MEDIA NEWSWIRE: Ambulance jobs to be slashed by National Party

(Media-Newswire.com) - Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said today he held grave fears that the National Party’s three per cent “efficiency dividend” would result in cuts to vital emergency services.

“This is a front-line service delivery agency providing vital ambulance, fire and rescue and disaster management services. Close to 400 emergency services workers could be slashed every year under the National Party’s cuts,” he said.

Mr Roberts said the National Party would rip away $29.2 million every year from the Department of Emergency Services.

“This is not about redirecting or reinvesting funds and this money is not lying around. It would mean jobs cuts and a reduction in services,“ he said.

The Queensland Government has already conducted efficiency reviews into the Queensland Ambulance Service ( QAS ) and Queensland Fire and Rescue Service ( QFRS ) to redirect resources from non-essential spending to boost front-line service delivery.

WMUR: Fire Officials Criticize Police For Impersonating Firefighters

NEWPORT, N.H. -- Firefighters are criticizing Newport police after they disguised themselves as firefighters to take a man into custody who allegedly threatened an officer with a gun.

Newport police said Matthew Miller pointed a shotgun at an officer responding to his apartment on a noise complaint Wednesday night. With no backup, the officer left, but hours later, police returned. Dressed as firefighters, they were able to take Miller into custody without incident.

BOSTON GLOBE: Consultant finds Boston Fire Department lax on maintenance

An outside consultant concluded that the Boston Fire Department has failed to adequately maintain its firetrucks and that the city should hire an inspector to ensure that the vehicles are safe, Boston Fire Commissioner Roderick J. Fraser said yesterday.

"It's going to say pretty much the same thing I've already said, that preventive maintenance is not being done," Fraser said in a telephone interview.

BLOOMBERG: Tokyo Electric Says Fire Put Out at Nuclear Plant (Update3)

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co., Asia’s biggest power utility, said a blaze was put out at a reactor- containment building at its Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear station, the eighth fire at the plant since it was shut by an earthquake.

FIREHOUSE: Massachusetts Town May Lay Off Entire Fire, Police Forces

NewsCenter 5's Jorge Quiroga reported that the central Massachusetts town of Dudley may lay off its entire fire and police forces. All members of both departments received a 30-day notice.

"Even if one or two got laid off from a full-time staff of six, it could have a real negative impact," said Dudley Fire Capt. David Koneczny.

All the jobs at Town Hall are also on the line.

NY TIMES: Trying to Understand Two Bronx Juries’ Opposite Verdicts on a Fatal Fire

They were separate juries considering the fates of separate defendants, but for weeks they sat side by side in a Bronx courtroom hearing much of the same evidence. Still, the juries returned verdicts that indicated anything but a common opinion of the proceeding they had witnessed.

Prosecutors had alleged that two tenants of a Bronx apartment building, the building’s former landlord and its current landlord were at fault in the deaths of two firefighters who jumped from a window to escape a fire in 2005. The prosecution said that illegal partition walls erected by the tenants to subdivide the apartments had disoriented the firefighters.

The jury considering the case against the owners convicted them of criminally negligent homicide. But the jury judging the tenants who were accused of installing the walls cleared them of all charges.

NEWSDAY: Guilty verdict in Bronx fire that killed 2 firefighters

Whispered cheers of "Yes!" erupted in a hushed Bronx courtroom Wednesday when a jury found the manager of an apartment building and the company that owns it guilty of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment in the deaths of two firefighters who jumped four stories in 2005 to escape a deadly blaze in the Tremont section.

The jury took four days to convict a limited liability company named 234 East 178th Street and Cesar Rios, manager of the building where the firefighters died, in the so-called Black Sunday deaths that occurred in a blizzard on Jan. 23, 2005.

The company, owned by Leslie Berman O'Hara, also owns 236 E. 178th St. where the blaze occurred. O'Hara was not a defendant.

NY TIMES: Fire Ravages Renowned Building in Beijing

BEIJING — A fierce blaze started by an illegal fireworks show engulfed one of the Chinese capital’s most architecturally celebrated modern buildings on Monday, the last day of festivities for the Lunar New Year, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.

CNN: Deaths rise in Russia nursing home fire

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- The death toll in a nursing home fire in northwestern Russia rose to 23 Sunday, as rescue workers discovered more bodies in the ruins, officials said.

FIREHOUSE: Response Questioned in Atlanta Blaze

Atlanta officials acknowledged Tuesday a severe shortage in 911 operators contributed to delays in responding to a fire that destroyed a Grant Park home Saturday night.

GT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Orange County, Calif., May Be Successful Model for Interoperable Communications Systems

The assertion that all responders from cities within one county should share an interoperable communications system really isn't debatable in the United States. The delays caused by a lack of interoperable communications between fire and police at the World Trade Center on 9/11 are common knowledge. But many counties still struggle to persuade first responder agencies in cities to agree on uniform system specs.

Their concerns are serious. In 2003, the National Task Force on Interoperability outlined five obstacles to achieving county interoperability. The task force blamed:

• aging and incompatible equipment;
• fragmented budget cycles;
• limited and fragmented planning and coordination;
• limited and fragmented spectrum; and
• agency resistance to uniform equipment standards.

