A list of recent job postings by fire departments from around the U.S. Note, the closing dates vary by agency.
Dallas Fire Rescue Fire & Rescue Officer Trainee Dallas, TX Starting Salary: $66,960 Click here for details
Bernalillo County Fire and Rescue Firefighter Albuquerque, NM Starting Salary: $50,040 Click here for details
Escambia County Fire Rescue Firefighter Pensacola, FL Starting Salary: $12.99 Click here for details
Fort Worth Fire Department Firefighter Fort Worth, TX Starting Salary: $39,915 in academy/$63,806 upon graduation Click here for details
Santa Barbara Fire Department Firefighter Trainee Santa Barbara, CA Starting Salary: $90,347 Click here for details
Town of Bellingham Fire Department Firefighter/Paramedic Bellingham, MA Starting Salary: $61,417 Click here for details
City of High Point Fire Department Firefighter High Point, NC Starting Salary: $37,521-48,075 Click here for details
Schaumburg Fire Department Firefighter/Paramedic Schaumburg, IL Starting Salary: $74,049-109,529 Click here for details
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport Firefighter/EMT or Firefighter/Paramedic Cincinnati, KY Starting Salary: $54,704 (EMT)/$57,886 (Paramedic) Click here for details
Pendleton Fire & Ambulance Department Firefighter/Paramedic Pendleton, OR Starting Salary: N/A Click here for details
Daisy Mountain Medical Firefighter Anthem, AZ Starting Salary: $48,184 Click here for details
While many departments hold dinners, breakfasts, bingo and raffles to raise money for equipment, Hermitage firefighters are turning to burning barrels.
Over 200 steel drums were donated by the city’s wastewater treatment plant, WKBN reported.
Money from the sales of the 55-gallon barrels will go toward the purchase of a new fire truck, according to Chief Fire Marshal John Flynn.
In addition to the money, firefighters believe residents will be helping them if they use the barrels.
“Brush fires that are on the ground typically will take off and go into the woods. Generally, when somebody is burning in a burn barrel, they generally have it contained. And it’s so it doesn’t get into the woods,” Flynn said
President Joe Biden said he understands that cancer is a leading killer of firefighters.
In a virtual address at the 2022 USFA Summit on Fire Prevention and Control in October, Biden said: “Toxic substances you’ve been exposed to as part of your job are almost connected to those cancer diagnoses. And we’re going to do something about it. The Cancer Moonshot is bringing together every part of our government to cut cancer death rates in half and to end cancer as we know it, including by addressing environmental and toxic exposures to prevent cancer.”
He continued: “I’m absolutely determined to make sure you have the gear that protects you without making you or your family sick.”
And, he stuck to his word by signing the Protecting Firefighters from Adverse Substances (PFAS) Act.
It requires the Department of Homeland Security to develop guidance to protect firefighters and other emergency response personnel from exposure to perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances from firefighting foam.
Biden also signed into the law the Federal Firefighters Fairness Act that will advance federal firefighter health and safety by creating a rebuttable presumption that federal firefighters who become disabled by heart disease, lung disease, and certain cancers contracted on the job.
Legislators also passed a measure adding an additional $1B to the World Trade Center Health Program. Without it, services were going to be cut and new enrollments denied, according to CFSI.
IAFF General President Edward Kelly says: “Recently, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research of Cancer declared a firefighter’s occupational exposure at the highest level, as a Class 1 threat.”
While research has concluded the connection between exposures and genetic mutations, additional work is imperative.
“We ask the federal government to establish a comprehensive firefighter cancer strategy that invests in research, provides access to cancer screening for all…” Kelly said adding that retired personnel should be included.
He spoke of the importance of educating insurance officials of the occupational risks and tests for early detection.
A Clallam County fire captain was found dead in his bunk Thursday morning.
Capt. Charles ‘Chad’ Cate, 46, was found by his crew hours after he had responded to a fire alarm, according to Peninsula Daily News.
Cate was last seen after a response to a fire alarm activation at a commercial building at about 2.25 a.m. when he returned to the station.
Crews went to bed following the early morning call. Later, after apparently heading back out to the site of an earlier house fire in the Dungeness neighborhood, he texted a fellow captain and the duty chief at around 4 a.m. to say that all was well at the scene, the station reported.
Members of his crew found him dead in his bunk about 7 a.m.
He had been with the department for 25 years.
The cause of death is pending.
Cate was raised in the area and graduated from Sequim High School where he has continued to be involved as the wrestling coach.
He was hired by the district in 1997 as a firefighter/paramedic and promoted to the rank of captain in 2020.
Cate leaves behind his wife, a 2-year-old son and two adult children.
Tacoma firefighters are feeling the results of a growing city — an increase in responses especially for EMS.
