VIDEO: Fire and rescue vehicles from multiple departments escorted the body of an East Texas fire chief who died last week. Joe Cirasola was the Fire Chief for Holly Lake Volunteer Fire Department. KLTV Chieh Photographer Arthur Clayborn was there Thursday as Cirasola's body was escorted from Quitman to the Chapel of Saints Peter and Paul in Tyler. Community members lined the street as the procession passed. Formal fire department honors were held at his burial at Rose Lawn Cemetery. Cirasola was described as a dedicated servant to the community he served for 25 years. He was 67 years old.  

The Plum Grove Volunteer Fire Department issued a statement late Thursday night, expressing their anger after they say someone shot a gun near the fire station around 6:05 p.m. In a post on Facebook, PGVFD said it appears someone shot three rounds of what appears to be 40 caliber bullets near the station, striking a fire truck. Photos show bullet holes in the windshield of the truck. Firefighters noted the crime was particularly dangerous because they were holding a family dinner night and many children were present. They said that thankfully, no one was injured.  

The Pflugerville Fire Department has sustained more than $200,000 in extra expenses due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a June 2 department news release. Finance Director Jessica Frazier presented a report to the Board of Commissioners of Travis County Emergency Services District No. 2 on May 30 at the board's annual strategic planning session. Travis County ESD No. 2 operates the Pflugerville Fire Department. A significant portion of the additional costs was due to overtime wages and personal protective equipment for firefighters and emergency medical technicians, Frazier informed the board May 30. The ESD has received more than $43,000 in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to the release, as a portion of the federal government's coronavirus stimulus package.  

A woman fell down a manhole in the Klein area and was trapped for several days, according to Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office. Deputies rescued the woman from the manhole in the 7200 block of North Grand Parkway. Authorities say she is being checked by medics. Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said the storm sewer the manhole is over leads to a nearby retention pond, and last week workers heard a woman yelling for help, but couldn't figure where it was coming from. They heard her again Tuesday and found the yelling coming from the manhole. They believe the woman, who is known to police, may have been living in the storm sewer. She entered the storm sewer system from the retention pond. Authorities say they believe she became disoriented and that is when she called for help.  

The San Antonio Fire Department responded to a garage fire on the northeast side Thursday morning, preventing the fire from spreading to the house. SAFD officials say they responded to a call on Indigo Forest around 9:45 a.m., and they found heavy smoke and fire in the garage. They say the garage was heavily damaged, but the family will be able to stay in their home tonight. There is no damage estimate yet, and arson investigators are on the scene to determine the cause of the fire.  

The City of El Paso Department of Public Health (DPH) announced that the large spike of COVID-19 cases reported on Thursday is due to a cluster at a local correctional-detention facility. Health officials define a cluster as a collection of two or more cases of the virus happening in the same area at the same time. On Thursday, DPH reported 197 new COVID-19 cases. It's the largest spike in cases to-date. According to health officials, 145 of those new cases were reported at a local correctional-detention facility. Officials did not release the name of the facility. "The Cluster Management Task Force has been working to increase testing aimed at testing specific facilities that house at-risk populations, and/or where there is a greater risk for an outbreak to include, among others, care facilities for the elderly and correctional/detention facilities," said Assistant Fire Chief Jorge A. Rodriguez, Emergency Management Coordinator for the Office of Emergency Management.  

VIDEO: A massive fire is still burning aboard a cargo ship at Blount Island while several injured firefighters were reported to be in stable condition. The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department said 9 firefighters were injured trying to contain the blaze. According to Fire Chief Keith Powers, eight firefighters were injured in an explosion, and an additional firefighter was treated for heat exhaustion. "It's a tough situation and very dangerous -- that's one of the most dangerous situations firefighters encounter is when they're in a ship fire," Powers said. This morning more firefighters were seen arriving to help, including some with maritime expertise. Crews are spraying the ship with water, not to try to extinguish the flames, but to keep the ship's exterior cool.  

A federal agency is warning consumers about a phenomenon they need to know about in the height of grilling season. Under the right conditions, the ATF says "flame jetting" could turn a backyard fire pit or BBQ grill into a flamethrower. It happens in an instant. The effort to ignite or stoke a fire pit or BBQ, creating a fireball, essentially turning portable fuel cans into a device that spews flames. It's happened at homes across the country with a tragic combination of factors triggering a terrifying and potentially deadly phenomenon. It's called flame jetting. Spotlight on America was given behind the scenes access to see how it happens, inside one of the burn rooms at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Fire Research Lab in Maryland. ATF began studying flame jetting just 10 years ago, after the death of a six-year-old girl in Michigan.  

VIDEO: A new video shows the moment two alleged arsonists turned Sunday's peaceful protest through the streets of Long Beach into a devastating inferno. The video shows the men toss two beer bottles allegedly filled with gas into the Men's Suit Outlet on Pine Avenue before fleeing on foot. Moments later, an officer arrives at the scene as the fire spread and angered community members tried to help. "They wanted all of that madness," filmmaker Chris Vinan said. "They planned that store, I feel, because they did say, ‘That's the shop. That's the shop,' twice." Vinan was behind the lens on Sunday documenting an entire block of the city of Long Beach being looted and burned. In the end, 70 businesses were looted and 75 people were arrested. The Men's Suit Outlet, in business for 17 years on the same corner, was the most heavily damaged building in the city.  

It's not very often that someone does a job for 50 years, let alone three people doing that same job for 50 years. But Thursday night, three special Columbiana County community members were honored. You see them in your town — men and women who drive around in the giant red truck to help put out fires. It's a selfless job that Lawrence Hephner, Sr., Roland Hall, Sr. and Gary Steele have been doing for half a century in the small village of Leetonia. "It's something to do for the community," Hephner said. Both Hall and Steele started in 1970 with Hephner right before them in 1969. In the last 50 years, they've seen a lot of changes. "When we first started out, all we had was a black rubber coat for a fire coat, but it changes every year," Hall said. "Well, you have to make sure you have all your equipment on when you go in places. When I first got on, you didn't worry about that. You went in, put the fire out and come back out. Now, you got to put all those air packs on," Steele said.  

The regional administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and coordinating officer for COVID-19 response and recovery in New England said his agency is maintaining logistical and other capabilities in the region, even though the surge is over, just in case there is a second wave. Retired Coast Guard Capt. Russell Webster's resume includes supervising part of FEMA's response to the Boston Marathon bombings and Tropical Storm Irene, leading Coast Guard operations in the Northeast in the wake of Sept. 11, and overseeing the response to the crash of John F. Kennedy Junior's flight in 1999, and the Egypt Air Flight 990 air crash. He described the COVID-19 outbreak, which led to emergency declarations in all 50 states and some U.S. territories, as "unprecedented."