A year after PFAS was first detected in Dillingham wells, the state and a consulting firm are taking steps to address the situation. A plan now in the works would address PFAS contamination in Dillingham. Shannon & Wilson, Inc., an engineering consultant based in Anchorage, and the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities are drafting a feasibility plan to tackle the issue, after several months of testing wells around the Dillingham airport. Shannon & Wilson was in town at the end of November for its third quarterly PFAS sampling. The firm tested five of six contaminated wells south of the Dillingham airport. (The sixth well was sampled when it was in use during the summer.) Testing started in February, and the latest round, completed in July, showed that no further sampling was required to begin a feasibility study. Sammy Cummings, a PFAS coordinator for the DOT & PF, said Shannon & Wilson is now looking at ways to address the affected wells.  

People who lost their homes in the McKinley Fire will get help to rebuild. The McKinley Fire Long Term Recovery Group aims to help people who didn't have insurance. The fire started Aug. 17 and quickly tore through the woods along the Parks Highway around mile 90. Ned Sparks evacuated knowing everything he had would likely be gone when he returned. "Firefighters felt they had control and it took over the top, the flames over the top of the trees with the wind," Sparks said in an interview outside the Upper Susitna Senior Center on Aug. 19. "They had to flee for their lives too. All the structures are gone." Sparks was one of about 50 people who lost their homes to the fast-moving flames. He said he and his wife couldn't get insurance because their home was still under construction over the summer. They were finishing up the second floor when the fire started.  

Dave Rowell's shirt says it all: "Euclid Fire: Nobody Fights Alone." When I meet Rowell, a captain in the Euclid Fire Department, we pull beat-up chairs across from each other in the duty office of Station 1, a functional-looking brick building on a strip of East 222nd Street. Outside the office, the bay doors are open. A Dalmatian sits out front of the station, plopped adorably between two red garage doors. Look quickly, and you'd miss that it's a statue. Out back, firefighters wipe down one of their fire engines, which gleams red and chrome in the morning sun. As Rowell and I talk, they whirl up the siren and flash the lights. Some firefighters are all too happy to regale you with stories of their daring. Rowell is not one of those. He tends toward the reserved, valiant sort, the kind of guy who is almost allergic to talking about himself.  

VIDEO: Crews worked to clean up an oil spill Wednesday morning in Elliott Bay near the Seattle Waterfront. At about 8 a.m., crews at Fire Station 5 found a small leak of waste oil from Fireboat Leschi, Seattle fire officials said. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, several gallons were spilled. Crews immediately secured the leak and several agencies responded. Blooms were placed around the sheen to contain and absorb the oil. The U.S. Coast Guard was at the scene leading the mitigation efforts, along with the Department of Ecology and Seattle Public Utilities. The Seattle Fire Department said it will investigate to determine how the leak occurred.  

The city's Department of Buildings will begin enforcing a commercial sprinkler law passed in 2004 requiring all New York City landlords to install the fire prevention equipment. Despite the 15-year window for property owners to get up to code, it was revealed at a November City Council committee hearing that about 1,100 buildings were still not in compliance with the Local Law 26 — and 86 building owners have completely ignored city notifications. The window officially closed Dec. 1, and all commercial building owners are required to have installed sprinkler systems in their buildings throughout the city, including numerous city owned structures. "Our goal is compliance," said Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman for the Department of Buildings. "Building owners who fail to comply with DOB orders regarding these sprinkler requirements may face additional violations, which carry additional associated civil penalties, until they come into compliance."  

On Oct. 23, firefighters from multiple Norwich departments were called to a massive house fire on Bentley Avenue, a scene of controlled chaos with mutual aid back-up staged just down the road from the blaze as city trucks sprayed the multi-family residence with streams of water. Norwich Fire Department Acting Chief Keith Wucik, as incident commander, had a lot of balls in the air that afternoon between directing the main firefighting effort to keeping track of how many members had arrived on scene from the city's volunteer departments. To make the situation even more challenging, the body of a resident was found in the smoldering home. In an effort to better coordinate resources at mutual aid fires and to ultimately ensure firefighter safety, Wucik recently began pushing to implement a city-wide identification system, an idea first floated by former Norwich Fire Chief Kenneth Scandariato years ago.  

Village trustees passed a resolution on Monday night urging the Racine County Communications Center to adopt a practice of dispatching the nearest available emergency medical unit, and requesting that all county communities west of Interstate 94 pass similar resolutions. The move to closest-unit dispatch would mean when an emergency call comes in, dispatchers would send the closest available first responders, regardless of municipal borders. That model could help alleviate the dangers created by the disputes among the three Waterford-area fire agencies. A Journal Times investigation published Sunday found that those disputes have repeatedly resulted in cases when citizens in need of medical care in Rochester and parts of the Town of Waterford have sometimes had to wait 20 minutes or more for care, despite the Waterford Fire Department having ambulances available to respond in mere minutes.