California Professional Firefighters

 Roseville Firefighters Local 1592 is saddened to announce the passing of Roseville Fire Captain Tom Chimenti (ret.), who died Saturday at the age of 54 after a courageous battle with job-related cancer. 

At least five people, including three Ventura Co. firefighters, were hospitalized after an early-morning vacuum truck explosion and fire Thursday in Santa Paula. Residents within a mile of the explosion site were evacuated, as the fire continued to burn in the afternoon. 

In a decision that could pad Wall St. bottom lines and devastate local public safety, a federal bankruptcy judge has ruled that Stockton could, if it chooses, sever its ties with CalPERS. Stockton lawyers say such a move could provoke the loss of 60% of its police and firefighters.

A sudden and explosive wildfire near the Oregon border has destroyed 100 homes just south of Weed, at the base of Mt. Shasta. Nearly 2,000 have been forced to evacuate and some 800 firefighters are on scene battling the blaze.

It's official: An effort to wipe out secure public pensions in Ventura County is dead. Anti-retirement ideologues have dropped a legal effort to force the measure back on the ballot.

 While the fight is still far from over, Ventura County firefighters and public workers are praising a judge's has ruled that a county initiative eliminating defined-benefit pensions violates state law and should be removed from the November ballot.  

A well-funded Ventura County ballot initiative, backed by outside interests including the Koch Brothers, has put the very concept of a secure retirement on trial. The measure, ticketed for the November ballot, would eliminate all defined benefit pensions, including those providing for the survivors of fallen firefighters and law enforcement officers.  

Anti-retirement hard liners are acknowledging that their well-funded ballot campaign in Ventura County is part of a bigger agenda to eliminate secure pensions everywhere. "This is meant to be a template for other counties," says Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.