VIDEO: For more than three decades, William “Bill” Blenk was the person running toward danger, saving lives as a firefighter and training the next generation as an EMT instructor.

But 21 years ago, life flipped in an instant when he became the one who needed saving. He was 64 when a stroke took away his ability to do the simplest daily tasks.

“I could not talk. I could not write. I could not eat. I had to learn how to eat,” he said. His wife, Pat, said she still remembers the terrifying moment it started.

“He said, ‘Pat, Pat, something’s gravely wrong.’ I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And then he had the weakness starting. And when we got to the hospital, he couldn’t talk,” she said.

Faced with a sudden silence, Pat found a way to bridge the gap. She wrote out the letters of the alphabet on a piece of paper so her husband could spell out his thoughts one letter at a time.

Rather than putting their lives on pause, the couple made an intentional choice early on not to let a stroke write the rest of their story.

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VIDEO: A fire on Wednesday night caused serious damage to parts of a multi-family home in Hamlin with an attached auto repair shop. The Hamlin Fire Department says the flames broke out just before 7:20 p.m. at the corner of Walker Lake Ontario Road and Walker Road.

The fire seriously damaged the building’s second floor, and the first floor has water damage. Fire officials say no one was hurt and are still working to learn how the fire started. They say it’s unknown if anyone was home when the fire started.

Firefighters from Hilton, Brockport, and North Greece also responded. In a Facebook post, the Brockport Fire Department said its crew helped with cutting ventilation openings in the main roof, allowing another crew to access a lower secondary roof.

During those ventilation efforts, crews discovered that fire had extended to the back of the building Brockport FD said battling the fire was a challenge because of the building’s construction, including tongue-and-groove ceilings covered with plywood and walls made of multiple layers of paneling.

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VIDEO: Eric Jackson Jr. is just 19, but he’s already following in his father’s footsteps as a firefighter with the Pine Bluff Fire Department. If Junior has his way, he’ll eventually surpass his father, Eric Jackson Sr., in the profession they share.

“Thank you for letting me get this far and teaching me how to do it. And I’m still gonna be better than you eventually,” Junior said. His father welcomed the challenge with a laugh. “Oh, my goodness! He wants that challenge. We will see,” Senior said.

The friendly competition reflects a deeper connection between the two: a shared commitment to serving their community.

For Junior, the decision to become a firefighter began years before his first shift. Watching his father provide for their family and interact with people through his work helped inspire him to pursue the same path.

“It all started in high school,” Junior said. “I started seeing how he was providing for the family and what it brought to it, and also seeing how he interacted with other people on the job. So it made me want to do it even more.”

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A 17-year-old student is making waves with her fire safety innovation. Ángela Karime Hernández Venegas, from Tamaulipas, Mexico, created a fire extinguisher that doesn’t require water or chemicals. Instead, it uses low-frequency sound waves, saving resources while remaining as portable and easy to carry as a regular extinguisher.

Named Vortex Tech, Hernández’s device includes a custom bucket that is also a barrel, a 12-volt battery, a frequency generator, an amplifier, and a speaker. The gadget generates a low frequency of 30 hertz, or 30 sound pulses per second.

The speaker then turns the frequency into sound waves, which are thrust toward a small circular opening at the end of the barrel. This generates a phenomenon known as vortex rings, in which a donut-shaped flow causes a slight turbulence in the surrounding air, striking and dissipating the oxygen fueling the flames.

Hernández felt inspired to build Vortex Tech after watching a video from the United States’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which used a 13-foot-long sonic cannon to extinguish a flame using only sound waves.

“The main goal was to demonstrate that the physical principle [of vortex rings] could blow out a candle,” she told Spanish newspaper El País. “DARPA’s sonic cannon indicated that the method was feasible.”

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Southbound lanes of Interstate Highway 880 in Hayward were fully reopened early Wednesday morning again, hours after a Tesla semi caught fire on the freeway, the California Highway Patrol said.

