VIDEO: The Milwaukee Brewers released a statement on Saturday, expressing their gratitude to everyone who helped make Friday’s championship celebration and parade possible.

“Bringing a celebration of this magnitude to life required an incredible collective effort, and we could not be more grateful to everyone who played a part,” said Brewers President of Business Operations Rick Schlesinger. “What we witnessed across Milwaukee was remarkable. So many people gave their time, expertise and energy to make this day possible, and the collaboration throughout reflected the pride, generosity and sense of community that define us.”

The Brewers added that they are especially grateful to the Milwaukee Police Department, Milwaukee Fire Department, Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, as well as supporting police and fire agencies from surrounding jurisdictions, and the staff at Henry Maier Festival Park who helped make the celebration happen.

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PHOTOS: A Learjet believed to be carrying nine people crashed on Sunday afternoon in Palm Beach County, Florida, after making a rapid dive of about 350 feet per second, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The plane, a 22-year-old twin-engine Learjet 60, crashed after taking off from Austin, Texas, and was headed to North Eleuthera in the Bahamas, according to the FAA.

The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash, the FAA said. Photos and videos online showed a jet hitting the ground nose-first and bursting into a fireball. The impact of the crash left a crater near a shopping center.

The jet crashed near Military Trail, between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue, in the Greenacres community of Palm Beach County, authorities said. There was no immediate word from authorities on deaths and injuries.

The plane went from 35,250 feet to 8,750 feet in a little over a minute, or roughly 350 feet per second, before it slammed into the ground, according to the FAA.

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VIDEO: The St. Louis Fire Department will test drone technology to see how it could be incorporated into its operations. According to officials, the department will conduct a 30-day evaluation to determine how the technology can support emergency response efforts.

Officials hope to gain a better understanding of the technology’s capabilities, limitations and potential impact on decision-making. During the trial, the department will evaluate how aerial data could assist firefighters at various incidents, including fires, hazardous materials incidents and rescue operations.

St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson said the aerial imagery provides vital real-time information to responding fire companies before they arrive at a scene. “Watch the drone go to the scene. Most of the times, the drone beats the firetrucks there,” Jenkerson said.

The department currently operates four drones, which are controlled by four pilots. Two drones are stationed at firehouse number 4, and two are located at Kennerly Avenue and Whittier Street.

Jenkerson said the heated and cooled automated units deploy across the city depending on the incident, including structure fires and responses along the river. “The information we have gotten from these drones prior to the companies arriving on the scene, it’s been more than we thought it would be,” Jenkerson said.

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A massive fire in the south suburbs ended with no reported deaths or injuries on Saturday. The fire broke out at a business and residential building near 127th Street and Western Avenue in Blue Island.

“All of a sudden, you just seen the fire and you just seen a whoosh, and [then] big flames just start shooting out of the top,” neighbor Sidney Brown said.

Brown and others said the brick building at the corner of Western Avenue and Union Street housed several businesses, including a locksmith and a pet groomer, with four apartments above. Much of the building is now destroyed.

“By the time the fire department came, that’s when it got really bad, and they couldn’t get to the dog,” neighbor Catrina Robinson said.Robinson said her friends were some of the residents. They were not inside, but their dog was in its cage.

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VIDEO/PHOTOS: Three people are dead after a crash involving two helicopters Thursday afternoon near the McMinnville Municipal Airport, causing the closure of all eastbound and westbound lanes on Highway 233 a mile west of Dayton.

Yamhill County Sheriff Sam Elliott held a press conference Thursday night to go over initial details from the investigation. He said that around 2:15 p.m., two helicopters — a 1995 Robinson R22 and a 2018 Airbus H125 — crashed into each other midair above a farm field not far from the airport.

Elliott said the collision happened near Highway 233 and Southeast Cruickshank Road, southeast of McMinnville. The helicopters crashed down into a private farm field along the highway.

Three people were killed in the crash, Elliott said, two aboard the Robinson and one aboard the Airbus. Initial information from a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson had the number of occupants per aircraft swapped.

Killed in the Airbus, by Elliott’s account, was a 38-year-old pilot from Newberg, Tyler Delane Sturdevant. In the Robinson was a 22-year-old flight instructor from Texas, Maddie Aasbo. Also aboard was a 31-year-old student pilot from the United Kingdom who has not been identified. Elliott said they were still attempting family notifications through the British consulate, with help from the FBI.

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VIDEO: The Bath Township Fire Department has received a grant to help firefighters communicate better when they go inside a burning building.

The Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation awarded the department more than $30,000. The department is using the money to buy voice amplifiers that attach to firefighters’ breathing masks. Bath Township firefighter Ben Zeeb said talking during a rescue is extremely difficult.

“It’s just very chaotic, it’s very noisy and it’s very hard to communicate,” Zeeb said. Zeeb said smoke, noise, and masks can muffle their voices. If firefighters cannot hear each other over the flames and equipment, it can slow down a rescue and put crews at risk.

“If I get trapped or there’s a changing fire condition that I see that can’t get communicated to him, that could change the situation for both us inside and what operations are happening outside,” Zeeb said. Special voice amplifiers exist to help with that situation.

Bath Township Fire Chief Mark Koonter said the department does not have any of its own. “Not having that is like trying to talk to somebody over the radio and they’re talking through a window,” Koonter said.

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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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