The Jefferson County Board of Commissioners voted Monday to ban the small hot air balloons known as “sky lanterns” and clarify the process for enacting a total ban on fireworks when dry conditions create a fire danger. The vote, cast on a cold and wet first day of winter, was unanimous. The measure immediately enacts a ban on sky lanterns, which are defined in the ordinance as small hot air balloons with an opening at the bottom under which fire is suspended, allowing the balloon to rise.
- PUB DATE: 12/22/2015 12:34:00 AM - SOURCE: Port Angeles Peninsula Daily News

The Jefferson County Board of Commissioners voted Monday to ban the small hot air balloons known as “sky lanterns” and clarify the process for enacting a total ban on fireworks when dry conditions create a fire danger. The vote, cast on a cold and wet first day of winter, was unanimous. The measure immediately enacts a ban on sky lanterns, which are defined in the ordinance as small hot air balloons with an opening at the bottom under which fire is suspended, allowing the balloon to rise.
- PUB DATE: 12/22/2015 12:34:00 AM - SOURCE: Port Angeles Peninsula Daily News

Mayor Ras Baraka is turning to an old friend of the city as he begins a drastic overhaul of its public safety system. Anthony Ambrose was officially revealed as the city's acting public safety director at a City Hall press conference Monday morning. In the newly created position, he will oversee the city's police, fire and emergency management departments.
- PUB DATE: 12/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Newark Star-Ledger/NJ.com

The Mount Greenwood post office was renamed Sunday the "Captain Herbert Johnson Memorial Post Office," in honor of a beloved fallen Chicago firefighter. It was a ceremony to rename his neighborhood post office. Herbie Johnson was an Illinois Medal of Honor winner for rescuing several children from a burning building, and was well known and well liked in the department and in his South Side community.
- PUB DATE: 12/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WLS-TV ABC 7 Chicago

The political powers of Yonkers are trying to keep the public from knowing much, if anything, about a bizarre fist fight that broke out between the city’s fire commissioner and one of his officers. This happened at a YFD Christmas party held on the evening of Dec. 11 at the Fairways, a catering hall at the county-owned Dunwoodie golf course in Yonkers.
- PUB DATE: 12/22/2015 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NY Journal News (Lohud.com)