At about 5:35 p.m. Tuesday, the Tesla big rig caught fire in the southbound lanes of I-880 near Route 92. By 5:45 p.m., the CHP had shut down both north and southbound lanes from Winton Avenue to Route 92 due to potential risks from hazardous smoke.

The northbound lanes were reopened at 8:40 p.m. Around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, the CHP announced the southbound lanes were fully accessible again to motorists.

According to the CHP, the semi’s lithium battery flames were incredibly difficult to extinguish. The trucks driver only told patrol officers that the rig simply caught fire and didn’t know why. No one was reported injured. The exact cause of the fire is yet to be confirmed.

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The danger inside a grain bin is not always visible – and when hidden hazards give way, entrapment can happen in seconds. Flowing grain can pull a person under, or a crusted or bridged surface can collapse without warning and bury the occupant.

These risks have resulted in more than 150 reported grain entrapments over the past five years. Local fire departments are often the first and only line of defense, but a successful rescue depends on having the right equipment and training before the emergency call comes.

Since beginning its Grain Bin Safety advocacy program and Nominate Your Fire Department Contest in 2014, Nationwide has partnered with like-minded organizations to equip fire departments across the country to respond to grain entrapments with specialized tools, coordinated training and practical rescue skills.

In 2026, Nationwide’s Grain Bin Safety program delivered grain rescue tubes and hands-on training to 67 fire departments to help prepare them to respond when an entrapment occurs in their community.

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PHOTOS: Nearly two weeks after a loose cow sent law enforcement on a chase across the Lansing area, training at Michigan State University helped emergency responders prepare for situations involving all forms of livestock.

Earlier this month, a loose cow near Lansing nicknamed ‘Houdini’ forced police to close roads and prompted a nearby school to postpone dismissal as it moved through the area, breaking through fences as it wandered. Police say they ultimately had to euthanize the animal after tranquilizers failed.

Tuesday, first responders received hands-on training to put to use the next time they find themselves in a similar situation. From pigs and cows to bees, the all-day Emergency Response to Accidents Involving Livestock training at the MSU Pavilion combined classroom instruction with hands-on animal handling.

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A fire ripped through a Miami apartment building early Tuesday, sending two people to the hospital and forcing residents, including several elderly, to evacuate.

The fire started at around 2:30 a.m. at Blue Lakes Apartments on Northwest 7th Street and Northwest 52nd Avenue in the Flagami area, where Miami Fire Rescue said crews found one unit on the fourth floor in flames.

More than 100 firefighters responded, and they were able to help two elderly residents out of the apartment. Those residents were then taken to the hospital with minor smoke inhalation, authorities said.

Miami Fire Rescue said they also helped other people who use wheelchairs or are unable to move on their own out of the building, which only has one elevator.

All 52 units were evacuated, and those on the fourth floor will be unable to return. At least 15 people are displaced.

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The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) announced that it has awarded 67 scholarships totaling $548,148 to the spouses, children, and stepchildren of fallen firefighters for the 2026-2027 academic year. This year’s recipients include 34 returning scholars and 33 first-time recipients.

The NFFF has a nearly 30-year history of providing educational support to families of firefighters who have died in the line of duty, with at least $7.94 million in tuition assistance awarded to more than 1,800 students across the country since the inception of its Scholarship Program.

By easing the financial burden of higher education, the program ensures the legacies of fallen firefighters live on through the accomplishments of their families.

Scholarships are awarded based on applicants’ financial need and academic performance, with a special consideration for those working toward degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and public safety fields.

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Video from a neighbor shows flames raging inside a multifamily home in Brockton, Massachusetts, on Monday morning before the fire department arrived. Five people were ultimately rescued from the building, and others climbed out of a window.

The footage shows that one person attempted to blast a fire extinguisher through the ground-floor windows as the flames grew, before the first fire engine arrived. Some residents tied sheets and blankets together to make a rope, anchored it to a bed and climbed out of a second-story window. Others were trapped inside.

