Across the country, there's a shortage of volunteer firefighters, and departments in Southeast Texas are feeling the pinch. Several agencies in the region are coming together to create a firefighter training course, hoping to inspire a new generation of firefighters. "It's an academy course taught as a dual credit course. Junior and senior year students will have the opportunity to take the course. It's a two-year course, and it involves the firefighter training to a Texas commission on fire protection certification level, as well as EMT training, emergency medical technician to a state level," said Beech Grove Fire Chief James Gunter. This course is already taught at several high schools in Texas. Gunter said the partnership with Jasper ISD will bring the program to Jasper High School and other places like Burkeville, Newton, Kirbyville, Spurger, and Woodville.  

On Thursday, Assistant Fire Chief Randall Potter was honored with a retirement parade, with cars and fire trucks passing through the Fire Department. Potter has served the city of Waxahachie for more than 40 years. He originally announced his resignation on July 23, 2020, through the Waxahachie Fire Department Facebook page. In a live stream on the Waxahachie Fire Department's Facebook, Chief Ricky Boyd, shared his appreciation for Potter. "We're here to honor assistant Chief Randall Potter. Forty years of service. There's not many people that stay with one organization for forty years. It's quite an amazing accomplishment," Boyd said. "I know when I came here and met everybody, I was glad to see Randall here. Randall you've been a mainstay in this organization. There's not a single person here that you haven't instructed and have led through many things. Everybody here respects you greatly. I know that I was grateful to have you as my assistant chief. You made my transition here as chief very easy."  

Their lives on the line, Houston firefighters and paramedics are battling through this deadly pandemic at the same rate of pay they earned a decade ago, actually less, when factoring in inflation. After years of stalled contract negotiations and with the process still locked in a bitter stalemate, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has offered to intervene. "The idea that the City of Houston will not sit down and talk through this bothers me at a state level, because you are not just the Mayor's constituents, you are my constituents," Patrick told firefighters gathered at their union headquarters. Patrick says he's willing to facilitate the resumption of negotiations by personally mediating the ongoing impasse over wages, work conditions, and a host of unresolved issues. "We can't bust budgets and bankrupt cities, but we also can't sit in our office at City Hall and say I'm not talking to the firefighters. That's not right and the public doesn't want that," said Patrick.  

The Cy-Fair Fire and Rescue Fund was launched in January with the goal of helping members of the Cy-Fair Fire Department with a wide array of financial assistance, from help with emergency medical costs to the establishment of a new scholarship fund through the Cy-Fair Education Foundation. The fund—the brainchild of members of the department's board of directors—is open to all members of the department, including ambulance providers, office workers and firefighters who are paid, part-time or volunteers, Board Member Terry Wheeler said. What we really want to do is kind of fill in the holes where there [are] needs that sometimes come up with these folks that just can't be met by an employer effectively," Wheeler said. "We want to be able to come in and do some work that needs to be done for these heroic people."  

The second of three volunteer firefighters who died in a off-duty crash was laid to rest Thursday. Fire departments across Deep East Texas paid their respects to 38-year-old Jason Davis of Pendleton, Texas. Davis and two other Pendleton Harbor Volunteer Firefighters lost their lives in a tragic off-duty multi-vehicle crash in Sabine County Saturday. Forty-eight-year-old Ralph Cheyenne Hill of Hemphill was laid to rest Wednesday. The funeral service for 28-year-old Vanessa Thompson of Hemphill is Saturday. Obituary information is posted on the Starr Funeral Home's website. The Pendleton Harbor Volunteer Fire Department has set up GoFundMe pages for their fallen firefighters' funeral expenses.  

Malakoff Fire Department has undergone many changes over the past year and along with that has come new leadership and ideas. One of the new features in 2021 is a can collection station in front of the department where the community is encouraged to donate aluminum cans for charity. Assistant Chief Alan Roberts and his wife were discussing fundraising ideas to benefit the community. "We wanted to bring the community together and help someone that really needs it," Roberts said. "This donation isn't from Malakoff Fire, it is from the community." Roberts said at the end of the year they will take all funds acquired and make a decision in conjunction with the Malakoff City Council as to which charity to donate to. "We are not the same fire department," Roberts said. "Our goal is to work with the city and the community, and the city is working with us."  