“We’ve noticed an uptick in our call volume. Notably in 2022, we responded to over 49,000 incidents,” Tacoma Fire spokesperson Joe Meinecke told King5. “Of those 49,000 incidents, eighty-percent, or about 40,000, were for emergency medical service.”
While fighters are trained to handle medical emergencies, the fire department only has so much to work with. “The obvious concern is that we won’t have enough resources to help everybody or our resources will be committed and we’ll have a significant event happen simultaneously,” he explained.
Tacoma city officials sees the department is stretched thin and have been working on a plan a plan to get additional revenue. They are proposing raising the EMS back to where it was previously — $0.50 for every $1,000 of assessed property value.
The levy fell to $0.32 due to higher property values since 2006.
Meinecke said the additional revenue is long overdue and badly needed. “It’s been since 2006 that we’ve had an EMS levy renewal before, or potentially before the community, and so that’s seventeen years,” he said. “That’s quite a long time and we’re at the point now where we really need to add additional resources.”
Boosting staffing will result in faster response times.
Four New Castle County firefighters were injured in a floor collapse at a three-alarm townhouse fire in Wilmington Thursday.
Crews called a ‘Mayday’ after the floor they fell through a collapsed floor, NBC reported.
Three were taken to a hospital, and one suffered serious burns and smoke inhalation.
Paramedic Sgt. Abigail Haas told the media two of the firefighters were stable while a third is in serious but stable condition.
“I think it speaks volumes that there were no civilian injuries so that’s great,” Haas said. “Everybody got out and didn’t try to go back into their home, which is a good thing.”
Neighbors helped alert residents to the fire.
Weather conditions helped crews as well.
“That was very important,” Mill Creek Fire Company Deputy Chief Joseph Stewart said. “No wind was a good factor in keeping the fire contained.”
It took firefighters about an hour to get the fire under control.
Jan. 13, 2023 Firefighters serving Plum Borough were out of service for six hours after learning there was a lapse in insurance coverage.
By Brian C. Rittmeyer Source The Tribune-Review, Greensburg (TNS)
Jan. 12—Plum’s volunteer firefighters were never without insurance protecting them if they were hurt answering a call, the borough’s manager said Wednesday.
Borough Manager Michael Thomas said the borough was late in paying a bill for the annual workers’ compensation insurance covering its four fire departments, but the coverage remained in effect.
He said the payment was missed because of the borough administration’s move to the new municipal center and such mail from the state not being forwarded.
Officials with the Holiday Park, Logans Ferry, Renton and Unity departments took themselves out of service for about six hours Tuesday on the understanding that the coverage had lapsed. During that time, departments from surrounding communities were providing fire protection to Plum through mutual aid agreements.
“If a firefighter had been out and injured, they would have workers comp coverage,” Thomas said. “This whole thing is a Shakespearean play in ‘much ado about nothing.’ It was confusion about terminology between one of my staff members and some people in the fire departments. By the time the whole thing went sideways and caught fire, they already pulled the trigger. It’s just that simple.”
However, Morgan McIlrath, the vice president of Unity Volunteer Fire Department, again on Wednesday said they got a call from the borough stating that the coverage had lapsed due to the policy not being paid.
“All we know is what the borough told us,” she said. “We never would have alarmed the public if there wasn’t a reason to.”
Thomas said Plum gets the workers’ compensation insurance for firefighters through an agent from the State Workers Insurance Fund (SWIF), which is part of the state Department of Labor & Industry. The annual cost for the four volunteer fire departments is about $40,000.
The coverage runs from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31. The borough gets a “front-end loaded bill” in December for $9,000 to $10,000, and pays the balance monthly through the year, he said.
Thomas said SWIF sends the invoice through the mail, and the borough pays it with a check. It is not handled by email or electronically, Thomas said.
That first invoice is normally received and paid in December.
But because the borough had moved its offices and mail from the state is not forwarded, Thomas said, it was sent back to the state, and borough staff didn’t have a bill to process.
Because of the volume of invoices the borough handles, Thomas said it’s not fair to expect that employees would have noticed.
A spokesperson for the Department of Labor & Industry responded to a request for comment Wednesday, but was not able to immediately address the matter.
Thomas said Plum’s insurance agent notified the borough Jan. 4 that the payment was outstanding. A check was prepared that day, council authorized it at its meeting Monday and it was overnighted to the state on Tuesday.
“However, in the interim, because SWIF hadn’t received the payment yet, the term that I guess my staff used with firemen is ‘the policy has lapsed,’ which is technically accurate,” he said. “However, you have 30 days within which to pay the premium. Once paid, any claims back to Jan. 1 are valid and covered.”
Thomas said the borough never told any of the departments that there was no workers’ compensation coverage, and the borough never advised them to go out of service. But word that the coverage had lapsed began spreading through the community anyway.
“On our end, we were not panicked at all,” he said. “We knew this was not a problem.”
To allay fears, Thomas said the borough got a rider policy with another carrier good for 24 hours. He could not say how much it cost.
