It happened near 7th and Howard in Spokane. Robert, who didn’t want to give his last name, told us whoever smashed his windows with a rock, did some pretty bad damage but he’s not the only victim.
- PUB DATE: 4/9/2017 11:07:23 AM - SOURCE: KAYU-TV MyFox Spokane

One boat sank and two others were damaged after a fire broke out early Saturday at Seattle’s Shilshole Bay Marina. Seattle Fire Department responded to the marina’s M Dock just after midnight and found a fire that had started on one boat, spread to a second, and endangering a third. The boats were not occupied.
- PUB DATE: 4/9/2017 2:26:35 AM - SOURCE: Seattle Times