First responders all over the Houston area stepped up when the COVID-19 outbreak spread to keep essential services like hospitals, law enforcement agencies and food distributions running smoothly. Many in the direct path of being infected with the virus lost their lives. Now, the family of a paramedic from west Harris County is asking for prayers as he fights for his life after being diagnosed with the coronavirus. Working as a paramedic for 28 years, Gordon Baker now helps provide emergency rescue services to Katy residents with the Harris Co. Emergency Services District 48. He was placed on a ventilator to help him breathe after being hospitalized for a few weeks, according to ESD 48's Facebook page. They are now asking for the public's thoughts and well wishes. "We are asking for your support and prayers not only for him, but for all of our members and all first responders and healthcare workers everywhere who continue to fight this terrible disease," ESD 48 wrote in a post.  

One person was taken to the hospital Friday afternoon after a fire near a trailer just outside of east Austin. Austin-Travis County EMS said it was helping the Austin Fire Department with the fire near 5000 Blue Bluff Road around 4:30 p.m. That's near Bud Dryden Airport. Medics declared a "trauma alert" for one adult victim who suffered burns in the fire, ATCEMS said. They were taken to Dell Seton Medical Center with "critical, life-threatening injuries." AFD said the fire started outside and burned cars, trash and debris but did not spread into the trailer.  

Tyler fire crews rushed to the site of Greenberg Smoked Turkeys, Inc., the famed East Texas meat processing plant, for reports of a structure fire and explosion around 8:30 Friday evening. Tyler Fire Marshal Paul Findley said that when units arrived, they saw significant plumes of black smoke, flames inside the building and debris littering the roadway. The roll-up doors on one end of the building were blown off their hinges, and it was "obvious there had been some type of explosion," Findley said. While there are multiple commercial buildings at the Greenberg Turkeys property, located at 221 McMurrey Drive, the units most affected in the event were used largely for storage of turkey product and contained a number of large freezer units, Findley said.  

The volunteer fire departments in Victoria County play a key role in keeping county residents safe, said Richard Castillo, the county's fire marshal, on Friday. That's why Castillo's office makes it a priority to do what it can to support the volunteer departments in times of need, he said. Victoria County commissioners on Monday will consider a recommendation by Castillo to assist the Mission Valley Volunteer Fire Department by paying for a new pump for a brush truck. "When our volunteer fire departments need a hand, we need to be there because they are invaluable to our county," Castillo said Friday. Mission Valley Volunteer Fire Department's response area is "a large area of wildland urban interface," Castillo explained in a memo to the commissioners. The department also aids the Nursery Volunteer Fire Department on fires.  

Houston Fire worked to put out a house fire on Saturday, Nov. 7 around 10 p.m. Emergency crews responded to the 8700 block of Leycrest Road in Houston and discovered heavy flames coming from the attic of a two-story home. Fire crews went into defense mode due to the heavy fire. Down power lines and utility lines nearby made it difficult for fire crews, so they went into defense mode due to the heavy flames. It took fire crews nearly two hours in order to knock down the fire. No injuries to firefighters or civilians were reported, and the occupants were not at home at the time of the fire. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.  

Military veteran Jimmy Stewart retired from firefighting after working for years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but was only away for a short period. He said nothing came close to the adrenaline rush, excitement and sense of comradery that comes from the fire service. Stewart decided to join the Spring Fire Department in 2015 after trying several different paths, like owning a business. As District Chief, Stewart oversees all nine stations during C Shift. Nov. 11 is Veterans Day and November is National Veterans and Military Families Month. Several firefighters in the Spring Fire Department are also military veterans and expressed their thoughts about what drove them to serve their country in the military and local community in the Spring area as a first responder.  

VIDEO: The Alameda County Fire Department was battling a warehouse fire overnight Monday in San Leandro. By 1:25 a.m., about 50 firefighters were on the scene to fight the large blaze at a Georgia Pacific packaging plant on Alvarado Street. When KRON4 arrived on scene, crews were putting out hot spots and it was finally put out around 5 a.m. Georgia Pacific's corporate team says the fire happened in an outdoor storage area where its finished goods were held. "We appreciate the rapid response by the Alameda County Fire Department and other first responders to address the fire at our box plant in San Leandro," the corporate statement said. "The fire is now out. Thankfully there were no injuries. The facility expects to start back up this morning as scheduled."  

Sixty-two firefighters died in 2019 from injuries sustained while on duty, 22 less than the 2018 total of 84 firefighters, according to a new report from the U.S. Fire Administration. The 2019 total includes 10 firefighters who died under circumstances that were part of inclusion criteria changes resulting from the Hometown Heroes Survivors Benefit Act. When not including these fatalities for the purposes of a trend analysis, there were 52 non-Hometown Hero firefighter fatalities in 2019, for the lowest annual total since the USFA began this study. Firefighter fatalities included 25 career firefighters, 34 volunteer firefighters, and three part-time or full-time members of wildland or wildland contract fire agencies. The gender of the firefighters who died while on duty in 2019 consisted of one female and 61 males. There were no multiple firefighter fatality incidents in 2019; therefore, the 62 deaths in 2019 resulted from a total of 62 fatal incidents.  

Bob Perkins of the Winthrop Fire Department says his wife grows nervous when he and his firefighter sons Connor, 22, and Cody, 19, get called to fires or other emergencies. "By now, she's sorta used to it, but she still gets pretty nervous sometimes," he said, "and she ends up listening to the pager." The Perkins family is one of four with members of two generations serving on the department. They make up about one-third of the department's 33 staff members, which helps the department with crucial volunteer numbers, according to Fire Chief Dan Brooks. "It's a never-ending shell game to get people to join, and keep their interest," Brooks said. "There's always somebody coming on and somebody leaving. We do better than most." The department's four families with multiple generations serving Winthrop: Roger Audette and son, Alex, 18; Mark Arsenault and son, Tyler, 28; Bob Perkins and his two sons; and Billy Cummins and son, Nathan Cummins, 21, and stepson, Andrew Bellegarde, 35.  

In an unprecedented weekend of COVID-19 infections, nearly all of the US is seeing cases rise as the national total teeters near 10 million. There were 105,927 new coronavirus cases reported on Sunday, marking the 5th day in a row that cases topped 100,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. With 42 states reporting at least 10% more new COVID-19 cases this past week, according to JHU, an emergency physician at Brown University warns that the United States is "heading into the very worst of this pandemic." "We're about to see all of these little epidemics across the country, crossed and mixed, and it's going to be an awful lot like pouring gasoline on a fire," Dr. Megan Ranney told CNN's Fredricka Whitfield Sunday. Cases are currently raging at levels not seen at any other time in the pandemic. Sunday's unprecedented number followed the other top four highest new coronavirus case days, with the record that was set on Saturday with 128,412.  

Did you know that for over a century the fire trucks in Opelousas had names? That used to be a custom in this town as well as many other towns and cities across the U.S. Let's talk about that. Several days ago I received a message from Debbie Harmon Payne asking if I would know who the Opelousas fire truck "Sid" was named for. It seems John Saucier had contacted her with this question. I was able to let them know that particular truck for named for Sidney Brown, who had been the Fire Chief in Opelousas during the 1930s. Toward the end of that decade, the Sid Brown family relocated to Jeanerette and eventually to Baton Rouge. When the truck was named for Chief Brown in 1957, he was deceased, and his wife came to Opelousas from Baton Rouge for the ceremony. Reviewing this information made me think about other fire trucks in Opelousas that were named for local folks. It seems that custom was started in our town just after the Hope, Hook and Ladder Volunteer Fire Company No. 1 was created during the 1870s.