South Roxana Fire Chief William "Todd" Werner, who died suddenly last week, came home Tuesday with honors. The Alton Memorial Ambulance carrying Werner left Barnes Hospital in St. Louis on its way to the Pitchford Funeral Home, 2555 Vaughn Road, in Wood River. A procession of fire trucks and law enforcement personnel from all across Madison County left the hospital, passing under a giant American flag in St. Louis. Wood River and Godfrey firefighters parked on the Illinois 143 overpass crossing Illinois 255 and saluted as the procession passed under them. Both fire trucks from South Roxana, Hartford, Wood River, Mitchell, Edwardsville, Fosterburg and Brighton — as well as local police officers, Illinois State Police and several Madison County Sheriff's Deputies and area ambulances — made up Monday's procession. A helicopter ambulance from ARCH Air Medical Services, Inc., followed the procession from above.  

No injuries were reported Wednesday morning in a Cottage Hills fire. Rosewood Heights Fire Chief Tim Bunt said street workers spotted smoke coming from the rear of an unoccupied house in the 600 block of Wood River Avenue in Cottage Hills about 7:45 a.m. Wednesday. Cottage Hills firefighters responded and activated a mutual aid box alarm, bringing additional firefighters from Rosewood Heights and Meadowbrook to the scene for assistance. Bunt said there was a pile of debris burning inside the house. Police suspected the fire may have been caused by a squatter, but nobody was in the house when police arrived.  

A Warrenville family was unable to return to their town home after a fire broke out Friday afternoon. Warrenville Fire Protection District received a call just before 1:45 p.m. to report a blaze in a driveway the 29W400 block of Crabtree Lane that had extended to a home. Firefighters got to the scene minutes later, and found flames coming from a two-story multi-family residence. Fire crews used a hose to put out flames on the outside of the building and entered the affected town home to continue to fight the blaze. Warrenville police and firefighters, in addition to crews from neighboring fire departments, helped make sure residents who live in the town home and adjacent town home had safely escaped the fire. Firefighters put out the blaze within 15 minutes, but the town home was deemed uninhabitable.  

Police, firefighters and paramedics from Palatine responded about 7:44 a.m. Wednesday, July 7, 2021 to a report of a rollover crash with entrapment at Sterlng Road and Dundee Road in Palatine. Police and firefighters discovered three separate crashes — one at Sterling Road and Dundee Road, one at Knollwood Drive and Dundee Road and a third single-vehicle off the roadway west of Sterling Avenue. Firefighter/paramedics worked with extrication tools to free a person from a white Jeep or van that rolled over. Three victims were transported to area hospitals — two to Northwest Community Hospital and one to Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital. Three people refused transportation by paramedics. Five vehicles were involved in three separate crashes.  

VIDEO: A firefighter approaching a blaze in the garage of a West Michigan home was sent running in the opposite direction after a propane tank ignited. The ensuing blast was caught on camera, showing the emergency responder staggering backward and a massive explosion from the home. The footage, released by the Plainfield Township Fire Department district chief on Monday, showed the flames traveling from the garage to the rest of the home after firefighters arrived. The house fire occurred in a neighborhood just north of Grand Rapids in Kent County. First reported by WOOD TV, the family that lived at the residence had evacuated the home before the explosion. The homeowner credited a passing newspaper delivery man with alerting the family to the fire, allowing them to escape before the fire spread.  

Most of us can't afford homes with fire-extinguishing sprinklers built into the ceiling … and that's where FACE is designed to come in. It's a self-contained, heat-activated fire suppression device that's mounted in the user's home, wherever it's most likely to be needed. Its name an acronym for Fire Activated Canister Extinguisher, FACE was invented by San Francisco high school student Arul Mathur. He tells us that he was inspired to create it after moving from New Jersey to California, where he discovered firsthand just how much of a threat fires pose to people's dwellings. "I heard about the hundreds of thousands of people who evacuated their homes every year to flee from wildfires, but I never thought that I could be one of those people," he says. "Finally, in the summer of 2019, a wildfire threatened to force my family to evacuate our home. At that moment, it became personal. I knew that I needed to do something about it."  

VIDEO: Fire chiefs across the region are calling for the end of a law that allows people in Pennsylvania to set off commercial-grade fireworks after a number of incidents across the state that led to complaints and fatal incidents. In West York, a child died after the improper disposal of fireworks. In Lebanon, fireworks are being investigated as officials work to uncover what caused an explosion that destroyed a recycling plant. Fire officials said investigators are also looking into if fireworks caused a house fire Sunday in Montgomery County that killed a volunteer firefighter. In York City, Fire Chief William Sleeger Jr said "the police department has fielded you know, numerous calls. I want to say numerous, but it's probably in the hundreds."  

VIDEO: One Central Texas family has turned its tragedy into an opportunity for young adults pursuing their dreams of becoming firefighters. Maria Negrete has photos of her son, Jose Negrete throughout her home. A military child, Jose Negrete first moved to the city of Copperas Cove when he was just three years old. "He was very caring, compassionate," Maria said. "Jose wanted to be a firefighter. That was his dream since I can recall. It takes pride to look at these pictures. That's all I have left." The family worked hard to make his dream come true. One of its biggest hurdles was paying for the fire academy. "Now it roughly is about $4,000 to $5,000 to get you through school," Maria explained. "That meant that, hey, we had to take loans out. We had to put it in credit cards or he (Jose) also had to do (a) part-time job." Following a battle with cancer, Jose Negrete passed away last year.  

PHOTO: The first firefighting apparatus of the Plummer Hook & Ladder Company—an 1890s horse- or mule-drawn wooden wagon that carried equipment including buckets used to haul water to fires—returned home last week nearly 20 years after a promise was made to establish a museum to honor the legacy of the department's founding members and the volunteers who followed. "It's a fulfillment of a dream to finally get it back to Warrenton," said Walter Gardner, the town's mayor. "We have worked a long time to make all the arrangements since 2004 to make (this) a possibility." Established in 1868, the Plummer Hook & Ladder Company was Warren County's first fire department and is recognized by North Carolina as the state's longest continuously serving African-American volunteer fire department. It was later known as the Warrenton Volunteer Fire Department and merged with Warrenton Rural VFD in 2004.