However, four years before that report, Orange County, Calif., managed to connect all of its responders in 31 cities on the same 800 MHz trunk radio system. The system supports more than 17,000 radios and averages about 55,000 transmissions daily. The trunk system uses 81 channels and has nearly 400 talkgroups.

FIREHOUSE: Blind Boston Dispatcher Tackles Robbery Suspect

BOSTON -- A legally blind Boston Fire Department dispatcher who was reading the book "Practice Random Acts of Kindness" didn't hesitate Wednesday when he spotted a violent robbery during a subway ride.

FIREHOUSE: Atlanta Seeks to End Police, Firefighter Cuts

The Atlanta City Council unanimously agreed Thursday to look for money in the city budget to end recent cuts in work hours for police officers, firefighters, 911 operators and corrections officers.

The idea comes largely in response to growing concerns in Atlanta neighborhoods that crime is becoming a severe problem. Although Police Department figures show violent crime declined by 9 percent from 2007 and 2008, the recent shooting death of a bartender in southeast Atlanta has sparked complaints from residents about crime and whether the city has enough police officers.

FIREHOUSE: Arizona Fire District Laid Off; Station Closed

WHITE MOUNTAIN LAKE, Ariz. -- The fire station in White Mountain Lake is closed and the entire staff of the fire district has been laid off indefinitely following an announcement that the district has a deficit of about $400,000.

At a meeting of the district's Governing Board last Tuesday night, Fire Chief Joe Blake told an awestruck audience that the district currently has a negative balance of nearly half a million dollars.

YAHOO/AP: Fire burns NYC hospital's ER; 600 patients moved

NEW YORK – A fire at a major hospital sent smoke pouring through an emergency room Wednesday, injuring at least six firefighters and forcing 600 patients to be moved across the sprawling complex.

The fire began shortly before 6:30 p.m. in a second-floor mechanical room at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan and spread to a first-floor emergency room, Fire Department spokesman Frank Dwyer said. The fire was confined to the mechanical room and the cause was not known.

JOURNAL ONLINE: Public Safety Remodeling To Improve Communication

Renovation of the entire fourth floor of Rosemont Village Hall will likely be completed within three weeks resulting in the consolidation of all police and fire-related offices and a more efficient operation, according to Deputy Superintendent Donald Stephens III.

Remodeling work on the building's fourth floor has been underway for several weeks. The purpose of the project is to consolidate Public Safety offices that are currently on the building's first, second and fifth floors as well as the village's Higgins Road fire station into one central location at 9501 Devon Ave. Once the work is finished, the entire floor will house department command and administrative offices and support staff. That, said Stephens, will improve intra-department communication tremendously.

Specific work includes constructing several separate offices along the periphery of the floor and position cubicles in the center portion. Department records, crime prevention, fire prevention, special services and detectives will occupy much of the space.

"It will make things a lot easier for all of us," Stephens explained. "Now if I have to talk to someone on the fifth floor, I have to go up there."

Village Board members on Jan. 7 approved spending $114,250 for fourth floor electrical work.

NY CITY FIRES: Hudson River between NY and NJ, 1/15/09

Location: Hudson River @ W50 st

15:34 hours
Phone Box 868 - Report of a plane in the water
Engs. 54, 34, 65
TL21, L4
Battalions 9
Rescue 1
Squad 18
Tactical Support 1
Marine 1 Alpha

15:35 hours
Also receiving reports of plane in the water @ Hudson River @ W83 st. Multiple calls received in the Bronx reporting a plane with engine fire. Queens in contact with LGA tower reporting a plane with a bird into the engine.
E76, TL22 assigned to W83 st

WASHINGTON POST: Fire Chief Made His Work His Home, Too

The Gainesville house has everything Robert Bird's family needs: a kitchen outfitted with enough space to seat 16 guests, a weight room and an airy family room with a 50-inch flat screen television. And it has a few things it probably doesn't, most notably 26 beds, a medic unit, and the hook and ladder in the garage.

When Prince William County supervisors found out that Bird, the volunteer fire chief, had turned the station into his family home, they sounded alarms. Yesterday, the Board of County Supervisors called it grounds to dissolve the Gainesville District Volunteer Fire Department.

"There is a difference between sleeping in the station and living in the station," county board Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large) said.

WXYZ-TV DETROIT: Lives at Risk? EMS Truck Shortage

(WXYZ) In a medical emergency, every second counts. So why is the city of Detroit having so much trouble getting enough ambulance units up and running… so they can respond quickly to emergencies?

Each day recently, Detroit EMS has been trying to answer all of their hundreds of runs without enough vehicles for their paramedics to work in.

So we wanted to find out why EMS is still short on ambulances if the city has a lot full of new ones.

BOSTON HERALD: 3 more fire trucks out of service

The Boston Fire Department pulled three more trucks from service yesterday, raising serious questions about the safety of the fleet on the day they buried one of their own, who was lost in a crash being blamed on apparent brake failure.

Ladder 6, Engine 18 and Engine 21 - all located in Dorchester - were grounded yesterday after an independent inspection by respected fire apparatus expert Ralph Craven, who was hired by the firefighters union.

Local 718 has blamed Friday’s death of Lt. Kevin M. Kelley on a failure to replace antiquated trucks.