VIDEO: About a month after Chief Derek Bergsten was named Fire Chief of the Year in Illinois, he found out that title will be solidified in US history as a Congressional Record. "So for all time, this will be entered into the Congressional Record so anyone can see who was Fire Chief of the year," said Rep. Chery Bustos. A Congressional Record allows members of Congress to formally recognize constituents for their contribution to the community. The record goes back to the start of our community, with original handwriting from past presidents like Abraham Lincoln. "We have a great team that we work here and I know that everyday and this just exemplifies, what they did for me, that keep paying it back and support them and continue to serve the citizens and the great work that we do here. It's a great job that we have to serve here and we got a great team to do it," said Bergsetn. Bergsten has been Rockford's fire chief for more than a decade.  

One man was killed and another was injured after an a canopy collapsed over a driveway Wednesday at an off-track betting site in Pullman on the Far South Side. Firefighters furiously shoveled snow as fast as they could and simultaneously scrambled to saw through the collapsed canopy at Club Hawthorne Chicago, 11203 Corliss Avenue. "The canopy had approximately a foot and a half of snow that accumulated on top," said Jamar Sullivan, Chicago Fire Dept. District Chief of Special Operations. Rescuers were desperate to get to a man trapped underneath metal, wood and heavy snow. They pulled a man out from underneath the snow-covered canopy just before 5 p.m. Wednesday. The 54-year-old man was rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center in "very critical" condition, where fire officials said he died a short time later. He was identified by his family as Randy Pate.  

Springfield Fire Chief Brandon Blough said in a business where every second counts, the location of a fire house means everything. "If you can get somewhere 30 seconds faster, it may be the difference between whether that person makes it or not," Blough said. "We need to make sure we're putting our people and apparatus in the right place." As the city of Springfield has changed over the years, Blough said the fire department needs to change with it. "This isn't the same city as it was 20, 30 or 50 years ago," Blough said. "A lot of these fire houses were built in the 1950's."  

Things got wet in the emergency department of St. Margaret's Health-Spring Valley. According to the Spring Valley Fire Department, they were called to the hospital just after 2 o'clock Wednesday afternoon for a broken sprinkler head. Pictures from the scene show a large amount of water gushing from the sprinkler next to the entrance door of the ER. Firefighters took off the broken sprinkler and were able to replace it. Soon after folks with the hospital put up a Facebook message saying the ER entrance was closed until at least 9pm due to inclement weather.  

If you're a student looking for community service hours, you can help out the community by shoveling snow around the fire hydrants or by removing snow for older adults. According to the Mokena Fire Protection District, many of the fire hydrants have been covered in snow, and older adults may need assistance removing snow from their driveways in walkways. To get the community service hours, students can submit before and after pictures to the fire district, as well as some contact information. One hour of community service will be given per hydrant or per driveway, the fire district said.  

The Chicago Fire Department's biggest icebreaker plowed through the frozen Chicago River on Wednesday. With temperatures plunging below zero and in the single digits lately, the fire department's Marine Unit has been busy trying to keep the river open. It was just past 1 o'clock as the Chicago Fire Department's Christopher Wheatley pulled away from its slip in DuSable Harbor. Its mission was to cut through the thick sheet of ice that has formed on the Chicago River since the boat last made the run two days ago. "So a couple reasons we break up the ice. One, allow full access to a federal waterway here, being the river. Another is it prevents damage to all the concrete and super structures on both side, so it saves us time and money down the road," said Jason Lach, Deputy District Chief of CFD Marine and Dive Ops.  

Local firefighters braved the snowy and frigid conditions while they battled a large warehouse fire in Princeton Wednesday night. The Princeton Fire Department responded to a structure fire at the old Leroi building on South Seminary Street shortly after 8:00 p.m. Caldwell County Emergency Manager Joey McCaslin tells the News Edge 24 firefighters responded to the fire with an aerial truck and two pumper trucks. Two ambulances, the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office and Princeton Police Department also assisted at the scene. The Fredonia and Eddyville Fire Departments were also on standby at the Princeton fire station to respond to any other emergency calls while firefighters fought to contain and extinguish the fire. McCaslin says there were no injuries reported. At this time, what started the fire has not been released.  

Decatur is offering an incentive package to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as an encouragement for hesitant city employees, especially first responders. The DeKalb County city is offering extra vacation time, health insurance credits and raffled gift cards to try to increase vaccination rates. Fewer than half of the city's 150 first responders — police officers, firefighters and public works employees — have gotten vaccinated, Deputy City Manager Hugh Saxon told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He estimated that 40-45% of them have chosen to get vaccinated, despite all first responders having ample opportunity to get vaccinated as part of the state's vaccine rollout plan. The lagging percentage mirrors a problem many metro Atlanta counties and cities are encountering among frontline government employees. "There's hesitancy everywhere, which is unfortunate given the consequences of the pandemic," he said. "I think there's been a lot of misinformation about (the vaccines)."  

The Porterville Fire Department will honor the memory of two fallen firefighters one year after Capt. Ramon Figueroa and Patrick Jones died making sure nobody was trapped inside a burning library. A virtual memorial service will be posted to the department's social media at 4 p.m. Thursday, officials announced. The service was prerecorded and is being shared online due to COVID-19 restrictions. The video will include an honor guard ceremony with speeches from Porterville Fire Chief Dave LaPere, the firefighters' families and other community leaders. Dispatchers will also alert Tulare County fire stations at 4:16 p.m. — the time Figueroa and Jones entered the burning building — to broadcast a moment of radio silence honoring the fallen first responders. On Feb. 18, 2020, Figueroa and Jones were the first to arrive at the Porterville Public Library following a three-alarm structure fire.  

VIDEOS: Emergency crews rescued 12 people from boats in frigid conditions Wednesday night after the roof of a boat dock collapsed in Old Hickory. Both the Nashville Fire Department and Office of Emergency Management responded to the Blue Turtle Bay Marina in the 2000 block of Riverside Road. Callers to 911 reported the roof of the boat dock collapsed on top of multiple houseboats with people inside. Conditions were too icy to reach the boat dock by foot, so crews deployed rescue boats to transport people. "Boat 22 and Boat 36 have been launched and will be en route. Additional connector boats are also being launched," Kendra Loney with the Nashville Fire Department said in an email. The dock that collapsed was about 100 yards long. The Nashville Fire Department said the docks are designed to move along with the water but the ice and snow jammed this one up, caused it to sink and eventually collapse.  

Scientists have identified seven new coronavirus variants that have emerged in the United States, according to a study awaiting peer review. All seven variants contained a similar mutation and were found to have emerged as early as July 2020. Scientists say it's not surprising that they're just now identifying new viral variants in the U.S., but it's too soon to know what, if anything, these variants mean for Americans. These variants add to a growing list of new variants now found within the United States, including the variants first discovered in the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa. Scientists have also identified variants that first emerged on U.S. soil, including variants originating in the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and the Midwest.