No injuries were reported between when the payment was due and when it was made, Thomas said.
However, there were at least two calls that fire and rescue crews from other municipalities covered, including the rescue of a woman who fell over a hillside in Logans Ferry.
Thomas said the borough has reached out to state officials about getting SWIF to use electronic payment methods.
“These kind of problems can easily be remedied through technology,” he said.
A worker who was trapped for 45 minutes in the debris of a collapsed building on the South Side died Thursday afternoon, officials said.
The man, whose name and age were not immediately available, was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was in “traumatic arrest.” He was pronounced dead at 12:08 p.m., the Cook County medial examiner’s office said.
Rescue squads took turns hauling rubble away to find the trapped man, and tried to minimize vibrations to the vacant building, in the 700 block of East Oakwood Boulevard, to prevent a “second collapse” and anyone else, including firefighters, from being injured, Deputy District Chief Shun T. Haynes said at the scene.
The victim was working with two other people, who were not hurt, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.
“We asked where was the last place they saw him and they told us an area on the side of the building, and that’s where we started digging,” Langford said.
He was buried under “several feet” of debris, masonry, dirt and bricks, Langford said, adding it took squads 45 minutes from the time they got there to get the man out.
The worker was originally taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in “grave” condition, according to Haynes, who did not know why the building had fallen at about 11 a.m.
The Chicago Fire Department sent multiple ambulances and rigs to the scene of the collapse of the brick building that was being rehabbed, said spokesman Larry Merritt. No one else was injured, according to Merritt.
Only one wall collapsed, while the others — a common wall, the back wall and the front wall of the brick three-story building, which was constructed in the late 1800s — remained intact Thursday night, Langford said. The city Department of Buildings will have to decide if the rest will be torn down.
A worker who was trapped in the debris of a collapsed building has been taken to a hospital in ‘grave: condition Thursday afternoon on the South Side, officials said.
Rescue squads took turns hauling rubble away to find the trapped man, and tried to minimize vibrations to the vacant building, in the 700 block of East Oakwood Boulevard, to prevent a “second collapse” and anyone else, including firefighters from being injured, said Deputy District Chief Shun T. Haynes at the scene.
The worker, a man, was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in “grave” condition, according to Haynes, who did not know why the building had fallen at about 11 a.m.
“We are trying to get him out,” tweeted Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford earlier.
The Chicago fire department sent multiple ambulances and rigs to the scene of the collapse of the brick building that was being rehabbed, said spokesman Larry Merritt. No one else has been injured, according to Merritt.
It was a year of both success and setbacks for the nation’s fire service on Capitol Hill.
That’s how CFSI Executive Director Bill Webb explained the recent session.
Webb said once again members and officials with the major fire service organization reached out to promote the importance of funding various initiatives.
“It’s tough to get full funding. We know that,” Webb said.
As new members of Congress take their seats, Webb said it’s essential that fire officials from across the country take the time to educate their local leaders about the service. Identifying legislators who are willing to promote initiatives is vital.
Among the measures achieved include:
$10.5 million for the Supporting and Improving Rural Emergency Medical Service’s Needs (SIREN) program. The program, which benefits EMS in rural areas, received an increase of approximately $3 million over prior year funding.
$5.5 million for the National Firefighter Registry (NFR). Working with our partner organizations, CFSI helped secure an additional $3 million more than the budget request for the NFR as it moves towards open enrollment.
Additional $1 billion for the World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP). CFSI worked with our partners to advocate for the increased funding for the WTCHP, which provides health benefits to 9/11 first responders and survivors. Without the additional funding, the WTCHP would have cut services and denied new enrollments.
$2 million for carbon monoxide alarm installation and educational grants at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. CFSI and our partner organizations worked with congressional members to have these grants created through the Nicholas and Zachary Burt Memorial Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Act, which became law in March 2022. We then worked to secure funding for these grants through the appropriations process.
$76 million for State Fire Assistance (National Fire Capacity) grants. This is an increase of $1 million over the prior year enacted level.
$21 million for Volunteer Fire Assistance (Rural Fire Capacity) grants. This is also $1 million more than the prior year enacted level.
$4.5 million for the Joint Fire Science program. This is an increase of $500,000 from prior year funding.
Webb said despite tireless efforts from advocates, Congress did not reauthorize the AFG and SAFER programs or the USFA.
“AFG and SAFER programs have sunsets. We need to have it extended,” he said, noting that departments need the funds to provide services.
“We didn’t prevail but I it was not because of a lack of effort. People were passionate and worked together.”
Webb said they will be headed back to Capitol Hill to promote the agenda.
In late September, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee favorably passed legislation that would reauthorize the three through 2030, and place a 2032 sunset on SAFER and AFG. It also would boost the USFA budget from $76.5M to $95M, according to a CFSI report.
