A 28-year-old man is recovering after falling four stories from a rooftop deck Sunday morning on the Near North Side, Chicago fire said. According to officials, around 1:00 a.m. authorities responded to a call in the 700 block of North Dearborn Street about a man who fell three floors and was pinned between buildings. Firefighters said they initially had trouble reaching the man and the rescue took around 40 minutes. We were able to break through a wall and through some cinder block and some brick and were able to access the patron from the ground floor," Chicago Fire Battalion Chief Stephen Little said. The man was transported to Northwestern Hospital in critical condition. Officials are still investigating what caused the man to fall.  

The Huntley Fire Protection District was the recipient of more than $1 million in federal funding as part of the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response – or SAFER – program to ensure area fire departments meet their staffing needs. The funds were made available by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Assistance to Firefighters Grant. In total, almost $11.2 million was allocated this year to communities and fire protection districts in the Chicago area: about $7.1 million to strengthen fire prevention efforts and about $4 million for staffing and overall preparedness. The Huntley Fire Protection District – which is in the process of building a 10,000-square-foot station adjacent to Sun City and an estimated 12,000-square-foot addition and site renovation to its existing facility at existing facility at 11118 Main St. – received the greatest share of funds allocated for staffing.  

Authorities continue to investigate the cause of a fire that gutted Lake Zurich's Paulus Park Barn on Saturday night, forcing the cancellation of numerous parks department programs this week as well as the village's indoors farmers market. Lake Zurich firefighters responding to the blaze about 8:25 p.m. Saturday arrived the find flames engulfing the structure, which serves as the administrative offices for the village's parks and recreation department. Fire officials say the blaze was brought quickly under control. The building at 200 S. Rand Road was not occupied at the time of the fire and no injuries were reported, authorities said.  

The Morton Fire Department is getting a new ambulance. The ambulance costs $277,093, which includes a $4,000 trade-in allowance for the fire department's oldest ambulance, a 2004 model, and an early-payment discount of $3,683. Foster Coach Sales of Sterling was the lone bidder. As part of its bid proposal, Foster was required by the fire department to solicit a cost for the ambulance chassis from Truck Centers of Morton. That muddied the waters a bit. The cost for the chassis from Truck Centers was $87,792, which drove the total cost of the ambulance to $279,301. The cost for the chassis from Truck Country in Wisconsin, Foster's regular chassis dealership, was $85,584. In the end, Village Board members went with the lower overall cost for the ambulance instead of involving the Morton business.  

Jasmine Doss already was awake before 7:30 a.m. Sunday when she heard noises that didn't sound right, and soon after, she was alerting her La Salle neighbors about a fire. "I heard cracking noises in a wall upstairs in apartment 5," Doss said, while standing on the sidewalk in the 700 block of Third Street, holding her tiny dog, Koby. While she didn't notice much smoke inside her apartment, La Salle firefighters arrived at 747 Third St. to see smoke coming from the eaves of the old two-story house. Firefighters cut a hole in the roof, found flames in the attic and knocked down most of the fire quickly. However, area firefighters spent another hour tearing into walls and ceilings to try to extinguish all of the fire. "It was in the walls. They're double-checking to make sure it did extinguish," fire chief Andy Bacidore said.  

Suburban fire departments are among those sharing in $11.2 million in federal grants for the Chicago area announced this week by the state's two U.S. senators. The funding is from the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program to provide equipment and the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response program to help departments meet staffing needs. Under the staffing program, Grayslake Fire Protection District received $672,271; Huntley Fire Protection District, $1,087,460; and Wood Dale, $660,816.30. Under the equipment program, Bartlett Fire Protection District received $292,122; Bensenville Fire Protection District 2, $50,590; Batavia, $238,409; Elmhurst, $62,636; Gurnee: $45,181; Hoffman Estates: $192,181; Lake Bluff: $41,142; Lake Zurich: $312,900.  

Brian Serdynski was a reliable and dedicated public servant, father and friend. Those who he leaves behind remember him as selfless, never complaining and for his commitment of a large chunk of his life to serving on the Union Grove-Yorkville Fire Department. The Fire Department has a hole in its roster as the department's members are mourning the loss of one of their own. Serdynski died early Saturday morning at his Union Grove home, about two weeks after suffering a heart attack during an emergency call. He was 38. Serdynski suffered the heart attack Oct. 19, was released from the hospital Oct. 21, saw his cardiologist last Wednesday and was cleared to return to duty, Fire Chief Tim Allen said Sunday. The death was a sudden and huge blow to the department, Allen said.  

The head of the city's firefighter union wants to know the long-term plan for retaining a crop of new hires when the temporary funding used to bring them on board expires. The problem is — just as it has been in the past — there does not appear to be one, and the union president is concerned the fire department will, once again, be targeted for budget cuts through staffing reductions when it comes time to pay up. Atlantic City was awarded $4.3 million in federal grant funding that is to be used for hiring roughly 25 new firefighters. The new hires will increase the department's total numbers to about 200, a move necessitated by nearly a dozen retirements earlier this year that dropped staffing levels below a judge's order for a minimum of 180 city firefighters.  

"Level Zero" is the phrase at the heart of a legal fight between Albuquerque Fire and Rescue and privately owned Albuquerque Ambulance Service over the city's proposed expansion of its authority to have AFR rescue units transport patients to the hospital. In most cases, AFR rescue units stabilize patients on scene and Albuquerque Ambulance then takes them to the emergency room – allowing the Fire and Rescue units to return to service for new 911 calls. When Albuquerque Ambulance has no units able to respond immediately to 911 calls, its dispatchers announce "Level Zero" over the radio. The sharp uptick in "Level Zero," the city says, shows the ambulance service doesn't have enough staffed units deployed and translates into AFR rescue units spending too much time waiting at a scene for Albuquerque Ambulance to show up and transport a patient.  

VIDEO: It was a beautiful memorial for Goodyear firefighter engineer Austin Peck, who died in August. Some of Peck's family skydived to remember him, and they say it was a healing moment as they released his ashes into the skies. "I'm sure he would have loved it. He was an adrenaline junkie himself," said Mark Peck, Austin's father. It was a moment of healing for the family of Peck, who passed away from occupational cancer. 10 family members skydived into the Arizona skies, releasing Peck's ashes as they glided through the American and Arizona flag, more than 10,000 feet in the air. Down below, sirens were sounding off, and eyes were trained to the sky. For those who jumped and watched from below - this was more than just skydiving. It was to remember the man they grew to love.  

In a recent Facebook post, the Portsmouth Professional Fire Fighters & Paramedics Association the public on a staffing shortage. "Today is a scary day to be a citizen, guest, or business owner in Portsmouth." According to the Association, EMS2, a unit that responds to major medical calls, is down due to lack of staffing. EMS2 is responsible for cardiac arrests, car accidents, shootings, stabbings and fires. In their Facebook post, the Association adds that they believe this is due to city leaders needing to ‘allocate proper funding' to the fire department. In the closing statement for the post, the group states that they will continue to try and provide effective emergency services with ‘less and less'.