DANBURY -- Luckily the weather was calm early Friday evening, when a fire broke out on Crosby Street.

The large gusts of wind had died down before 5:45 p.m. when the smoke began billowing out of Iovino Brothers Sporting Goods and Screen Printing and a passerby called the fire department.

The yellow building, at 20 Crosby St. is situated between two university buildings -- a Western Connecticut State University housing complex and parking garage and the Naugatuck Valley Community College office.

"It appears as though it started on the first floor toward the back," said Danbury Assistant Fire Chief Paul Omasta, about two hours after the fire broke out.

There were no injuries and minimum structure damage, but the entire building was damaged by smoke.

Omasta said the store closed at 5:30 p.m. and a man called in the fire at 5:45 -- "Very early, which is a huge benefit for trying to put out a fire," Omasta said.

The good samaritan stayed at the scene until trucks pulled up -- 10 vehicles in total.

"He said 30 seconds before he called he witnessed smoke coming out the first floor -- which gave us the hope that it hadn't extended to the upper floor," Omasta said.

The firefighters moved quickly and the fire was out in a little over 15 minutes.

"That's good because there was absolutely zero visibility, even to the extent that thermal images were of no use," Omasta said.

About 50 people stood in the White Street parking lot across the Still River, waiting as firefighters rushed around the building, dragging hoses.

D-Shift responded to an early morning residential fire at 6 Rowan St.

Assistant Chief Bob Keenan said the fire was reported at 4:53 a.m. Upon arrival, Keenan said, the fire department found heavy fire active on the second floor of the building on the right side.

Keenan said the occupants of both sides of the building got out, and there were no injuries.

"The fire was controlled in a reasonable amount of time," Keenan said. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

The American Red Cross was on the scene Tuesday morning to assist the people displaced by the fire.

Mark Your Calendars and Become Fit for Duty!

March 1, 2010 – Health and wellness have become hot topics lately; however, every year more than 50 percent of line-of-duty deaths in the fire service are related to health and wellness issues. With this is mind, the theme for this year’s Fire/EMS Safety, Health and Survival week is “Fit for Duty.” During the week of June 20-26, 2010, IAFF members are encouraged to focus on a variety of important health and safety issues, including: 


• General Health and Wellness

• Food and Nutrition

• Fitness

• Stress Management

• Smoking and Smokeless Tobacco Cessation

• Alcohol and Other Drug Use

• Infectious Diseases

• Suicide Prevention

So, mark your calendars for June 20-26 and become “Fit for Duty!”

Excise Tax Update

Brothers and Sisters,

With a health care reform deal announced loudly in the media between "labor," the administration and Congress on changes to the excise tax provision, I want to provide you a new update today that outlines some of the key elements of that deal and what we know about the potential impact they will have on each and every one of you.

From Day One, we forcefully argued that the excise tax was bad policy and bad politics and that it had no place in any health care reform bill. Not once did we waver from that argument.

Our message was heard and we believe had a significant impact on what ultimately came out of the negotiations between representatives of the labor movement, the administration and Congress.

We believe we can say with confidence that our constant and consistent message resulted in significant changes to the excise tax provision of the reform bill that the House and Senate now must finish debate on and send to the president.

I don't want to overstate this, but suffice it to say that our hard opposition to the excise tax convinced negotiators to agree to new provisions that, while they fall short of our goal of eliminating the excise tax, these changes do effectively eliminate the burden of additional taxes that would have fallen on our members had the tax remained unaltered.

Based on the initial information we have received from the AFL-CIO on the changes to the excise tax provision, we know that:

• Every health plan covering our members is exempt from the tax until 2018, based on new provisions that collectively bargained health benefits will be exempt from the tax until 2018, as would the benefits of all state and local municipal worker plans even if not collectively bargained;
• The threshold for the tax to kick in on family plans has been raised from $23,000 to $24,000 for all workers, and from $26,000 to $27,000 for our members;
• The cost of dental and vision coverage will be excluded from the cost of the plans when determining if they rise above the threshold beginning in 2015;
• Each year after 2013, the $27,000 threshold for our members will increase by the CPI + 1 percent and will rise even more in high cost states;
• Further, if health care costs rise faster than expected prior to 2013, the initial thresholds will also be increased, as well.

While there's significantly more to the deal than just these initial bullets, and we are going to do a full and complete analysis over the coming days, we have not been able to identify a single IAFF member's health care plan that would or will be subject to the excise tax based on these new provisions scheduled to take effect in 2018.

We know there's a lot more to go in the political process before this bill is finally approved by both houses of Congress and signed by the President, but we are pleased that our efforts to protect our members from a severe economic penalty appear to have made a significant impact on what we are told will be in the final legislation.

We will update all of you as more details of the bill emerge.

Fraternally,

Harold A. Schaitberger
General President

A Special Tribute to Vincent J. Bollon

You are invited to join us in honoring IAFF Secretary-Treasurer Vincent J. Bollon on Tuesday, March 16, 2010, at a gala dinner in Washington, DC at the Hilton Washington, 1919 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC. to commemorate his career, great service, extraordinary union leadership, and well-deserved retirement after more than 21 years as IAFF General Secretary-Treasurer.

In the coming weeks, all IAFF affiliates will receive a formal invitation with full details about this special evening in Vinnie's honor.

The event will occur during the IAFF Legislative Conference, and at the same hotel; however, ticketing for the gala will be conducted separately from IAFF Legislative Conference registration.

Ski Butternut - Fire Fighter & Family Discount!

For Additional Information visit:   http://www.skibutternut.com/docs/FirefighterDiscount.pdf