After four decades of service for the Palmer Fire and Rescue, Bruce Axtell was recognized at the Palmer City Council meeting on Oct. 13 for his decades of service to the citizens of Palmer. "As Deputy Chief, Bruce Axtell brought to the department a culture of safety and a no-nonsense leadership style. He spent countless hours training members on fire apparatus operation and maintaining and repairing our equipment. His contribution to the department and community was immeasurable, and will be missed," said Acting Chief Dave Lundin. After his military service, Axtell was hired by the Palmer Fire Department in 1980 as a volunteer. "I've been literally every position that was available here," said Axtell. "When I started firefighting, we had old military gas masks."  

VIDEO: Neighbors in Meadowmere Park first heard the explosion around 6 a.m. Meadowmere Park Fire Chief Kevin Carrero lives in the neighborhood and woke up to the noise. "It was like a big explosion, like a bomb went off. I thought it was a transformer that blew up but it was just too loud," Carrero said. The 63-year-old man living inside the home that exploded was airlifted to a hospital, the Nassau County Police Department said in a release. According to police, the man suffered severe burns. Two firefighters from Valley Stream Fire Department also sustained injuries, according to a Nassau County fire marshal. The firefighters were injured after a chimney fell on top of the firefighters, leaving them with bruises and lacerations, police said. The home identified by officials as the site of the explosion was completely leveled and the homes on either side were severely damaged.  

A copper time capsule, placed 101 years ago behind a granite cornerstone at the downtown fire station, was opened by firefighters Friday. The copper box contained a hand-signed ledger of the fire crew at the time, news clippings, a penny and mementos from a fireman's ball with the York, Maine, Fire Department. Accessing the capsule required hours of labor by Mark Young of East Coast Masonry, who cut through mortar without damaging the white marble cornerstone engraved with the year 1919. Fire Chief Todd Germain said they knew it was there because it was mentioned in a book about the history of the Portsmouth Fire Department by former chief Steve Achilles, as well as Ray Brighton's "They Came to Fish." The cornerstone is at the base of a wall at the front, right of the fire station, is more than 16 inches thick. When Young wasn't finding the time capsule quickly, Lt. Russ Osgood said, some began to wonder if it was "the greatest practical joke in the history of firefighting."  

A new video shows San Antonio firefighters rescuing several riders stuck on a rollercoaster at SeaWorld. SAFD crews were called out to SeaWorld, located at 10500 Sea World Drive on the far West Side, around 1 p.m. Sunday. The riders were reportedly stranded on SeaWorld's Wave Breaker rollercoaster. The video shows firefighters utilizing a high-extension ladder to reach the riders and get them down safely. Other details surrounding the incident are limited as of yet. We've reached out to SeaWorld for further comment and San Antonio Fire Department but have not yet received additional details.  

After 72 years of putting out fires, responding to crashes and helping out in medical emergencies, the largely volunteer-run town of Madison Fire Department flickers out Sunday. The city of Madison Fire Department officially takes over fire protection responsibilities for town residents at midnight on Sunday in preparation for the eventual dissolution of the town of Madison in two years. "It's kind of highs and lows depending on the day," town of Madison Fire Chief David Bloom said Saturday. "You hate to see the station get closed up and you don't want people to not have jobs or have a volunteer opportunity that they love." The department has six full-time employees, four interns who live at the station on Fish Hatchery Road and about 15 volunteers, he said. Three full-timers are transferring to the city of Madison Fire Department, and the other three are retiring, including the 72-year-old Bloom, who said he bought a new fishing pole in anticipation of the free time.  

It feels like whenever I cough these days it triggers a mini-panic attack that I promptly try to quash with a steady stream of chamomile tea. Thankfully, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they figured out a way to gauge whether a person has COVID-19 just from the sound of their cough, so I may soon get to put my inner hypochondriac to rest. The tool uses neural networks that can detect the subtle changes in a person's cough that indicate whether they're infected, even if they don't have any other symptoms. Asymptomatic people infected with COVID-19 are a vector for the virus that's particularly tricky to manage, in part because they're less likely to get tested because, duh, why would they if they're feeling fine, right? Thus, carriers could infect others without even realizing it. But even asymptomatic carriers have one tell that shows they're infected, MIT researchers found. It's all in the cough.