They have come from as far as Fiji and Croatia and as close as D.C. and Fairfax County, Virginia. Firefighters packed a conference room at the Hyatt Regency in Downtown D.C. on Tuesday for the inaugural World Fire Congress to collaborate and share information to better keep citizens across the world safe.
U.S. Fire Administrator Lori Moore-Merrell said 55 countries were represented at the conference. Participants talked about “challenges that we are all facing from a global perspective so that we can see if we can bring together solutions, best practices and find some areas for collaboration going forward,” she said.
The summit will focus on four distinct challenges that the firefighting community is seeing across the world: large structure fires, climate change’s effects on the job, personnel health and fires stemming from emerging technologies like lithium ion batteries in electric vehicles.
WTOP-FM 103.5 Washington, D.C.
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The Rockville Volunteer Fire Department (RVFD) was the victim of an online hack last week that scammed the nonprofit organization out of $220,000 in funds raised to purchase two new ambulances, according to a department official.
“Last week, we learned of a hack that we understand targeted us, along with multiple fire, rescue and EMS departments – unfortunately, due to its sophistication, we were one of its victims,” RVFD President Eric Bernard wrote Tuesday in an email to MoCo360. “Despite our safeguards, we fell short – and an unknown actor scammed us while we were in the process of buying two new ambulances to better serve Rockville.”
Bernard said the RVFD filed reports with Montgomery County police and the FBI and reached out to county government officials.
MoCo360
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VIDEO: A popular South Baltimore restaurant was the victim of an arson attack Monday morning.
Alex Perez, the owner of Papi Cuisine, told WJZ that the fire department called his business partner around 6:45 a.m. after a fire at their business.
After reviewing surveillance video from the restaurant's cameras, the owners say a woman was at the scene on camera going in between two dumpsters in the alleyway behind the business before lighting fires. She is also seen throwing a cocktail bomb into their receiving door.
Perez says the attack comes on the heels of petitions filed to get him to close his business.
"We are resilient. We are just running a business here," Perez said. “We aren't doing anything wrong. When the health department comes, they sign off and see we are doing everything by the book."
WJZ-TV CBS 13 Baltimore
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