Haines has a new chief of the volunteer fire department and emergency services. Brian Clay was elected to the role by the department in December, and has served 26 years as a volunteer firefighter. This is his second term as fire chief. KHNS' Corinne Smith reports. Brian Clay moved into the top job on January 10. A few days later, some residents were startled awake in the early morning to loud booms, followed by alerts of a tsunami advisory. It was caused by an underwater volcano erupting near Tonga that sent shock waves across the Pacific Ocean. Like emergency department heads across the West Coast, Chief Clay monitored the situation, but said he was not concerned. "It was interesting," Clay said. "But it's gonna take a mountain range to get to us, so I wasn't overly concerned about it at that time. There were no reports saying that Ketchikan or anybody was having problems yet. So there were no concerns."  

VIDEOS/PHOTOS: An empty building at 141 E. Marietta St. is likely a total loss after a fire on Thursday that the building manager said was probably inevitable. Building manager Bill England said the building was empty and boarded up, but they have had a lot of trouble with homeless people breaking in and building fires for warmth, which he thought could have caused the fire. "Homeless guys keep breaking in and starting fires in the fireplace in this apartment up here," England said, gesturing to the upper floor of the building. "I'm assuming that's what happened." The building and several nearby houses are all owned by the same person, he said, and all need extensive remodeling to make them habitable. The Marietta Street structure was boarded up repeatedly in attempts to keep people from breaking in, but England said they kept finding ways inside anyway. They stripped the insulation off wires to fuel their fires, based on evidence he has found in the past.  

Fatigue caused by extended periods of work and insufficient rest can impair job performance, situation awareness and decision-making capabilities, even when it's needed most. Specifically, in safety-critical environments, such as responding to wildfires, fatigue has been associated with a two-fold increase in the risk of injuries and errors, and a four-fold increase in safety-compromising behaviors during emergencies. To mitigate these outcomes, researchers at Texas A&M University are evaluating how the impact of fatigue-causing performance declines in safety-critical workers, such as firefighters, nurses and emergency room (ER) doctors, can be delayed through the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a wearable and noninvasive brain stimulation technology that uses weak electrical currents to stimulate certain parts of the brain.  

Have you ever wondered how many calls Escambia County EMS answers? Escambia County EMS has launched a new information dashboard that includes: EMS calls dispatched by Emergency Communications (updated daily); Transports to local hospitals by EMS (updated daily); On-scene cardiac/respiratory arrests (updated weekly); On-scene overdoses (updated weekly); ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI/Heart Attack) events (updated weekly); and Motor-vehicle crashes (updated weekly). "This dashboard is an opportunity to further educate the citizens about the services provided by EMS and Emergency Communications," said Escambia County Public Safety Director Eric Gilmore. "Every day, the men and women within our Public Safety department dedicate their lives to the safety and wellbeing of Escambia County citizens, and we believe this dashboard reflects that effort while also educating the general public to the extent of our services."  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: In a scene that has tragically played out across the United States yearly, a Christmas tree starts a fire inside a building, but this scenario created by the Bellows Falls and North Walpole fire departments was just a training exercise to prepare firefighters for real-world events. Bellows Falls Fire Chief Shaun McGinnis helped orchestrate a live-fire training at an abandoned building that allowed the fire to be controlled by members of his department while the training was playing out. Before the call went out to a team of firefighters that was staged at a local fire department, Bellows Falls Fire Department's Lt. Ben Masure and Deputy Tony James placed Christmas trees into an elevator shaft and other parts of the building. Then the call went out that a person was "trapped" in the building. McGinnis talked about the training that he and his team were running.  

VIDEO: Tahlequah firefighters can make a lot of spaghetti after a TikTok video landed them nearly 800 jars of Ragú sauce. Ragú recently began a new series of commercials under the catchphrase, "Cook Like a Mother," one of which featured firefighters. The Tahlequah company decided to replicate the commercial as a team-building exercise, featuring firefighter Anthony Margarit. The Tahlequah Fire Department plans to use its pallet of pasta sauce as part of a fundraising spaghetti supper for the community in the spring, which will benefit Professional Firefighters Local 4099 tragedy fund.