Leave it to the D.C. Council to face down the tough issues of the day.
Councilmember Jack Evans announced today that he would be taking on a cause dear to, apparently, every D.C. fire fighter. No, this doesn't have anything to do with the hydrant issues or suspect arson investigations. This has to do with the [...]

D.C. Fire and EMS have responded to 250 calls since midnight, according to spokesperson Pete Piringer. "The calls that we've had are taking us longer for obvious reasons," he tells City Desk. "We've had a few collapses, a few babies. I don't know if it's the barometric pressure or what."
There have been six calls for [...]

First the Pershing Park case. The Office of the Attorney General may have had serious trouble with another high profile lawsuit—the Georgetown Library fire case. In April 2007, a three-alarm fire gutted Georgetown's public library. Two hundred firefighters along with roughly two dozen trucks battled the blaze. That huge effort may not have translated into [...]

Trash fires are again becoming a trend in Capitol Hill. WJLA has a small story on the trend and notes that investigators are looking into it. Of course, the last time trash-can fires had worried Capitol Hill residents occurred around the time of the Eastern Market fire. The D.C. Fire Department quietly dispatched a team [...]

In early June, the Office of the Attorney General dropped the charges against D.C. Fire Department whistleblower Gerald Pennington. Pennington has spoken out against mismanagement within the department and faulty fire investigations. Pennington and his partner Greg Bowyer were the subject of a Washington City Paper profile.
Pennington and Bowyer had been respected fire investigators until [...]

Two years after the fact, Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells has gone on the record suspecting that the Eastern Market fire was arson. Wells tells the Voice of the Hill:
"'I have a tremendous amount of suspicion that it was arson,' Wells told the Voice immediately after the market reopened Friday."
Eastern Market re-opened today with the [...]

You can listen to the radio transmissions from the metro crash here. [You can also go directly to the radio calls here].The first 911 dispatcher call out is for a pretty significant all hands on deck for a derailment. There doesn't appear to be any confusion about the severity of the crash. And then there's [...]

The family of Ana Fernandez, a victim of the metro crash, tell WTOP they've gotten a bunch of hate calls from anti-immigrant crazies. The station reports:
"They have been getting hate-filled telephone messages about whether or not Fernandez, a mother of six, was a legal immigrant.
Her family gathered outside her Hyattsville apartment Wednesday. A crying woman [...]

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty: Expresses deepest condolences, as is standard practice to start these briefings.
Confirms nine fatalities, the final count. "As a government and as a city" there are only four people whose identities have been confirmed.
Three of the four are residents of the District of Columbia. One lived in Hyattsville. Fenty contacted three of [...]

The Washington Times picked up what may become an emerging angle from the Metro Crash—the tensions between WMATA and the D.C. Fire Department. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin basically called out WMATA for initially downplaying the extent of the crash. The Times writes:
"Fire officials stated bluntly Monday night that Metro's original description of the accident understated [...]

The Washington Post is reporting that the metro car involved in the Red Line crash yesterday was due for brake maintenance. The Post writes:
"The Metro train car that slammed into another on the Red Line yesterday evening was two months past due for scheduled maintenance on its brakes, and the car was an older model [...]

So how did the Red Line metro crash death toll jump to nine last night then fall back to seven this morning and then back up to nine? Last night, City Desk reported that three news outlets—WUSA9, WTOP, and WJLA—had confirmed that nine had died in the crash. WTOP cited the D.C. Fire Department as [...]

The death toll in the metro crash went back up to nine this morning. The number rose a few hours after Fenty insisted the number was seven at the morning press conference. The Washington Post reports:
"The number of people killed in last night's deadly Red Line crash has risen to nine, Metro's general manager said [...]

WUSA is reporting that nine people have died from this evening's Metro crash:
"9NEWS NOW has confirmed there are nine dead from the collision, and officials say there are 67 people injured. The Fire Department Chief said that up to six of those people sustained life-threatening injuries, another 14 have less threatening injuries and more than 50 people have [...]

In late May, D.C. Fire Department brass tried to hose down a local reporter's Emmy nomination. Deputy Chief Kenneth Crosswhite lobbied to have a story produced by WJLA disqualified as a local Emmy nominee. The story in question was a three-month investigative piece that ran on Nov. 11. It chronicled the saga of arson investigators-turned-whistleblowers [...]