VIDEO: A nursing home in Rockland gifted their fire department a brand-new, fully equipped SUV as a thank you for rescuing residents during a fire at the facility last November.

Rockland firefighters rescued more than 100 people during a fire at the Webster Park Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center on November 29, 2025.

“Rockland Fire Department responded not only with professionalism, expertise, and disregard for their own safety, but with compassion, patience, leadership, and an incredible commitment to the safety of our residents,” said Todd Funk, Administrator at Webster Park Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center.

The SUV joins the department’s fleet of emergency vehicles, and is equipped with radios and other life-saving equipment.

“Our budgets are thin. They are stretched. We aren’t always able to afford the luxuries that make our job that much easier,” said Rockland Fire Chief Scott Duffey.

Webster Park Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center staff said the firefighters went the extra mile, and even sang to the residents while carrying them out of the building during the fire. No one was hurt.

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A massive four-alarm fire tore through two homes in Belleville early Thursday, lighting up the night sky and sending residents fleeing.

The fire broke out on Crescent Terrace just before 3:15 a.m. and spread to an adjacent home on the dead-end street.

One home, which appeared to have been under construction, collapsed, while flames tore through the roof of a second home.

Burning trees and downed wires hampered firefighters and caused the flames to threaten adjacent homes on Maier Street, where two backyard sheds were damaged.

Firefighters also faced low water pressure as they battled the flames. Downed power lines created additional challenges for crews at the scene.

Police went door to door during the night to alert residents. The residents of the homes were preliminarily reported to have escaped the flames.

One neighbor said they heard “popping noises” before seeing “a house up in flames and a huge plume of smoke.”

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VIDEO: Homeowners in Spokane’s Westgate neighborhood came face to face with the firefighters they credit with saving their homes during an emotional community gathering.

The residents organized a block party as a way to express gratitude to members of Spokane Fire District 8, who worked tirelessly during last week’s fires to protect as many homes as possible in the neighborhood.

For many residents, the past month has been a difficult journey. Families were evacuated as fires swept through the area, leaving them uncertain about whether their homes would survive. Some residents searched desperately for news footage or photos that might show their properties still standing.

Thomas Clouse, an evacuee, recalled the moment he learned his home had survived. “Monday morning, I finally made it back and I ran into Bob who lives in the house right here,” Clouse said. “I said, ‘How did our homes survive?’ and he said ‘my wife saw a video on the BBC of a firefighter hosing down my house’ and I said, ‘Well Bob, I’m going to find that firefighter.'”

That firefighter was Captain Todd Wood of Spokane Fire District 8. Wood was among the crew members who fought the fires in the Westgate neighborhood, and his efforts to protect homes did not go unnoticed by residents.

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PHOTOS: Firefighters have contained a three-alarm fire that engulfed a shoe factory Wednesday afternoon, sending a massive plume of smoke into the air and prompting the brief closure of nearby Fullerton Municipal Airport.

Fullerton Fire Department officials received a call at 12:04 p.m. reporting a fire inside a building in the 3600 block of Commonwealth Ave.

Firefighters were able to rescue some scared kittens in the area, but no injuries were reported. The smoke from the fire could be seen for miles, which was especially concerning for residents who live right across the street from where the fire started. The fire was at Capri Shoes, which sits just outside of airport property.

“Due to the heavy volume of fire and smoke, the airport was precautionarily shut down due to visibility,” said Fullerton Deputy Fire Chief Michael Meacham. Employees who were inside said they were evacuated as firefighters arrived and began efforts to put the fire out, which was made all the more challenging by the summer heat.

“The biggest challenge today is just the weather conditions, the heat and the stress on the firefighters operating with a stubborn fire like that,” Meacham said.

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PHOTOS: One person is dead following a home explosion in Portage, Indiana, according to the area police department. Despite reports that the Northwest Indiana home explosion may have occurred in connection with severe weather threats that passed through the area, authorities said investigators are still working to determine the cause of the blast.

“During the severe weather event, the Portage Fire Department was dispatched to a reported structure fire on the north side of the city,” Portage police said in a news release. “Due to widespread storm damage, debris, and hazardous conditions, emergency responders experienced an extended response time while attempting to access the incident location.”

Authorities have not yet released any information concerning the person killed or additional injuries. Locals are asked to avoid the area while officials continue to investigate. SkyCam9 flew above the scene, at Harrison and Jefferson, where a gas flame was still visible. Aerial shots captured emergency crews on the ground canvassing the area. Debris from the blast could be seen on the property of a nearby neighbor’s home.

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VIDEO: Recent tragedies in the community have increased public awareness of the threat of residential fires, and requests from the community for resources to head off preventable emergencies.

Public safety officials have responded in a big way.

Westchester County has launched a fire safety campaign aimed at helping residents reduce the risk of fires in their homes, with a series of four public service videos set to roll out over the coming weeks.