Crews were called at 8:21 a.m. to the building at 303 Spring St. “I was in my office; I could hear them on the phone through the dispatch console, saying they couldn’t get out,” Brockton Fire Department Chief Bran Nardelli said. “Our operators were telling them to stay low and get to a window.”

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PHOTOS: About 30 people were displaced Sunday following a fire at a Roanoke apartment complex, according to firefighters.

At 3:45 a.m., crews with the Roanoke Fire & EMS Department were called to the 2300 block of Tuckawana Circle NW for a report of a structure fire.

First responders reported finding heavy fire coming from the roof of the apartment complex. The road was blocked while crews worked. The department said the fire was marked under control at 5:29 a.m.

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VIDEO/PHOTOS: The Lake Charles Fire Department is celebrating a major milestone this year: 150 years of service.

To mark the occasion, the department pulled a 1919 Seagrave ladder truck out of storage and dug through decades of photos, tracing its roots back to 1876.

The truck’s tires are 70 years old. The truck itself is 106 years old. But Fire Chief Delton Carter said it rolled off the trailer with no trouble at all.

“I mean, it’s the 150th anniversary of the Lake Charles Fire Department, so why not bring out a piece of history out so we can see it?” Carter said.

The truck isn’t the only piece of history on display at Central School in downtown Lake Charles. Old photographs trace the department back to its founding.

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Forty-three percent of on-duty firefighter fatalities over the last 35 years were attributed to cardiac causes, according to a new study published in JACC: Advances.[1] These findings call into question the types of screenings firefighters should undergo to detect potential heart problems.

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University explored autopsy findings from more than 3,000 on-duty firefighter deaths. The group said the proportion of cardiac-related fatalities has steadily increased over the years However, cardiac related deaths have been on the decline for the general U.S. population over the same time period.

These findings might indicate the need to change annual health screenings for firefighters. Current national screening recommendations rely on exercise stress testing, which can identify ischemic issues with blood flow, but may miss hidden structural remodeling of the heart that could lead to sudden cardiac arrest.

“Our research shows there may be a blind spot when it comes to routine heart screenings for firefighters in the U.S.,” senior author Alan Kwan, MD, assistant professor of cardiology in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, said in a statement. “Identifying heart conditions when they can be treated is key to addressing these new findings.”

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VIDEO: Firefighters were working to extinguish a large fire that broke out at a hotel in north Phoenix early Friday morning.

Crews were called just after 5:30 a.m. to the Travelodge by Wyndham hotel near 25th Avenue and Greenway Road. When firefighters arrived, the fire had already spread to the roof.

Firefighters had the blaze under control in about a half-hour. Due to the size of the fire, it was upgraded to a second-alarm response, bringing in additional firefighters beyond a standard call.

There have been no injuries reported, according to the Phoenix Fire Department. The building is believed to be vacant, but firefighters still need to clear it to make sure no one was inside.

It is unclear what caused the fire, and it is the second at the same location in months.

On Aug. 16, another fire broke out at the same hotel and displaced dozens of people. More than 50 units were affected then, and 30 people were displaced.

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PHOTOS: The seat is pretty hard and needs replaced, and the wooden steering wheel is tightly wrapped in black electrical tape.

Still, whenever Greenfield Fire Territory Fire investigator Jeff Goble rolls out of Station 422 in the open-roof vintage Boyer firetruck, he knows he’s riding in something truly special.

“She rides down the road kind of crooked because the alignment is off, but she’s 100 years old, so she can have a little bend to her,” Goble said with a laugh.

The truck — a 1926 Gramm Boyer Special — turns 100 this year. It was the second motorized firetruck purchased by the fire department back in 1926 and was looked upon as a gem despite coming with no roof and no front window.

Goble recently drove the truck in the Riley Festival parade and is one of a few people who can actually drive the vintage truck, because it is a stick shift and a double clutch.

“It runs pretty good, but about the fastest you can get her going is 28 mph, and you can make it up to 30 if you’re going downhill with the wind at your back,” Goble said.

