On May 23, a house caught fire in the village of Crooked Creek in Western Alaska. None of its four inhabitants, including the homeowner and her 2-year-old son, were home. But the fire ravaged the house, and injured a man trying to stop the flames. Crooked Creek doesn't have running water to homes and businesses or a fire department. But a visiting construction company, Brice Inc., happened to be in town with a water truck on hand. Brice employee Kane Peacock said that's how they put the fire out when they got to the scene. "It was definitely a little hectic at first," he said. "We had a bunch of fire extinguishers there and everyone to help. But realistically, at that time, the flames were so large that he couldn't get close enough to use a fire extinguisher. So it was kind of just the guy running the hose off the water truck." The tribal administrator for Crooked Creek, Elena Philips, lives next door to the home that burned down.  

The Alaska National Guard rescued 12 stranded mountaineers off a glacier in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park on Tuesday after four days of foul weather halted attempts to pick them up or drop supplies. The retrieval of the group from Klutlan Glacier, southeast of Mount Bona, marked the largest high-altitude rescue the Alaska Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook has conducted in state history, according to Maj. Chelsea Aspelund, public affairs chief for the Alaska Air National Guard's 176th Wing. The crew landed the helicopter on the glacier at about 10,000 feet around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday and loaded eight mountaineers, four guides, and approximately 1,000 pounds of gear, officials say. An onboard medic treated two mountaineers with symptoms of altitude sickness and a third with frostbite injuries described as minor.  

Flashover is a very dangerous phenomenon, in which all of the exposed combustible materials in an enclosed area near-simultaneously ignite. Thanks to a new AI-based system, however, firefighters may soon receive warnings when flashover is imminent. Typically, flashovers occur when a structure fire causes the temperature in an enclosed space to reach at least 593 ºC (1,100 ºF) – this is the approximate autoignition temperature of many commonly used organic materials. As a result, they will emit flammable gases and ignite at more or less the same time, even if they haven't been directly exposed to flames. Needless to say, firefighters do not want to be in a building when a flashover occurs. Given the chaos and limited visibility inside burning structures, though, it can be difficult for them to spot visible warning signs such as flames rolling across the ceiling.  

PHOTOS: For 30 years, Ramon Barreto has worked as a San Francisco firefighter, responding to calls within the city and facing down some of the region's most challenging wildfires. But by night, he brings that blazing energy into the ring as one of the Bay Area's most legendary wrestlers: Chicano Flame. Born in Ensenada, Mexico, Barreto immigrated to the Mission as a child. He'd sit on the floor of his living room watching wrestlers on TV while his grandfather screamed along, rooting for Mexican stars like Mil Mascaras as they crossed over into American wrestling leagues. In the '80s, Barreto's family moved to Visitacion Valley, putting them in the shadow of one of the hotbeds of Bay Area wrestling: the Cow Palace. "I've got to wrestle in the Cow Palace several times," says Barreto. "It's such a great honor, from being a kid in the seats seeing it, to actually being in the ring under the lights and in the dressing rooms. That was a great accomplishment, to go full circle from the seats into the ring."  

It all started after a furniture factory burned down. The factory, once located at the end of Putnam Street in the Chesterfield community, caught fire at a point when fire service was provided in the area by a joint effort from the city of Morganton, Oak Hill Fire and what later became Triple Community Fire Department, Chesterfield Fire Chief James Robinson said. That fire highlighted the need for a fire department closer to home, and on June 6, 1971, Chesterfield Fire Department officially was chartered, Robinson said. It was a humble beginning, when the community rallied together to purchase used fuel tankers and have them retrofitted to carry and pump water, Robinson said. "That was the start of the original fire department," Robinson said. "They were yellow in color, and we've slowly, as fire service likes to go, we've slowly evolved and ripened from our yellow fruit to our red fruit fire trucks that we've got now."  

VIDEO: The St. Louis Fire Department is showing off its newest fire truck, all thanks to Ameren Missouri. The truck costs about $1 million dollars and it took 9 to 10 months to design and another to build. Ameren Missouri helped with the design and donated the truck to the fire department. St. Louis City has two to three significant underground every year that can burn for hours, which can extensive damage and outages. The new truck puts those fires out in a matter of minutes by cooling everything down. It has a new fire suppression system which uses carbon dioxide to extinguish underground electrical fires. The truck has already been used on two manhole fires and helped fight the recent chemical fire in Affton. Chief Jenkerson says the city never would have gotten this truck without the donation from Ameren.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: Firefighters were able to return a woman's American flag from her apartment after losing her home to a 4-alarm fire in Myrtle Beach Wednesday morning. The flag was all she had left. It was emotional devastation for firefighters, and the people who stood watching the fire destroy their homes. Vinnie Nudo-Frazier lived in the top floor unit for 7 years where firefighters focused most of their efforts in the early morning hours. "I'm feeling very emotional. Up and down. Crying one minute and laughing the next minute. But everyone is safe. That's the most important thing. Everyone got out. And we're just going to start over." Her American flag was flying high as crews worked to save what they could. Nearly 8 hours after the initial call, fire crews were forced to demolish the damaged units to put the fire out.