The Department of Emergency Services announced the effort Monday in White Plains, where County Executive Ken Jenkins introduced the campaign during his weekly news briefing.

According to the county, the videos focus on major causes of home fires and steps residents can take to lower their risk.

The campaign also includes practical information on maintaining smoke detectors and preparing a family evacuation plan if a fire happens. The videos are available on the Westchester County Government YouTube page.

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The Houston Fire Department has left the scene of a large recycling plant fire in the 1900 block of Goodyear Drive in southeast Houston on Tuesday.

The fire, which was visible along Texas State Highway 225 for much of the morning, broke out at Ironman Metals, according to HFD.

“We did get a call for a fire at this plant at 6:49 a.m.,” HFD Chief Thomas Munoz said. Munoz said HFD had 60 firefighters at the scene, including members of its hazardous materials team.

Ironman Metals states on its Facebook page that it recycles everything from copper to auto parts. Officials with HFD said they monitored air and water in the area for any potential environmental impacts.

“We’ve checked with our HAZMAT specialists,” Deputy Chief Isaac Garcia said. “They say it’s good.” Eyewitness News wanted to ask HFD additional questions about what chemicals might have been burning into the air as a result of this fire, but the follow-up call to the department went unanswered.

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A salvage yard in Uvalde sustained severe damage after a fire broke out on Sunday afternoon. According to a statement by Uvalde County Constable Precinct 6 Emmanuel Zamora, the fire started around 3:45 p.m. on 3725 East Main Street at Hacienda Salvage.

Zamora says multiple departments were needed to put it out. In addition to the Uvalde Volunteer Fire Department, the Knippa Volunteer Fire Department, the Sabinal Fire Department and Concan Fire and EMS were called in for mutual aid.

The Uvalde Volunteer Fire Department, in another post, added that the La Pryor Volunteer Fire Department, City of Uvalde, Uvalde EMS, Uvalde County Sheriff’s Department, and Texas DPS were also called in. The owner of Hacienda Salvage, Robert Rowland, posted on Facebook around 6:45 p.m. to confirm there was a fire.

“It looks like it burned about 100 cars so far,” Rowland said. “We believe the fire is contained, but there is still a lot of work to be done.”

The owner thanked the departments who responded for their service in putting out the flames and added that there were no injuries reported.

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VIDEO: Massachusetts is moving forward with a proposal that would make it the first state in the nation to require building owners to identify and replace recalled sprinkler heads, a move that comes in the wake of last year’s deadly fire at the Gabriel House assisted living home in Fall River.

The Massachusetts Board of Fire Prevention Regulations voted last week to support the proposal. A final vote is expected in October, meaning the new code change could take effect as soon as next year. Tens of millions of recalled sprinkler heads are believed to be in place nationwide, according to the National Fire Sprinkler Association.

The code change would add a requirement during annual sprinkler inspections for a list of all installed sprinkler heads to be checked for any recalls. If the list doesn’t exist, as is the case in many buildings, the code change would require each installed sprinkler head to be inspected.

As previously reported, sprinklers at Gabriel House had been recalled decades earlier, including the one in the room where the fire started.

Following the tragedy, Fall River Fire Department Capt. Joshua Hetzler discovered there was no requirement in Massachusetts or the nation to check for recalled sprinklers during inspections. He proposed the code change to address this issue.

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VIDEO: A new mural in Bridgeport honors two firefighters who were killed in the line of duty more than a decade ago. It’s painted on the side of the Engine 11/Ladder 11 Fire Station on Ocean Terrace Avenue.

There are three panels of the mural: the local firehouse patch, the city of Bridgeport Fire Department patch, and a panel with two firefighter helmets honoring Lt. Steven Velasquez and firefighter Michel Baik who were killed on duty in 2010. There were battling a house fire on Elmwood Avenue.

“We pledge every July 24, when we remember both Lt. Velasquez and firefighter Baik to always remember and never forget. This will allow everyone that drives by to always remember and never forget,” said Mark Cody, acting fire chief. It was painted by Connecticut artist Ryan Christenson, also known as ARCY.

“I got a picture of this mural as it was completed, and I did send it to the family. They are impressed and they are happy. It brings tears to their eyes. It brought tears to my eyes when I saw it,” Cody said.

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PHOTOS: A fire at a Birmingham apartment complex displaced at least 20 residents Sunday afternoon, with the American Red Cross responding to assist those left without a home.

Officials said no injuries were reported. Birmingham Fire & Rescue Service responded to the blaze at the 2700 at Homewood apartment complex on Temple Crest Drive just after 4 p.m.

Birmingham Police Department officers were also on scene, knocking on doors to help residents and their pets evacuate. Residents were quickly forced outside and stood for hours watching the fire spread from unit to unit.

