BOSTON - Saturday night’s nine-alarm inferno that destroyed several abandoned buildings in Roxbury was sparked accidentally by fireworks, Boston Fire Lieutenant Hank Sheridan, the lead investigator, said last night. Witnesses reported seeing a group of men lighting fireworks from the roof of 31 Norfolk Ave., and some of those fireworks landed on the roof of a warehouse at 57 Norfolk Ave., ...

QUEENS, NY - A Queens firefighter traded in his turnout gear for a turncoat Tuesday and fingered a fellow Bravest as the brains behind a massive pot-growing operation. Matthew Cody, who pleaded guilty to drug charges, admitted he's hoping to avoid prison time by testifying against Patrick Murray, whom he worked with at Engine 292 in Woodside. Murray also took the ...

BIRMINGHAM, AL - A Birmingham firefighter is suing the city and Mayor William Bell claiming the city failed to pay overtime. The lawsuit claims firefighters were not paid time-and-a-half for extra hours worked. It also claims by not paying time-and-a-half on those extra hours, the city no longer matched all pension benefits as required. Local firefighter union attorney Ray Fitzpatrick said ...

YORK, PA - The York Area Firefighter Combat Challenge Team won 21 gold, silver and bronze medals at the 2010 Can-Am Police-Fire Games, held last week in Dublin, Ohio. Team founder Mike Anderson, a York City Fire/Rescue Services firefighter, said he won five medals; Diane Keith, a volunteer EMT with York Area United Fire and Rescue, won one; and YAUFR firefighters ...

COLUMBUS, OH - A former Columbus firefighter who served a 90-day jail sentence last year for killing his dogs to avoid boarding them was sent back to jail yesterday for violating his probation. David P. Santuomo, 44, of Fall Water Court on the Northwest Side, will spend 30 days in jail after Franklin County Municipal Judge Harland H. Hale found that ...

COLORADO - State legislators are beginning to challenge one of the ironclad tenets of public pension policy: that states cannot legally reduce pension benefits for current and future retirees. Lawmakers in Colorado, Minnesota and South Dakota voted earlier this year to limit cost-of-living increases they previously had promised to thousands of current and future retirees, who courts historically have protected from ...

LAWRENCE, KS - “It was like a dream.” That’s how Earl Barnes describes the motorcycle accident that cost him the lower part of his right leg. Before the accident, he was doing what he had wanted to do since he was a child: He was a firefighter. “It’s a funny thing about firefighters,” he said. “It’s something we grew up wanting ...

TAMPA - Ronald W. Harris Sr., the victim burned by his son Ronald Harris Jr., has succumbed to his injuries. Harris died shortly before 6 p.m., Monday. Harris Jr., is now charged with first degree murder and arson. He is scheduled for his first appearance in court today at 1 p.m. As reported Monday by the Polk County Sheriff's Office, at ...

ROCKVILLE, Md. - The Montgomery County Council approved a proposal in May to charge ambulance fees, but the Montgomery County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association has submitted more than 50,000 signatures to add a referendum on the November ballot. However, some of the signatures submitted were rejected by the county Board of Elections, and there's a chance the referendum would not ...

WILSON—A South Wilson volunteer firefighter was injured Monday when he was hit by a vehicle driven by another volunteer as he crossed the road responding to a call. The identities of the driver and the victim were not released. The injured man was crossing the street responding to a minor industrial accident at 4210 Chestnut Road and was “bumped” by the ...

BROCKTON, MA - A Brockton firefighter had a wild wake-up call on his way to work Sunday after discovering a 3-foot alligator crossing the road near his car. “One car swerved into my lane and it forced me to stop, and then after it passed me, I noticed it was scurrying across the street,” said Scott Hurst, 47, who noticed the ...

ORANGE COUNTY, FL - Central Flordians can expect another round of lightning and thunderstorms Monday after bolts of lightning Sunday evening caused three house fires in Orange County in one hour, The Orange County Fire Rescue responded to the three fires at homes near to each other during a major thunderstorm from about 5:40 p.m. to 6:40 p.m. Nobody was seriously ...

COLUMBUS - The firefighters at Station 16 were taking a break when the alarm sounded just before 11 p.m. The basement fire on Robert Street was the ninth call for the men on a snowy Saturday in February. Lt. Mike Polaski, the officer in charge that day, climbed into his usual passenger seat of the fire engine for the 1-mile ride. ...

QUEENS, NY - Queens firefighter Robert Moore is only on the job two years, and he has already made a lifesaving rescue. And he did it alone, while off duty. Moore, 26, grabbed a 15-year-old boy and the teen's Lhasa apso dog from their smoke-engulfed home, getting them out a second-floor window as he perched on the top of a ladder. ...

BOSTON - The owner of a vacant Roxbury warehouse that burned to rubble in a nine-alarm inferno Saturday night said yesterday that he walked away from his business three years ago because concrete chunks from the towerlike building next door kept raining down on his property and Boston authorities were unable for the past decade to get its owners to fix ...

DETROIT - A Detroit man has been charged in the arson fire that injured seven Detroit firefighters a week ago, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Samson Wright, 29, was charged today with intentionally damaging/destroying a commercial building by fire, the ATF reported in a news release. The charge carries a penalty of 5-20 years in ...

WASHINGTON, DC - Thirteen years after firefighter John Carter perished in a Northwest Washington blaze, ravaging both a family and a fire department, Carter's son was in a D.C. fire station on Wednesday, shaking hands with his father's former colleagues. It took Brian Carter more than a decade before he felt ready to speak publicly about his father's death. He was ...

GAINESVILLE, FL - A Florida church says it will go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, despite the city refusing to issue a burn permit, Orlando's Fox35 TV reports. The Dove World Outreach Center said early this month that it would burn copies of the Islamic holy text on church grounds to mark the ninth ...

ESSEX, United Kingdom - Firefighters in Essex used cutting equipment to rescue an 18-month-old boy who had a toilet seat stuck on his head. The boy, from Loughton, had put the training toilet seat on his head but it slipped down over his ears. Firefighter Steve Seary said: "It was around his neck, but it wasn't causing him any difficulties. We ...

COLUMBUS, OH - Police officers and firefighters clumped together on opposite ends of the rope. Some heckled the other side, some adjusted the perfect grip. "The fire department never shows up to lose," said Stephen Smith, battalion chief of the Washington Township Fire Department. The first match was quick. Firefighters yanked the Dublin police officers over the line in seconds. Police ...