A high-rise building in Tehran engulfed by a fire collapsed on Thursday, killing at least 30 firefighters and injuring some 75 people, state media reported. The disaster struck the Plasco building, an iconic structure in central Tehran just north of the capital's sprawling bazaar. Iran's state-run Press TV announced the firefighters' deaths, without giving a source for the information.
- PUB DATE: 1/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

Martin Pang, the arsonist who set the deadliest blaze in the Seattle Fire Department’s history, will have to pay nearly $3 million in restitution and other legal costs when he’s released from prison, according to an opinion published Tuesday by the state Court of Appeals. Pang, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for setting a massive warehouse fire in January 1995 that killed four firefighters in the Chinatown International District, filed a motion in King County Superior Court in August 2015 seeking relief from his legal financial obligations, known as LFOs.
- PUB DATE: 1/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Seattle Times

The city paid three Providence fire captains more than $200,000 each in 2016 and paid a total of 220 firefighters more than $100,000 apiece during the same period. Fire rescue Capt. Vincent J. D'Ambra had the biggest payout, $243,000, according to a Providence Journal analysis of the Fire Department's payroll, apparently making him the highest-paid employee on the city's payroll.
- PUB DATE: 1/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Providence Journal

Unified Fire Authority officials should seek criminal investigations of their former chief and deputy chief for a dozen potential violations and attempt to get half a million dollars in reimbursement from them and three other former fire department administrators, said two state audits released Wednesday.
- PUB DATE: 1/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Salt Lake Tribune

President Barack Obama began meeting with prominent Democrats in early January to develop a strategy to keep his signature domestic policy, the Affordable Care Act, intact in the hands of a new administration. Vice President-elect Mike Pence and Republican Congressional leaders have been strategizing and meeting since the election to develop an alternative to the ACA.
- PUB DATE: 1/19/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: EMS1