A fire rendered two apartments unlivable Wednesday in northwest suburban Lake Barrington. About 9:20 p.m., crews with the Wauconda Fire District arrived to a four-unit building in the 1300 block of Oak Hill Road and found "heavy fire" burning out of the rear, Wauconda Fire Chief David Geary said. Other crews soon arrived to the scene and conducted a search of all four units, while also working to put out the blaze, Geary said. They found the fire coming from a fireplace chase shared by two of the apartments. The fire was under control after about half an hour, but crews stayed on the scene until nearly midnight putting out hotspots and conducting overhaul, Geary said.  

Saturday, DeKalb Firefighters celebrated 150 years of serving the city. The five hour event was held in the Barsema Alumni Center from 5 to 10 p.m. Firefighters, friends and family gathered to commemorate past and current firefighters. Attendees stepped into a cocktail hour as soon as they entered the foyer. Guests and firefighters milled about the foyer with plenty of beer, cocktails and laughs. Cocktail hour preceded speeches and a PowerPoint presentation. Fire Chief Jeff McMasters, police captain and DeKalb mayor Jerry Smith were among those who spoke on behalf of the fire department. The presentations took place in a dining area with a dance floor, a DJ booth and a station where food would be served to guests. In this room, a slideshow was shown showcasing DeKalb firefighters' many accomplishments and great improvements, in addition to speeches from current members.  

A fire that started in the ventilation system of a steel roll machine was extinguished quickly Thursday morning, said Pontiac Fire Chief Jacob Campbell. In a statement, Campbell said the fire department was called at 7:06 a.m. to Interlake Mecalux, Inc., a warehouse metal racking and shelving manufacturer located at 701 N. Interlake Drive. A fire was found in the ventilation system of a steel roll machine in a large industrial building. Employees had already been evacuated. The fire was out by 7:43 a.m. After the building was ventilated, it was turned back over to the company. The Fairbury Fire Department and Cullom Fire Protection District assisted the Pontiac Fire Department on scene with operations. The Pontiac Police Department and Livingston County Sheriff's Department provided traffic control while Duffy Ambulance Service was placed in staging for firefighter rehabilitation, Campbell said.  

A fire at the center of the Marble Works warehouse in South Elgin Tuesday night did not structurally damage the 15,000-square-foot building, Assistant Fire Chief Mike Rothecker said. South Elgin and Countryside First District were notified of the fire about 8:30 p.m., which Rothecker said was contained to rack unit and extinguished in about 40 minutes. Marble Works officials are determining the extent of the damage caused by the blaze, which is under investigation, he said. The fire was potentially dangerous because hazardous chemicals were in close proximity to where it started. No one was injured in the incident and the chemicals did not ignite, Rothecker said.  

Three Texas first responders were struck and killed by vehicles while on duty in a week's time — prompting officials to remind motorists to move over and slow down for roadside emergency vehicles. On October 7, 2019, two Louise Volunteer Fire Department firefighters, having cleared a previous call, stopped in their lane of travel on Farm-to-Market (FM) 647, south of Highway 59 near Louise, Texas, to check the fire engine's front tires, believing something was wrong. Both firemen were struck by a Dodge dually pickup truck traveling southbound on FM 647. Firefighter Steven Henderson was airlifted to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas, where he succumbed to his injuries on October 12, 2019. On October 11, 2019, Falls County Sheriff's Department K-9 Deputy Matt Jones was assisting a motorist on Highway 6 in between Riesel and Marlin, Texas, when a vehicle hydroplaned and struck him and Riesel Police Department Chief Danny Krumnow.  

Full-time firefighter/paramedic Wendy Ashworth made history last week in the Acushnet Fire and EMS Department when she became the first female member of the department to command an incident. Ashworth, 56, is the only full-time female firefighter in the department, according to Chief Kevin Gallagher. As of Aug. 1, there were 48 employees, 11 of them women including Ashworth. They are on-call firefighters and part-time paramedics and EMTs. Recent changes that took effect July 1, such as the fire and EMS departments officially merging to combine unions, contracts, and budgets, helped make way for this bit of history, Gallagher said. Ashworth, along with a few others, went from being a full-time paramedic to a full-time firefighter/paramedic and got specialized training to be incorporated into the command system and work firefighter shifts.  

Created by former FirstNet senior executives and P3 Group North America engineers, Allerio is a smart mobile connectivity company that is taking emergency medical services (EMS) and telemedicine to the next level with next generation connectivity solutions built with meeting the needs of responders in mind. The start-up is dedicated to bringing the best technology for first responders to meet the current and future needs of the global public safety community. Allerio is a joint venture between the Public Safety Network, LLC (PSN) and P3 North America Inc. (P3 NA) and was founded in 2019. The co-founders of PSN, TJ Kennedy, former President of the FirstNet Authority, and Jason Karp, former Chief Counsel of the FirstNet Authority, founded PSN to help bring to market the best technology and communications solutions to meet the mission critical needs of public safety.  

Portland's public safety disability fund expects to receive 10 new claims a year from police or firefighters seeking benefits for two types of stress disorders as the result of a new state law that went into effect last month. Lawmakers this summer approved Senate Bill 507 to define post-traumatic stress and acute stress disorders as occupational diseases for full-time police, firefighters, 911 emergency dispatchers, corrections officers and emergency medical service providers. "There's a lot of work we need to do in the mental health field," said Alan Ferschwiler, president of the Portland Fire Fighters Association. "The city needs to take care of our members in a way we haven't in the past." Ferschwiler cited examples of past rejected claims that he said should have been approved: a firefighter's stress claim after being pulled out from a collapsing building and a firefighter who raced into a fire wearing no mask to rescue a woman.  

VIDEO: It was 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989, when a powerful magnitude 6.9 earthquake shook the soft soil of San Francisco's Marina District, crumpling the neighborhood's old wooden buildings like paper, and sending a cascade of splintered wood and glass into the streets. Neighbors who were there at the time recall that something else went flying into the air in those moments: natural gas. The shaking had twisted and snapped underground gas lines, and as the smell of sulfur began to blanket the neighborhood, fire broke out at the corner of Beach and Divisadero streets and rapidly began to spread. The fire department responded, but soon discovered another problem: The earthquake hadn't just broken gas lines. It had also broken the water pipes feeding the neighborhood's fire hydrants.