The Unalaska Fire Department responded to a fire at the Airport Restaurant Monday night. Fire Chief Patrick Shipp said at around 11:45 p.m., he was notified that a fire alarm was going off at the airport. "Dispatch dispatched the police, as well as the fire department," he said. "First arriving officers from the police department on scene reported flames showing at the roofline. The first crews went into the building and found the source of heat was in the kitchen area of the restaurant at the airport." Shipp said the fire had set off two sprinklers, as well as the ANSUL fire suppression system located over the cooking area. He said the system contained the fire and kept it from growing any bigger by the time fire personnel arrived on scene, less than ten minutes after the initial call.  

PHOTOS: The Sumter Fire Department is battling a structure fire near South Lafayette Drive and Fulton Street that broke out a little after 10 p.m. Tuesday. The building, the former VB Williams Furniture Plant located at 602 E Fulton St, is engulfed in flames. The building is now known as Howell's recyclable Materials, a recyclables warehouse according to officials. Very few people work there and the plant sits in an industrial park inside of a neighborhood. Sumter Fire were assisted by crews from Shaw Air Force Base and Columbia Fire. No injuries have been reported and officials do not believe that anyone was in the building when the fire started. Joey Duggan, Division Chief of Sumter Fire Department says that walls have collapsed and propane cylinders have gone off within the building, damaging equipment that was used inside.  

COVID-19 may dominate the headlines. But another epidemic that was already raging before it arrived has flared up in recent months, too, according to new University of Michigan data. A real-time tracking system that launched in 2019 shows a 15% rise in suspected opioid overdose deaths across most of Michigan since March, compared with the same time last year, and a 29% rise in first responders' use of a rescue drug called naloxone that can reverse an opioid overdose if given in time. The deaths started rising soon after the pandemic arrived in Michigan, while naloxone use dipped before rising to new heights later in the spring and summer. The system, run by the University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center and created in partnership with the Michigan HIDTA, a federal program that tracks drug trafficking, gathers data from EMS agencies and medical examiners across most of Michigan.  

A group of St. Lucie County firefighters are world champions after winning first place in the team category of the 2020 Firefighter Combat Challenge held over the weekend in Texas. Brian Riebe, Kevin Reilly, Caden Wilson, Matt Coney and Dante Hill of the St. Lucie County Fire District had the best averaged completion time of the course dubbed as the "toughest two minutes in sports" by ESPN. "It's unbelievable, just pure elation that we accomplished a goal that we set out to do earlier this year," said Coney, a SWAT paramedic driver engineer with the fire district. The Firefighter Combat Challenge course is divided into five events that participants — either individually, in a tandem or on a relay team — must finish as quickly as possible wearing full bunker gear and an air pack, weighing a total of about 50 pounds.  

A new report from Minnesota's State Fire Marshal Division says fire sprinklers could've saved the lives of those killed in a November 2019 high-rise fire in Minneapolis. "It's a bold statement, but it's a very accurate statement," said State Fire Marshal Jim Smith. "We know through our experiences that sprinkler systems put fires out." On Tuesday, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety State Fire Marshal Division (DPS-SFMD) released the report, which details findings and recommendations from the fire. After-action reports are completed after every multiple-fatality or high dollar-loss fire to help identify factors that led to deaths and injuries and determine how to prevent such tragedies in the future. "This tragic loss of life could have been prevented. The victims would still be alive had there been sprinklers throughout that entire building," Smith said. "We owe it to the victims and their families to learn from this fire so we can prevent similar tragedies."