VIDEO: Two people and a dog are without a home Friday morning after their house caught on fire in North Austin. The Austin Fire Department said the fire on Justin Lane, near Burnet Road and the Crestview area, was contained to the porch and front room of the house. Though the two adults and the dog were displaced, there were no injuries reported. A neighbor was able to capture video of the fire before AFD arrived on the scene. There is no word yet on what may have caused the fire.  

The high number of coronavirus cases is straining our hospitals. The Corpus Christi Fire Department began a new procedure to get patients out of ambulances and into emergency rooms as quickly as possible. Fire Chief Robert Rocha tells us lately some patients have waited up to a couple of hours to get from the ambulance into the emergency room. Rocha says yesterday the ER parking lot at Spohn Shoreline Hospital was filled with ambulances waiting to drop off their patients. Today, the situation wasn't nearly as dire. The fire chief says they will now have liaisons at every hospital to help speed up the transfer.  

VIDEO: Authorities believe that a lightning strike is to blame for a fire that broke out at an oil field in La Grange on Wednesday. The Fayette County Sheriff's Office said the lightning strike caused a huge explosion at the oil field located off of Highway 71. The fire happened at around 2:10 p.m. across from the McCourt & Sons Equipment. Thankfully, officials said no one was hurt. Although hotter and drier weather is expected to take hold through the weekend, some storms and heavy rain moved through Central Texas on Wednesday.  

On Thursday the Mission City Council approved the city's fire department to be the city's backup Emergency Medical Services (EMS) provider. "It's heartbreaking because you respond to these calls knowing that when someone is in dire need we're there to help and there's a time where we're unable to help because we don't have the ambulance and the equipment that we need," said Michael Silva, a board member of the Missions Fire Fighter's Association. The primary provider for Mission is Med-Care EMS which currently has three ambulances available for 911 calls. Silva said Governor Greg Abbott relaxed requirements for EMS personnel allowing for more hands-on-deck due to the pandemic, but that is about to end.  

Federal officials say a train that derailed and caught fire in Fort Worth in 2019 was traveling on tracks that had been weakened by flooding after days of rain. The National Transportation Safety Board said in an accident report released Thursday that the weakened track structure and washout from the rains, which flooded nearby Echo Lake, were the probable cause of the April 24, 2019 accident. Over two dozen of the Union Pacific train's tank cars derailed and three were breached, leaking over 65,000 gallons of ethanol, which is highly flammable. The report says contributing factors include deferred maintenance of spillways at Echo Lake and lack of "dynamic weather reporting" at Union Pacific. Several homes were evacuated and at least three horses were killed when the flames spread to a nearby stable, officials have said.  

Alicia Welch knew she wanted a career that would challenge her mentally and physically, leading her to become a firefighter three decades ago. "I just wanted to help people and have a job where I would have to think and act," the Lompoc Fire Department's new chief told Noozhawk. A badge-pinning ceremony for Welch occurred Tuesday night during the Lompoc City Council meeting, a week after she started her new job. "I am really happy to be here serving you and this community," Welch said during the meeting. She came to Lompoc from a stint starting in 2018 with the Golden Fire Department in Colorado. Before that, she spent 27 years in various capacities with the Los Angeles City Fire Department from 1990 to 2017, rising in the ranks from firefighter to battalion chief. She is the first woman to serve as fire chief in Santa Barbara County or any of its cities.  

The Edina Fire Department, in partnership with the University of Minnesota, will soon help operate a first-of-its-kind truck specializing in treating cardiac arrests. The fire-truck-sized vehicle, which will use a heart-lung bypass machine to treat patients who are experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest, will be stored and staffed by the Edina Fire Department. At its meeting Aug. 4, the Edina City Council approved an agreement to partner with the university's Center for Resuscitation Medicine, which officially launched the vehicle earlier this year. "We're able to take part in a program that's advancing neurologically intact survival from a sudden cardiac arrest," Edina EMS Chief Ryan Quinn told the Sun Current. "If we can be a part of latest and greatest evidence-based medicine, then it's a unique place to be and great opportunity for us to play a role."  

PHOTOS: The dark streets, the shuttered buildings, the nightmare sci-fi future — St. Louis had it all when director John Carpenter featured the city's downtown as the main setting for his 1981 action masterpiece Escape from New York. The mix of devastation and grime wasn't a product of the city itself, but rather the aftermath of a firestorm that had consumed six buildings and left the area near Locust Street and North 21st Street looking like it had been carpet-bombed in 1976. For local filmmaker Mike Gualdoni — who this week released a tightly produced documentary video exploring the St. Louis settings in the legendary film — the choice to replicate a dystopian "New York" in a section of downtown St. Louis was nothing short of genius.  

PHOTOS: In a true blast from the past, an antique, 1938 hook and ladder truck that once served the Rome Fire Department for more than 30 years has been returned to the city from a collector in Canada. The bright red fire truck is in "fantastic condition" after years of maintenance and "drives like a charm," said Deputy Fire Chief Timothy W. Reilly, who helped organize the donation. The city's firefighters hope to use the truck in future parades and other events after a little restoration. "There was no way we were going to pass this up," Reilly stated. "We are never going to have this opportunity again." According to Reilly, the truck was purchased by the City of Rome in 1938 as the city's first motorized ladder truck.  

AstraZeneca scored a win on Friday as data showed its antibody cocktail is 77 percent effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in high-risk populations. The research found no one who took AstraZeneca's combination, called AZD7442, developed severe COVID-19 or died due to the virus. In comparison, three participants who received the placebo endured serious illness, with two fatalities. AstraZencea called the treatment, involving the antibodies ixagevimab and cilgavimab, the first "long-acting antibody combination to prevent COVID-19" in a release. Overall, 25 positive coronavirus infections were confirmed in the Provent study involving more than 5,100 patients across sites in the U.S., U.K., Belgium, France and Spain. The participants were unvaccinated at the time and had a negative test.