One resident said smoke was visible from more than ten miles away. Vittorio Corey, who has lived at the complex for three months, said he initially thought a neighbor was grilling before realizing the building was on fire.

“I was standing on the end of my bathroom and I saw smoke. I thought someone was barbequing. But there was a fire, so I walked down to the end and had some officers down there, and as soon as they kicked the door open, the flames just erupted,” Corey said.

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VIDEOS: Two helicopter pilots assigned to the Widemouth 2 Fire died after a helicopter crash, according to the Sevier County sheriff and interagency partners of the Great Basin Geographic Area.

The pilots worked for Helicopter Transport Services, a Forest Service exclusive-use contract aircraft company. Officials said the pilots’ families had been notified. Their identities have not yet been released.

A Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter carrying a pilot and a crewmember crashed at about 10:40 a.m. Aug. 7, 2026, officials said. The crash sparked a fire in the surrounding vegetation.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox mourned the loss of the two pilots in a statement posted on social media. “Today we mourn two helicopter pilots who lost their lives while fighting the Widemouth 2 Fire,” Cox wrote.

“They put themselves in harm’s way to protect our state and gave their lives in that service. Abby and I are heartbroken. Our prayers are with their families and the entire wildland fire community.”

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VIDEO: A Fort Bend County family’s goose may be that honking hero we all need. That goose — named Goosey — alerted his owner’s family to a fire that started in their barn earlier last week. The heroics were captured on video.  

Goosey is only about four months old, and most of the time, he keeps to himself. But early Tuesday morning, Goosey made sure his family knew something was wrong.

“I was watching TV and I conked out on the couch,” said Bert Gerber.

That’s when Goosey let out several honks in the middle of the night — a sound the family hadn’t heard before. It was all caught on their security camera. Their barn was on fire and Goosey was sounding the alarm.

“I just casually came outside and I saw a fire billowing out of there,” he said. “I grabbed a water hose and ran over there.”

He quickly put out the flames. The animals inside were somehow safe. A few more minutes, the family says, could have changed everything.

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VIDEO: Two volunteer firefighters were critically injured Thursday when a tanker truck from the Ingalls Volunteer Fire Department crashed on Highway 51, about 10 miles east of Stillwater, Oklahoma, after a tire failure caused it to leave the roadway.

The tanker, fully loaded with water, suffered a catastrophic failure of a front steering tire while traveling westbound, according to a statement from the Ingalls Volunteer Fire Department on social media. The failure caused the truck to crash through guardrails, roll over, and come to rest in a wooded area near West Point Road.

Good Samaritans driving on Highway 51 helped rescue one of the firefighters trapped inside the truck, while the Stillwater Fire Department extricated the other. Both firefighters were awake and alert when they were airlifted to a trauma center in Tulsa.

The Ingalls Fire Department stated that, out of respect for the firefighters, their names will not be released at this time. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is investigating the cause of the tire failure.

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VIDEO: Kaiya Davis says his passion for art began at an early age, inspired by cartoons and their many sketches, styles and designs.

Today, Davis works as a firefighter in Milledgeville, a career he loves. “I love the job,” Davis said. “I love helping the community. I love everything about it.”

After becoming a firefighter, Davis said his artistic inspiration began to change. His experiences on the job gave him a different perspective on life and the people he serves.

“You see things that other people don’t see in life,” Davis said. “And you’re just basically there to help people who need the help at that time of need. The realism that I was trying to put into my art beforehand, I can actually feel it now.”

Music also plays an important role in Davis’ creative process. He draws inspiration from artists who have openly shared their struggles with mental health and substance abuse.

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The Oak Park Fire Department has partnered with the University of Illinois Fire Institute for a study to evaluate how the job affects firefighters’ health, with a focus on cancer screenings.

Participating firefighters will provide blood and urine samples and complete a baseline health questionnaire, an annual cancer survey and an exposure log form.

Participation in the study is voluntary and people can withdraw at any time throughout the study, which is planned to span up to 30 years.

They will also be asked to log their fire exposure after each study, which allows researchers to connect occupational exposures to health outcomes.

“We hope our participation not only benefits our own members through enhanced screening and early detection but also contributes to research that will improve firefighter safety across Illinois and beyond,” said JT Terry, Oak Park’s fire chief. “The study brings together scientific expertise and resources that individual fire departments simply cannot replicate on their own.”

The U of I study, which started in late 2024, currently has participation from over 100 fire departments in the state, according to Farzaneh Masoud, the director of research at the Illinois Fire Service Institute. A 40-foot-long mobile lab drives to pick up samples from different stations, she said.

Firefighters aged 18 and older, including retirees, emergency medical responders and people from all firefighting subgroups — whether volunteers or career and of any rank are able to participate in the study, program officials said.

