WATERTOWN, MA - Six Watertown firefighters are asking the town to compensate them for pay they say they earned while undergoing military training, according to town and union officials. The town says its investigation shows that four of the firefighters are owed pay, and it has promised to rectify the situation quickly. One of the firefighters, Brian Rand, completed training to ...

Firefighters are gaining control of the Race Pond Fire that has threatened for days to jump into the Okefenokee Swamp, officials said. At last measure, the fire had burned 7,852 acres, counting burnouts, and was 40 percent contained, said Mark Wiles, a Georgia Forestry Commission senior forester working with a joint information team. "We thinking the burnout we attempted over the ...

PORT AUTHORITY - A JetBlue flight attendant left his job in dramatic fashion yesterday, allegedly cursing out passengers on his flight before exiting via the plane's emergency exit -- beer in hand -- and eventually driving off in a car he had parked at the airport. As you might expect, the story has become the talk of the industry, generating headlines ...

NORTHCUMBERLAND COUNTY, VA - The former president of an ambulance service in Northumberland County was charged earlier this month with stealing from the organization. Now some in his community say this is becoming far too common. Investigators said Regan Yoder used his position and the borough credit card to buy personal items and now he faces theft charges. Yoder, 32, is ...

LOS ANGELES - The costs of a 2004 firehouse incident in which a black firefighter was fed dog food continues to ripple through a Los Angeles city budget already battered by recession. The City Council approved the payment Friday of $2.5 million to two white fire captains, who won a court case alleging that the department racially discriminated against them in ...

FAIRFAX, Va. - If you threw a buck or two into the boots of Fairfax County firefighters over the weekend, you'll want to know just how successful those firefighters were in their aggressive efforts to collect cash for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department firefighters and public safety workers collected more donations than any fire service organization ...

TORONTO - Finding ways to cut spending and save money will almost certainly top the to-do list for Toronto’s next mayor. If elected, Councillor Rob Ford has vowed to pursue drastic measures such as reducing the size of city council and shrinking the municipal work force. But it’s a pledge by mayoral candidate George Smitherman that may be the most contentious. ...

NEW YORK - Kings County Hospital officials were forced to shut down and fumigate part of the emergency room Monday after finding a single bedbug, authorities said. "There was a patient in an ambulance that came in last night, and in the ambulance there was a bedbug," hospital spokeswoman Hope Mason said yesterday. "As a precaution, the room the patient was ...

SEATTLE - A window washer was rescued by Seattle firefighters Thursday after he fell off his seat and dangled from his safety harness about 65 feet above the ground outside McCaw Hall at Seattle Center. The man was not injured, but "he's being checked out by a medic unit as we speak," Kyle Moore, spokesman for the Seattle Fire Department, said ...

One person died and six more were injured from a carbon monoxide poisoning Saturday morning at a home west of Boca Raton where a car in the attached garage was left running for hours. The injured include three paramedics. According to Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue, an elderly couple woke up around 3:30 a.m. feeling ill and called their health care ...

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 ...

A representative for the city in contentious firefighter contract talks accused an arbitrator of pulling an 11th hour “about-face” in awarding raises - a claim the union angrily rejected last night. Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella, a member of the team that was negotiating a deal between Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Boston Firefighters Local 718, fired off a harshly worded letter ...

ELGIN, IL - Two Elgin firefighters and a police officer were taken to area hospitals Monday night after each became ill at the scene of a hazardous materials call at an apartment building. Emergency crews were called to investigate the hazmat call at a six-flat apartment building on the 1100 block of Birch Drive at about 5:20 p.m., officials said. The ...

FAIRFIELD, CT -- Maureen Janda was waiting until the collection box in the lobby at Fairfield police headquarters was full to make a delivery to Give2TheTroops. About a week and a half ago, Janda, secretary to the deputy chief, walked in and saw that the box not only was full, but overflowing. Turns out that Fairfield firefighters had done some shopping ...

NEW YORK - Police across the city have been warned that "detergent suicides" - which use household cleaners to create poisonous gas - can also kill cops and other first responders, the Daily News has learned. A recent internal order says people who kill themselves in this way often post warning signs, such as "Hydrogen Sulfide Suicide," so relatives and cops ...

SEATTLE, WA - More than 1,000 fireworks-related injuries and fires were reported to the state fire marshal's office in 2009, according to the Washington State Patrol. It found there were 1,236 reports received last year, mostly on July 4. They included 1,036 fires and 200 injuries. Most were caused by children ages 8 to 14, according to the State Patrol. Specifically, ...

DOVER, N.H.—A former New Hampshire firefighter is going to prison for at least three years after pleading guilty to setting a series of fires. Forty-four-year-old Stark Liedtke of Alton had pleaded guilty to three charges that he set fires on Berry Road in New Durham in 2006 and 2007. He also pleaded guilty to eight other arson-related charges. In court Tuesday, ...

Predictions of an early and vicious fire season are coming true, especially in a swath of the Southwest where extreme drought and a killing freeze this winter combined to desiccate grass and shrubs. Fire restrictions are in place on most state and federal lands throughout Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Dangerous fires break out daily. Southeastern Arizona, including the Tucson area, ...