Fire destroyed an apartment building Wednesday at 6011 John Court, requiring multiple departments to respond to the blaze. Firefighters were called about 5:25 p.m. and arrived to find fire in the building. Two people were treated at the scene for minor injuries, said Loves Park Battalion Chief Greg Kunce. The fire-damaged Pine Grove apartment building has 11 units in three stories. Kunce said all of the occupants have been accounted for. Loves Park Fire Chief Jerry Wiltfang said three of the units were vacant. He also said the Red Cross is assisting the families. Savannah Perrin and her daughter, Iona, 2, escaped the blaze, but they didn't have time to grab their four cats and two geckos, she said.  

VIDEO: Crews battled a grass fire in high winds along the Lincoln Prairie Grass Trail just west of Interstate 57 for more than two hours early Wednesday evening. Chief Jeff Hilligoss of the Mattoon Fire Department said crews were dispatched at 4:52 p.m. to the fire and were still on scene after 7 p.m. "We are still out here. We are still hitting some spots that are smoldering," Hilligoss said. "If it were not for the wind, it would not have grown into what it escalated into." Hilligoss said firefighters kept the flames from spreading to standing corn along the bike trail, but he estimated that the fire burned tall grass along the trail in an area that was 150-200 yards long and 50 yards wide. No injuries were reported.  

Ameren Illinois has awarded a $4,000 grant to the Mattoon Fire Department to purchase two new handheld meters for detecting gas during odor investigations, confined space rescues, and other calls for service. Chief Jeff Hilligoss said the department applied in August for this grant to upgrade its detecting equipment by purchasing state of the art Sensit Gold 4 gas meters. He said they were notified earlier this month that Ameren has approved this funding request. "I'm looking forward to getting these meters and getting these into service. They will be an exciting addition to our toolbox," said Hilligoss on Tuesday when Ameren representatives presented the grant funding at the City Hall fire station.  

Five departments responded to a large field fire Wednesday afternoon near Interstate 57 and Interstate 72 by Bondville. According to the village's fire chief, the fire was started by a combine. It took about 30 minutes for the fire to be put out. Heavy smoke could be seen for miles, which slowed traffic on Interstate 57. One vehicle caught fire at the scene and it was not known if anyone was injured as of Wednesday afternoon. Much of Central Illinois is under a Red Flag warning. This means if a fire does start, it could spread very quickly because of the lack of rain, low extended dry pattern and low humidity. The fire chief urged people to stop burning, as this was the second fire that the Bondville Fire Department responded to Wednesday.  

Collinsville and Maryville Fire Departments, with help from Collinsville EMA, handled a Box Alarm fire in the 500 block of Autumn Drive in Collinsville on Wednesday. The Autumn Drive home was vacant at the time of the fire. Firefighters extinguished the fire in a quick fashion but there was significant damage to the home. The fire appeared to start somewhere in the front of the home. Troy Fire Department backed up Collinsville during the fire at a station.  

On Wednesday morning, Tracy Williams, the assistant fire chief for the Westview-Fairforest Fire Department in Spartanburg County, joined other firefighters from across the state at the South Carolina State Fire Academy for a ceremonial bill signing for a law that will support firefighters in the state diagnosed with cancer. "There's a lot of things that go through your mind when you're diagnosed with cancer," Wiliams said. He knows about this firsthand. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2009. Eleven years later, he stood next to Governor Henry McMaster as he signed the Firefighter Cancer Healthcare Benefit Plan. Williams said Wednesday is a special day. "This is one more indication of the respect and understanding that our people of South Carolina have expressed through our elected representatives. Understanding the importance and critical, vital role that you play," McMaster told a group of firefighters.  

VIDEO: Before the age of two-way radios, police and fire call boxes could be found on numerous corners across the District of Columbia. The first installations of these boxes began as early as the 1860s. Firefighter call boxes were connected to a central call station and emergency responders would receive a telegraph of which box to dispatch to. District police installed their own set of call boxes in the 1880s. Officers would patrol neighborhoods and use the call boxes to check in with local precincts for any emergencies. With the inventions of radio communication and the 9-1-1 system, many of these call boxes became obsolete in the early 1970s. Most of the electronic components were fully removed by 1995. The call boxes remained throughout the city, too heavy to remove as they rusted and deteriorated.  

San Diego agreed this week to pay $3.4 million to more than 700 city firefighters to compensate them for underpaid overtime they should have received several years ago. The payout comes six months after the city reached a similar legal settlement with more than 2,300 other city workers for the same kind of underpaid overtime. The cases were handled separately because overtime calculations differ for firefighters, who work 24-hour shifts that include sleeping overnight in firehouses. The City Council Tuesday unanimously approved the new firefighter settlement, which covers three-quarters of the city's 943 firefighters. The payouts aren't expected to have a significant impact on the budget crisis San Diego is facing during the pandemic. The city expected to owe large payouts in the underpaid overtime cases, so money was set aside before the budget crisis.  

Coronavirus cases have been rising in Illinois and many of its surrounding states this fall as health experts brace for a second wave during flu season, and while testing numbers could play a large role in the increased numbers, there's another factor that may be contributing to the spike: the return to school at colleges and universities in the Midwest. NBC 5 Investigates and Telemundo Investiga have been tracking coronavirus cases that have emerged on college campuses across the country since students returned for their fall semesters and quarters. We're now tracking more than 600 colleges, universities, and HBCUs across the country – with a specific focus on four-year colleges most attended by students from Illinois. As of Wednesday morning, data showed more than 157,000 [157,055] new cases of coronavirus, contracted mainly by students, but also by faculty and university staff, just since the fall sessions began at these universities.  

Being a firefighter isn't what they do, it's who they are. "It is just something once you start doing it you continue and continue and it builds within you," said Wayne Cosner. "Either you are going to get in and be in here a couple of years and, BOOM, you are gone, or it grabs hold of you and you become loyal to the system and it becomes a way of life for you." Sitting around a table in the bay of Huguenot Volunteer Fire Department last week were four men for whom being a firefighter grabbed hold. Cosner was there along with Francis "Chuck" Urbine, Sam Llewellyn, and Floyd Greene. All four of them have volunteered in Powhatan's fire service in various capacities for the past 50 years. Each man had a different reason for getting involved, but all of them agreed on what kept them in – being a Powhatan firefighter became part of their identities.