If only the truck could talk. The vintage Boyer firetruck has been on quite the journey over the past 100 years. While the Greenfield department bought it in 1926, it sold it in 1949 to the Town of Manilla in Rush County.

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VIDEOS: Shreveport firefighters responded to a large fire at an abandoned apartment complex in the 7200 block of Bernstein Avenue on Thursday afternoon.

Fire crews were called to the scene at 3:38 p.m. after a passerby reported the fire. Rescue 9 arrived at 3:41 p.m. to find a two-story abandoned complex with three units fully involved in flames.

Up to 21 Shreveport Fire Department units responded.

Fire Chief Clarence Reese Jr., who was on scene, said the department’s primary concern was containing the fire to a central location, controlling its spread and preventing damage to nearby structures and other exposures.

No injuries have been reported.

Anyone who witnessed activity in the area or has information that could help determine the circumstances surrounding the fire is asked to contact Crime Stoppers.

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VIDEO: Two people have been hospitalized for smoke inhalation and burns following a large fire that broke out early Thursday morning at an apartment complex on Detroit’s west side.

The fire broke out at the Russell Woods apartments on Webb Street around 5 a.m.

By 5:30 a.m., large flames could be seen emanating through the roof of at least one building in the complex and appeared to be fully engulfed.

Firefighters responded aggressively to the fire after receiving initial reports that residents may still be trapped inside.

The fire has since been extinguished and the cause remains under investigation.

A man and a woman, both in their 50s, were hospitalized as a result of the fire. One firefighter also suffered an ankle injury, Local 4 learned.

The American Red Cross was on the scene to assist and help find temporary housing for four families who have been displaced.

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VIDEO: The 35th annual World Firefighter Challenge Championship is taking place this week in the Plaza Hotel and Casino parking lot in downtown Las Vegas, running from October 19 through October 24.

Three hundred eighty-six firefighters from 21 countries will race head-to-head in an event ESPN calls “the toughest two minutes in sports.” Competitors climb a five-story tower, hoist heavy gear, chop, drag hoses, and pull a 165-pound rescue dummy, all while wearing full turnout gear and breathing apparatus.

The event is free and open to the public.

City leaders say the event gives families, including children considering a career in public safety, a chance to see the strength, courage and teamwork required to be a firefighter.

The championship is being held at the Plaza Hotel and Casino parking lot on Main Street in downtown Las Vegas.

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Atlantic City honored its firefighting history with the unveiling of a mural next to a historic fire station in the midst of a preservation project.

“The Door That Opened” features the late Fire Chief and Drill Commander Marvin E. Beatty Jr., for whom Fire Station 2 at Indiana and Baltic avenues is named.

Created by artist Chanelle René, it celebrates belonging, community and bravery.

The mural includes a young girl looking up at Beatty in admiration. She is modeled after Quinn, the daughter of assisting artist John Morris.

It highlights the importance of Black representation in the Atlantic City Fire Department and the lasting influence of role models on future generations.

Wednesday’s event celebrated the preservation of a century-old public safety landmark and the power of public art to honor the people and history that shape Atlantic City’s neighborhoods.

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VIDEOS: A sight of smoke rising from the East Bay hills Tuesday alarmed some residents as it came on the anniversary of the deadly 1991 Oakland firestorm.

Emergency calls came in around 11:45 a.m. reporting a fire burning near homes in the 1000 block of Panoramic Way along the Oakland-Berkeley border, triggering a large emergency response.

Crews from the Oakland Fire Department, Berkeley Fire Department and Cal Fire responded. Fire officials said the blaze spread slowly, allowing firefighters to quickly establish defensive lines.

Two homes were threatened by the flames. One sustained partial fire damage before firefighters stopped the fire’s advance.

No injuries were reported. However, fire officials said the incident could have become a major incident if weather conditions had been worse. White smoke from the fire was visible from as far away as San Francisco.

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