Firefighter and EMT Kevin Painter recently retired from the Ashville Fire Department after 42 years of working as a first responder. Painter started his career as a cadet for the Braidwood Volunteer Fire Department in Braidwood, Illinois, from ages 16 to 18. Afterwards, Painter became a firefighter and lieutenant for the Braidwood Fire District until he was 39, when he first retired in January 1998. Painter said he restarted his career later that year after he moved to Alabama, where he became a volunteer firefighter for Riverside. He was also working for both Lincoln and Talladega at the time. He eventually ended his career at the Ashville Fire Department, but like his first retirement, Painter says he plans to continue working part time for Riverside. He just turned 60 in August.  

Facing escalating obligations to police and fire pensions, Peoria city leaders want residents to give direction on a course of action. The City Council spent close to 90 minutes during Tuesday's meeting discussing a plan to place an advisory referendum on the February ballot to gauge interest in implementing Police Protection and Fire Protection taxes. "By 2023, one out of every nine dollars that you collect in the general fund will be going to cover public safety pension costs – over and above the property tax levies we're currently showing," said City Manager Patrick Urich, showing a general fund transfer requirement growing from $4 million this year to $10.6 million. "This is what's driving us to cut services. This is the structural imbalance that we're facing."  

Godfrey Mayor Mike McCormick on Tuesday announced the first installment check for the new 2020 KME "Panther Custom Rescue Pumper" truck has already been delivered to the Godfrey Fire Protection District. In September 2018 the village board approved an intergovernmental agreement to provide the funding necessary to help the fire district buy the apparatus in exchange for land owned by the fire protection district and continued free inspections. Godfrey agreed to give the district $500,000, the approximate price of the new pumper truck. "By providing the funding for the purchase of a new pumper truck they have provided a community asset that will be used by the fire department for at least the next 20 years," said Godfrey Fire Protection District President Terry Ford.  

Shortly after his election to the Lake Forest City Council last year, Ald. Ara Goshgarian noticed the Lake Forest Fire Department's small patrol boat. He came away concerned about its usefulness during a water emergency. "It seemed as if we could do better," Goshgarian said at an August City Council meeting. "It seemed as though a new rescue boat was in order." Soon, an ad hoc committee was formed including representatives of The Friends of Lake Forest Parks and Recreation Foundation and city officials. The group studied both the type of boat needed and how to raise the requisite funds privately.  

What started a massive salvage yard fire in the Bronx remains unknown, but fire investigators consider its cause suspicious. The blaze and smoke seen for miles prompted a 5-alarm response from the FDNY on Monday afternoon. The heat was so intense that vehicles parked on nearby streets were burned, a fire chief said. In the heart of the fire, car parts and wooden pallets burned. Nearly 200 members of the city's fire department responded to the fire on Drake Street in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. One firefighter did suffer a minor injury, according to the fire chief. Investigators say they don't believe anyone was inside the salvage yard at the time and the fact that the flames sparked in the middle of a holiday made the fire suspicious. Jasmine Ramos says she saw a video of the fire and recognized her parents' auto repair shop that sits next door to the junkyard.  

New Orleans is getting $15.9 million from the federal government to hire 62 firefighters, city officials announced on Tuesday. The grant will pay the full cost of the new hires' salary and benefits for three years, giving the city a way to expand the New Orleans Fire Department, which firefighters have said has been understaffed for years. "Having the grant award to pay for a three-year period allows us the cushion to pay for it," Mayor LaToya Cantrell said of the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grant at a press conference on Tuesday. "We knew we needed to grow our department and this was the best way to do it." Staffing has long been a concern at the NOFD. Under former Mayor Mitch Landrieu, budget cuts required the department to scale back the number of firefighters assigned to each truck, something the firefighters' union objected to because it meant more vehicles had to arrive at a scene before there were enough personnel to safely enter buildings.  

Thirty-five years ago, on Labor Day in 1985, two Passaic boys unwittingly set a fire that would destroy an estimated 20% of the industrial base in a city already under considerable duress. In all, about 2.2 million square feet of industrial space burned down. The fire, known forever after as the Labor Day Fire, produced heat so intense it caused nearby buildings to combust before flames reached them. It left 2,000 jobless and hundreds homeless as the conflagration destroyed 17 multi-family homes and scores of businesses. A firefighter from Secaucus died of a heart attack after responding to a mutual aid call. "This was a huge deal," City Historian Mark Auerbach said. "Passaic's strength was based on its industry." The fire's scar remains. Seventeen acres of the 22 consumed are still either vacant or largely abandoned, costing the city millions in tax revenues.  

Ralph Gismondi knew he wasn't going to make it. The retired FDNY captain, who spent weeks on the smoldering wreckage of Ground Zero, only to find a second career as a JetBlue flight attendant, told his wife Ann in late March that he could no longer fight off the deadly coronavirus that had begun to ravage his 68-year-old body. Gismondi couldn't breathe without an oxygen mask and seemed to be in constant pain. And while Ann tried to encourage her husband of nearly 50 years to keep fighting, the end was near. Gismondi was placed on a ventilator March 20 and died April 5. "I didn't think he was going to die but he did. Ralph knew," Ann Gismondi said. "Here he was: a 9/11 survivor and this is what took him out." As the 19th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks approaches, Ralph Gismondi joins a growing list of 9/11 first responders who have faced a dual set of painful challenges — each originating from that clear Tuesday morning in lower Manhattan 19 years ago.  

PHOTOS: The Visalia Fire Department will have a step up in training thanks in partnership with California Water Service. Cal Water awarded VFD a grant worth $102,000, which allowed for the purchase of a 10-foot mobile pump pod for the fire agency. According to Cal Water administration analyst Chrissy Balderama, the new water-saving device is a self-contained unit that recirculates water that is used during firefighter training and pump testing. Water officials say it will save the fire department 4.5 million gallons of water per year. Firefighters demonstrated the new water-saving device, called the Direct Recirculation Apparatus Firefighter Training & Sustainability (D.R.A.F.T.S.) Unit, on Tuesday at Station 55 in northwest Visalia. "This unit is really an integral part of conservation," Cal Water district manager Steve Johnson said. "They can fill this thing up to 1,700 gallons a minute, put it into this D.R.A.F.T.S. unit with minimal water waste."