When Anchorage's city government unleashed its new SAP payroll software on Sept. 11, 2017, it was bombarded by unforeseen errors on employees' paychecks. In some months, there were more than 1,000 errors, and many went unfixed for months on end. Those errors are costly. The penalties are different for the nine bargaining units for the city's 2,162 unionized employees. For the International Association of Firefighters Local 1264, the penalty is $50 "for each day after the next full pay cycle during which the error in pay remains uncorrected." Some units had more enforcement than others, and some have more employees. Bankrupting the city is not in the interest of its employees, so union and city officials negotiated less devastating deals to give the employees non-cashable leave.  

Hundreds of thousands of acres are burning in bushfires in Australia, where an Alaskan has deployed with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to help put out the flames. "Their fire season, so far, has been unprecedented," said Kyle Cowan, Associate Manager for the BLM's Alaska Fire Service. He's been stationed in New South Wales for a couple of weeks, deploying BLM personnel to different fires. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service reports over 120 fires at various levels of containment. Cowan is the only Alaskan deployed in a group of about 20 firefighting staff from the U.S. His job is to oversee that small group of fighters and dispatch them where they're needed most. He says Australia's is a volunteer-driven force with just over 70,000 firefighters, and "they've deployed everybody they've got."  

Bodega Bay's financially struggling firefighting agency could have a new name, more firefighters and more paramedics under a plan that would expand the growing Sonoma County Fire District next year — but only if the Board of Supervisors ponies up as much as $2.5 million a year to make it happen. The 66-year-old coast agency and the 100-year-old Russian River Fire Protection District both want to join Sonoma County Fire, the latest in a series of moves meant to consolidate and modernize the county's far-flung and somewhat antiquated fire services network. Sonoma County Fire Chief Mark Heine called the changes important for firefighting but difficult for the agencies making them. "It's a very emotional thing for a board, disbanding a fire agency and combining it with another one," said Heine.  

VIDEO: First responders rescued a man trapped in an upside down submerged vehicle in Liberty Bay Saturday morning. The Poulsbo Fire and Police departments responded to the scene of the rollover accident off Fjord Drive around 8:40 a.m. The vehicle went off the roadway into Liberty Bay south of the Poulsbo Yacht Club, according to Poulsbo Fire Department spokesperson Jody Matson. One woman was already outside of the vehicle when first responders arrived. A witness told KING 5 she was screaming for help because the driver of the vehicle was still trapped inside. Matson said the tide was in and the vehicle was upside down and almost completely submerged with only the two rear tires sticking out of the water when first responders arrived. Firefighters didn't wait for a rescue boat to arrive and swam out to the vehicle without any specialized gear to rescue the man.  

A Quincy-based addiction treatment company is looking to open a facility in Canton that would include a specialized wing for first responders. ARK Behavioral Health has proposed converting the shuttered Kindred-Tower Hill nursing home, nestled at the end of Getchell Way near Randolph, into a substance-use treatment facility that could help up to 160 people at a time through the first steps of recovery. The facility, to be named Bedrock Recovery Center, would be equipped to monitor patients through a weeklong detox and into a month or so of residential treatment. The project is before Canton's zoning board of appeals. ARK has filed for a special permit under the town's new bylaws that allow substance-abuse treatment facilities in areas of town zoned for industrial use. The new permit process was passed by town meeting voters this year.  

According to the National Volunteer Fire Council, 65% of all firefighters in the United States in 2016 were volunteers. But the number of people joining volunteer fire departments is on the decline, and not just in Daviess County. "The volunteer service on the fire side is really suffering," said Randy Lawson, executive director for the Kentucky Firefighter's Association. To younger people, being a volunteer firefighter "is not as appealing as it used to be," he said. "The volunteer fire departments, not just in Kentucky but nationwide, are crying for help." Several chiefs of area volunteer departments said they have had fewer people signing on to be firefighters for some time. Having fewer volunteers on a department's personnel roster has an impact on the response because there are simply fewer people to come to a fire or emergency run.  

There's something about the scene that unfolds when the tones sound and fire trucks race out of the City of Newburgh fire headquarters on Grand Street, said acting Chief Terry Ahlers. He watched Thursday afternoon as the firemen did their dance, jumping out of their everyday shoes, slipping on turnout gear and hopping in two trucks. The exhaust hoses swung from the ceiling as the trucks zoomed out and the garage doors shut. They were responding to an odor of gas at a building. "Sometimes, you don't know if they're going to come back," Ahlers said. "They might never get to wear those shoes again." Ahlers only has a handful of work days left before he retires Jan. 2. He started at the Newburgh Fire Department 20 years ago, on Nov. 29, 1999. He is departing at a troubling and uncertain time for Newburgh firefighters; the department is preparing to lay off 14 of the 68 firemen as part of the greater plan to balance the city's 2020 budget.