Alaska State Troopers say human remains were found following a fire at a cabin near Willow Thursday. AST says on Monday they were contacted by the owner of Wilderness Place Lodge located at Lake Creek, about 50 miles West of Willow, that they have not heard from their winter caretaker. The owner says the caretaker missed a weekly check-in and that they called on a person who lived near the caretaker's cabin to take a look. "When the person arrived, they discovered the cabin belonging to the caretaker had been burned to the ground with no signs of recent activity or the caretaker," wrote AST in an online dispatch. On Thursday AST says a DPS Deputy Fire Marshals traveled to the cabin to investigate. That's when they found the human remains. AST says the remains were recovered and taken to the State Medical Examiner for positive identification and autopsy.  

The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly will vote on a resolution during its Tuesday meeting that would add 15 new positions to various fire and emergency medical service areas within the borough. The positions would just be added for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2021, but if kept beyond that are estimated to cost about $2 million annually. Sponsored by Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce, the resolution would allow the assembly to use available Fiscal Year 2021 funds to add a total of 15 positions spread between Central Emergency Services, Nikiski Fire Service Area, Kachemak Emergency Services and Western Emergency Services. These positions would be for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2021, the resolution notes, and would be possible in part due to an increase in funding from the CARES Act. The resolution also states that the assembly would agree to assess whether to continue the positions into FY2022, which would be presented by Pierce as part of the FY2022 budget process.  

Eight families were displaced by an intense fire that destroyed a Passaic multi-family home Friday night. No injuries were reported. Flames blew through the roof, part of which collapsed less than a half-hour after the four-alarm blaze broke out on the second floor of the wood-frame building at Hope and Highland avenues around 8 p.m. "Thank God everyone is out, safe and accounted for," Mayor Hector Carlos Lora said. Eighteen people in all received temporary food, lodging and clothing thanks to the Red Cross and the city. Most were able to find shelter with family, Lora said. Firefighters had to deal with low pressure, among other challenges, but had the main body of the blaze knocked down within an hour. The fire was declared under control around 10 p.m.  

PHOTO: The morning a Winter Storm Warning was issued for Austin and Central Texas, a fire truck in Travis County rolled over, injuring four firefighters. Austin-Travis County EMS confirmed to KVUE's Mike Marut that a Pedernales Fire Department truck rolled over at around 8:39 a.m. in the 16000 block of W. State Highway 71 Saturday. Four firefighters had non-life-threatening injuries and were taken to the hospital. They have since been released from the hospital. The ATCEMS told KVUE that this crash demonstrates the importance of wearing your seatbelt. If the firefighters weren't wearing their seatbelts, this crash could have resulted in more serious injuries, ATCEMS said. Crews with ATCEMS have been responding to crashes all over the area Saturday, with ice reported on all types of road surfaces. Typically, bridges, overpasses and flyovers are the main concern, but cold temperatures and drizzly weather have created icy conditions on many roadways in Central Texas.  

In the public safety world, they are known as LODDs -- line of duty deaths. And now the biggest cause of those deaths in public safety jobs isn't from rushing into burning buildings or getting shot, it is from COVID-19. That's why researchers in the Triangle have developed a way to track coronavirus infections in the public safety group most likely to get them -- firefighters and emergency medical technicians. And it's important to remember that while working, many of them live, eat, and sleep dormitory-style. "You take people who have an increased number of exposures to at-risk individuals and members of the public through their occupational sort of goings-on, and then you put them in close proximity indoors to one another for extended periods of time," Robert Furberg told ABC11. Furberg, a medical researcher for the Research Triangle Institute in Durham said if not a recipe for disaster, it's at least a recipe for spreading SARS-CoV-2.  

A pilot program could leave first responders better equipped with additional training, tools and resources to handle the steady volume of mental health-related calls that come through emergency dispatch. After months of discussions that included behavioral health professionals and the safety forces, City Council put $100,000 into this year's budget for a "hybrid" Crisis Response Pilot Program. The program is expected to begin with the training of two police officers per shift, along with paramedics in the fire department. "We estimated that mental health calls amounted to about 15 percent, or 470, for 2019, averaging a little more than one a day," Chief Administrative Officer Jeri Chaikin told council in a Feb. 8 work session held online. "Some days there might not be any calls. Other days, there might be two -- or three." And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic, as figures for last year were still being compiled on 911 calls -- both emergency and otherwise -- that include disturbances, family or neighbor disputes, trespassing, a suspicious person, substance abuse, addiction or suicide threats.  

Broward County has invested millions in a new emergency response system experts say is helping firefighters and officers to respond to emergencies faster. "You as a resident at home when you call 911, you want the closest available unit to come handle your emergency," said Sunrise Fire Rescue Chief John McNamara. That's already happening over a section of Broward. It's one of many improvements made to the county's emergency system after issues were revealed in the response to the shooting in Parkland three years ago. New communications towers and new radios for every police officer and firefighter went online two months ago. There were also updates made to the 911 system. "This new system grabs that unit, sends them to your house and gets you there much faster than the older system," McNamara explained.