VIDEO: A massive fire at a potato plant in Walden brought fears of an exploding ammonia tank, forcing the evacuation of nearly a third of the town for several hours. The fire broke out at the Washington Potato Plant around 5:30 p.m. in one of the dehydrators, according to Kyle Foreman with the Grant County Sheriff's Office. Employees that were in the building made it out safely as the flames spread, eventually engulfing much of the plant. Among the items in the burning building was large 5,500 gallon ammonia tank that firefighters worried could explode and send a toxic cloud over the region, and officials issued an urgent immediate evacuation notice for the surrounding area. Officials went door to door urging nearby residents to leave as firefighters asked for help from all fire departments in Grant County to help contain the flames. By 8 p.m., more than two dozen firefighting crews were at the blaze, Foreman said.  

Andrea Hall, a career firefighter and union leader from Fulton County, Ga., led the Pledge of Allegiance during the inauguration of President-elect Biden. Hall recited the familiar words of the pledge out loud and in American Sign Language. According to The 19th, a nonprofit news organization, Hall was the first Black woman hired and assigned to a station at the City of Albany Fire Department, and then the first Black woman to serve as fire captain at Fulton County Fire Rescue. She was a rare woman in an industry dominated by men — just 1% of firefighters were women when she transferred in to Fulton County, The 19th reports. "I just am intending to represent, my family, the city of South Fulton, women, African-American women, firefighters, and everyone in the nation, well," Hall told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Hall presented the pledge in sign language, which is unusual for an inauguration.  

State of the art technology that can help save lives when seconds count is now in Southwest Florida. A patient's information can be sent directly to a doctor in real time. We learned how this will help evaluate medical emergencies before arriving at the ER. North Collier Fire Control and Rescue District recently bought new technology that helps paramedics get patient information to hospitals before they show up. "The 65 and overs that arrived by an ambulance, 45% of them didn't even need to be admitted into the hospital," Deputy Fire Chief Jorge Aguilera said. "So if you can imagine what they determine is there's potential savings of over $559 million each year to the health care cost." Instead, when doctors receive information before the patient arrives in front of them, they could start assessing vitals, looking at injury diagrams or even see video from inside the ambulance to make real-time assessments.  

UC Irvine scientists are working on developing a vaccine that would attack all strains of COVID-19 as well as a potential breakthrough that would solve many of the problems related to distributing the medicine, a UCI professor on the project said Thursday. Lbachir BenMohamed, a UCI School of Medicine professor, said his team is developing what they envision will be a vaccine that could work on all strains in the SARS-CoV-2 family. The UCI vaccine would be a "backup" to the vaccines used now and anticipated to be approved shortly, BenMohamed said. "Our vaccine is not only focused on spike protein," to provoke an immune response, like Pfizer's and Moderna's, the professor said. There are two dozen other proteins that can prompt an immune response, he said. "Right now we are doing clinical studies," he said as the scientists prepare to monitor how the vaccines work on lab mice with that work expected to be done by this summer.  

Young adults who turn 19 this year were born after 9/11, the day in 2001 when planes flew into the World Trade Center and Pentagon killing around 3,000 people. These teens know it as Patriot's Day. It has been 20 years this coming September since the U.S. was attacked by air and hundreds of first responders, some fallen heroes, answered the call of duty to help at Ground Zero. Now, a group of nonprofits that were organized to honor those fallen heroes and first responders are celebrating the anniversary with a large traveling exhibit that includes a 3D replica of the World Trade Center complex. Honor365, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, in coordination with "Hero 1," a 53-foot semi-truck trailer with HVMC Transportation LLC, Fallen Hero Network LLC, and The Honor Network (U.S. Honor Flag) have joined together in the national touring exhibit. The focus of the program and walk is to remember and honor the 9/11 fallen and local heroes of the state.