GREAT BARRINGTON, MA -- State and town officials, current and former firemen and supporters of the new fire station were on hand Sunday afternoon to observe the official dedication of the building. The guest of honor and main speaker, Mort T. Cavanaugh, fire chief in town for more than 40 years, told the audience of about 150 that "being a fireman ...

LOUISVILLE - Hoping to ease crowded emergency rooms and trim ambulance runs, Louisville Metro Emergency Medical Services (EMS) has launched a program that aims to screen low-priority calls and divert patients from hospitals into more appropriate health care. Under the program, which started April 19, a small number of the lowest priority calls — such as those for an earache or ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Firefighters spent a portion of their Sunday shutting hydrants that were apparently opened by people looking to get relief from the hot weather. At the corner of South Ohio Avenue and Siebert Street, a fire hydrant was opened at least four times on Sunday, it was reported. One firefighter said that he has responded to 15 reports of ...

DALLAS - Dallas ISD has failed to install fire alarms in hundreds of portable buildings across the district, violating fire codes and leaving students without the built-in protection of blaring alerts that signal a blaze on campus. Portable buildings at Kleberg Elementary in Rylie are among the many at southern Dallas schools that are not connected to the main building's fire ...

BOSTON - Though he was weary and exhausted with newborn triplets at home, Boston Fire Academy instructor Danny Gomes was able to snap into action when he witnessed a man being stabbed in front of him on an East Boston street by treating the victim and pointing the suspect out to police. As Gomes, 40, walked out of Muzzy Day Square ...

Top Hub fire brass could reap tens of thousands of dollars over the next decade for taking random drug and alcohol tests, padding their pay and straining city coffers for years to come, a City Hall watchdog warned. “It’s a runaway cost, and every year it will get to be more and more,” said Matthew Cahill, executive director of the Boston ...

UK - A man has been charged in connection with a road crash in Essex in which a paramedic was seriously injured. A quad bike struck two parked vehicles on Western Esplanade in Southend-on-Sea on Sunday, injuring the paramedic at the scene of a previous crash. James Lewis, 28, of Broomfield Street, Poplar, is charged with causing grievous bodily harm, five ...

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (AP) - What started out as an innocent squirt gun fight between children turned into a potentially dangerous situation for a Woonsocket neighborhood. Firefighters on Sunday responded to reports of a strong smell of ammonia in the basement of a Grove Street home. Investigators told WPRI-TV they found a smoking 7-gallon barrel of sodium hydroxide, prompting a hazardous materials ...

LAKEVILLE, Minn. - Rescue crews were using fire hoses to douse an angry swarm of bees after a fatal crash that involved a semitrailer carrying about 17 million of the insects. Authorities say a truck hauling 7,000 bee hives was involved in the four-vehicle crash Monday on Interstate 35 near Lakeville, about 35 miles south of Minneapolis. Minnesota State Patrol spokesman ...

GRAND ISLAND, NE - With almost 30 classes packed into just three days during the 73rd annual Nebraska State Fire School in Grand Island, there simply wasn't time for every volunteer firefighter to take every course that was offered. That's why volunteer firefighters Aaron Pokorny of Madison and Chad Winkelbauer and Paul Leiting, both of Randolph, gathered at 4 p.m. Saturday ...

MANGALORE, India — An Air India Express plane trying to land at a tricky hilltop airport in southern India overshot the runway, crashed over a cliff and burst into flames at dawn Saturday, killing nearly 160 people, officials said. There were eight survivors. Dense black smoke billowed from the wreckage of the flaming Boeing 737-800 aircraft in a hilly area with ...

SALISBURY, N.H. -- Police said a volunteer firefighter in Salisbury is facing a criminal charge for mishandling a pipe bomb. Police said on March 16, Walter Scott Jr. called them about a suspicious device he claimed to have found in Franklin and then brought back to a garage at his property on Old Turnpike Road. The state police bomb squad used ...

SUMMERFIELD, Ill. - The little dogs -- Zipper and Molly -- barked their heads off. Ruby Widicus looked out her kitchen window in the rainy darkness at 5 a.m. recently and could just make out several fire trucks. The firefighters were parked at the end of the quarter-mile-long driveway to a farmhouse off St. Jacob/Summerfield Road where she and her husband ...

WEST CAPE, South Africa - The DA claims private paramedic college owners and working paramedics are furious at the government’s decision to terminate emergency medical services (EMS) short courses, which are responsible for training 99 percent of emergency medical personnel. The decision was to phase out short courses offered by private institution over the next four years, was taken by the ...

SOUTH BRANCH TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Authorities say 12 homes were destroyed and two damaged by the inferno that blasted across Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula after a resident lost control of a brush fire. The fire in Crawford County has covered roughly 8,800 acres. The fire is considered 80 percent contained, or secure enough that flames were unlikely to jump a line ...

CORONA, CA - Aircraft and ground crews battled an 800-acre wildfire Thursday as it spread over dry, brown hills in western Riverside County. Flames burned near homes protected by cleared ground. Firefighters had the blaze 10 percent contained by late afternoon. Even though there were no immediate threats to structures, the county Fire Department urged residents to be prepared to leave ...

SYRACUSE, NY -- Nearly 200 people, half of them in uniform, gathered for a memorial service for fallen firefighters and Onondaga County Sheriff's deputies. The service included the reading of the names of all firefighters, auxiliary members and sheriff's deputies who died this year. Also read was a list of county firefighters who died in the line of duty. They stretched ...

SAN FRANCISCO - A dozen cats died in a fire that damaged the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society early today, authorities said, but a woman who lives above the animal shelter is crediting her pit bull mix with waking her up and saving her life. The fire broke out in a dryer at the shelter at 2700 Ninth Street in west Berkeley ...

TRENTON - A law reducing pension and health care benefits for police and firefighters will go into effect today after a state judge Thursday refused to block it. Unions representing police and firefighters argued that the changes improperly infringe upon the collective bargaining process. They also said the requirement to contribute 1.5 percent of their salary to health care constitutes a ...

MANCHESTER CITY, UK - "Getting verbally abused is the norm but this was no way near normal - in my 26 years as a paramedic I have never been subjected to an attack like this." Ann Sumner had much of her hair pulled out of her head, she was punched and scratched and left with a form of whiplash in her ...