“We look at the biomarkers of exposure and biomarkers of effect, how those exposures can affect their body, their metabolism or their muscles,” she said. “To annual sample collections, we follow them, we look at the gene toxicity, how these conditions are affected due to the accumulation of toxicants and carcinogens in their bodies and that’s the promise of this study.”

Firefighters have major health issues, Masoud said, and that the purpose of the study is to identify how the environments and conditions they’re exposed to affect their body, metabolism and muscles.

Health and safety is the highest priority for Oak Park’s fire department, Terry said, and its involvement in the study is part of both its physical and mental wellness initiative. Oak Park’s Fire Department currently staffs 79 sworn firefighters, paramedics and civilian personnel, Terry said.

“Ultimately, our goal is to protect the firefighters serving today while helping build a safer fire service for future generations,” he said. “If our participation helps researchers better understand occupational exposures, improve protective practices, and reduce cancer risk for firefighters everywhere, then it is an investment well worth making.”

Masoud said everybody a part of the Illinois Fire Service Institute is working to cover the “severely understudied population of heroes” to try to get ahead of a disease that has taken the lives of millions.

“They ultimately want to get ahead of cancer because it’s all about early detection,” Masoud said. “So if we can understand cancer better, get ahead of it, there’s going to be a lot of new knowledge that comes out of this research. We believe it will ultimately save lives, if not for this generation, then hopefully for the next.”

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PHOTOS: One person was found dead inside an apartment building in the Norwood section of the Bronx after an out-of-control fire broke out on Wednesday.

The fire was first reported on the second floor of a building at 374 East 209th St. shortly after noon. It reached 5 alarms just before 2 p.m. and wasn’t placed under control until after 8 p.m.

Several residents had to be rescued, but it wasn’t until five hours after the fire started that search and rescue teams discovered one person dead inside the building.

In addition, FDNY officials said eight civilians were injured, including two with life-threatening injuries, another two with serious injuries and four with minor injuries. Six firefighters were also injured, including three with serious injuries and another three with minor injuries.

Among those critically injured was a 48-year-old woman who was rushed to Jacobi hospital. One of those injured is a child under 1 years old, but their injuries were believed to be minor.

“The firefighters were rescuing people from the building and EMS was providing lifesaving treatment right on the scene, saving multiple lives,” said FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore.

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The Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District is mourning the loss of one of its most remarkable members.

Retired Assistant Chief Edwin Martin passed away Friday, July 25, in Lehigh Acres at the age of 111 years and 159 days, according to the department.

Martin held the distinction of being the world’s oldest living firefighter and was widely recognized as the oldest known living man in the United States.

His firefighting career began in 1940 with the Baltimore County Fire Department, where he served for 24 years before retiring and moving to Lehigh Acres in 1964.

He came out of retirement in 1967 to join the Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District as a volunteer, eventually rising through nearly every leadership position in the organization.

Martin served as Interim Chief in 1970, Assistant Chief from 1971 to 1976 and later as Superintendent of Maintenance, where his deep knowledge of the department’s equipment and facilities earned him widespread respect.

The Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District is inviting family, friends, current and retired members and the community to honor Martin’s life and legacy.

Funeral services will be held at 1:00 p.m. Monday, Aug. 10, at Hodges Funeral Home at Lee Memorial Park, 12777 FL-82, Fort Myers, Fla. 33913, with visitation from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. A graveside service will follow immediately after.

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Firefighters remained on scene Thursday morning after spending several hours battling a massive fire that destroyed the Texas Gulf Seafood distribution warehouse near the Galveston Yacht Basin on Wednesday night.

The fire started around 8:40 p.m. at the Texas Gulf Seafood distribution warehouse on Pier 7, near 7th Street and Wharf Road, where towering flames and heavy smoke could be seen rising into the sky. According to the Galveston Fire Chief, crews arrived to find heavy smoke and flames coming from the warehouse.

The size of the fire prompted a second alarm, bringing in assistance from several Galveston County fire departments. Officials said the size of the warehouse made it a lengthy operation, but firefighters were eventually able to stop the flames from spreading.

Firefighters worked for hours before getting the blaze under control. No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Officials said crews were expected to remain on scene for several more hours while ensuring the fire is completely extinguished.

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VIDEOS: A second alarm was called for a fire that broke out at an apartment building in Southeast DC on Tuesday afternoon. The DC Fire and EMS Department was called at around 1:50 p.m. to a three-story apartment building in the 5300 block of E St.

Responding firefighters were met with smoke and fire showing from the roof eaves. Firefighters went into the building and searched for people to get them out.

A second alarm was called as the fire extended to a nearby building. The fire was knocked down over an hour later. Fire officials said 12 occupied apartment units were affected, displacing 28 adults, 16 kids, four dogs and three cats. One firefighter was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

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