On Wednesday the city of McAllen named a new chief for the city's fire department. Chief Jim Schultz, a 27-year veteran, was interim fire chief for a little over seven months. Schultz said he hopes to help continue improving the response time for McAllen residents. "My very first day of taking over as interim fire chief was the day COVID basically came to town. The county declared a disaster emergency the very same day. The city followed suit the very next day. I had to hit the ground running." said Chief Schultz. Schultz replaces the former Chief Rafael Balderas who retired earlier this year.  

VIDEO: A train derailment in Mauriceville has forced the evacuation of two school campuses Thursday morning. Deputies and and firefighters have responded to the scene near the intersection of Texas 62 and FM 1130 in Mauriceville. The train was carrying chemicals and officials are working to find out exactly what chemicals are involved according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office. Everyone within a 1-mile radius of the derailment has been asked to evacuate the area. According to the Orange County Sheriff's Office. A hazmat crew is working along with deputies and firefighters from Mauriceville Emergency Service District 4.  

Kerrville City Manager Mark McDaniel wanted the opportunity to honor the promotion of Eric Maloney — beyond "congrats you got the job." "Not every City Manager gets to hire a fire chief," said McDaniel on Tuesday. So, in front of much of the Kerrville Fire Department and city staff, including the City Council, Maloney — a 1987 graduate of Tivy High School — was formally elevated to Kerrville Fire Department Chief during a swearing-in ceremony at the Cailloux Theater on Tuesday. Maloney succeeds retiring chief and one of his mentor's — Dannie Smith, who served Kerrville for six years. McDaniel wasted almost no time in promoting Maloney once Smith announced that he would retire at the end of the year after 40 years in fire departments in Texas and Arkansas. "This is the only place I ever wanted to work," Maloney said after the short ceremony  

A man reportedly was shocked while working on a scaffolding 25 feet above ground. Corpus Christi Fire Department battalion Chief J.D. Johnson tells KRIS 6 News the incident happened around 3 p.m. Wednesday in the 3900 block of Buddy Lawrence, off I-37. Johnson said firefighters were called to Calpine's Corpus Christi Energy Center for an unconscious man found on the platform. They were able to get him down, and Johnson said there were signs he was shocked. He also said the man is alive, and was taken to a hospital for treatment.  

VIDEO: A fire caused significant damage to a home in Bryan on West 16th Street just after 5:00 a.m. Monday. As the call came over the radio for a structure fire, Bryan Police Officer Marshal Field says he ran to his vehicle, threw on his lights and sirens, and headed straight to the house. Once Field arrived, he says he could hear someone yelling from the house that they were stuck. "I went running up and you could see flames coming out from the front of the house facing 16th Street. You could hear a guy yelling, so I started running up to the side of the house and he was standing there stuck in jail doors," said Field. In body camera footage released to KBTX, you can see the smoke turn nearly black as Officer Field begins coaching the man who is stuck in the home to get down on the ground and stay calm.  

For over two years now, plans have been in the works to form an explosive ordnance device team, or bomb squad, based in East Texas. Previously, teams from the Dallas area or Shreveport would respond to calls here, but now the new team will be able to serve all of East Texas. "The regional team will be able to respond to different agencies' requests at that point and provide a quicker response than we could get from the entities that are further away," Tyler Fire Chief David Coble said. Over the last few months, coble has helped the team gather the tools necessary to form the squad. At today's Tyler City Council meeting, the department accepted an $82,000 grant from the East Texas Council of Governments to fund two bomb suits like these. Other materials, such as a bomb-defusing robot, are being loaned from other departments -- all items required for certification from the FBI.  

VIDEOS: A fire caused significant damage to a home in Bryan on West 16th Street just after 5:00 a.m. Monday. As the call came over the radio for a structure fire, Bryan Police Officer Marshal Field says he ran to his vehicle, threw on his lights and sirens, and headed straight to the house. Once Field arrived, he says he could hear someone yelling from the house that they were stuck. "I went running up and you could see flames coming out from the front of the house facing 16th Street. You could hear a guy yelling, so I started running up to the side of the house and he was standing there stuck in jail doors," said Field. In body camera footage released to KBTX, you can see the smoke turn nearly black as Officer Field begins coaching the man who is stuck in the home to get down on the ground and stay calm.  

Wednesday was National First Responders Day, intended to honor the men and women putting their lives on the line day after day. Unfortunately, with that comes the danger of illnesses, among them cancer, the leading cause of death in firefighters. It's why the Ohio Firefighters Attacking the Cancer Epidemic Group, known as the FACE team, gathered Wednesday afternoon to bring awareness to what they describe as a crisis. Dave Greve is assistant fire chief with the Liberty Township Fire Department. "It's something we can't put off," Greve said. "We need to do something now. We're already in this epidemic, we need to do something to combat it. We need to come up with procedures and technologies to assist us." Firefighters say they're stressing the importance of leaving carcinogens at the fire scene. That includes doing a full "decon" procedure, which involves removing contaminants from the bodies and gear of firefighters.  

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Tennessee have risen at a far lower rate in areas that have mask-wearing mandates than those that don't, a new analysis from Vanderbilt University researchers found, reinforcing evidence showing that face masks play a significant role in slowing coronavirus transmission. The study found that in Tennessee hospitals where less than 25% of patients came from counties with a mask mandate, hospitalizations as of Oct. 23 had risen by more than 200% since July 1. Hospitals in which 26% to 50% of patients were from counties with mask mandates saw hospitalizations rise by approximately 100% since July 1. In hospitals where patients came from counties where more than 75% of patients were under mask mandates, there was virtually no change in the level of hospitalizations since July 1, and hospitalizations only slightly increased in hospitals where 51 to 75% of patients were under mask mandates.  

It's National First Responders Day -- a day when the country comes together as a country to recognize the heroes who choose to run toward danger to save lives. Among them, firefighter Al Coombs of Brooklyn, who says he was inspired by his nurse mother. He was honored by our parent company Disney. The 43-year-old is a first responder at Engine 224 in Brooklyn Heights. "All we do as firefighters by the way is help people or we are training how to help people in the public at any given time - that's what we do, all we do," Coombs said. Coombs also has a fur baby - a bunny in his family named Lion-O. And he's a "fun" dad. "He skates to and from work," daughter Alisa said. "Whose dad skateboards?" Coombs says he actually gets to work faster by skateboard than driving. Alisa says she feels good having a dad as a firefighter "knowing that he puts others before himself," while Coombs other daughter Sage definitely sees herself pursue a career in helping people. "He makes me want to help," Sage said.  

PHOTOS: Approximately 60 firefighters are working a 3rd-alarm fire in the city of San Bernardino Tuesday night. The fire was reported before 8:00 PM on October 27, 2020, at 4183 N Mountain View Avenue in San Bernardino. San Bernardino County Fire tweeted about the incident and reported fire in a multi unit strip mall with significant ember cast. The call was upgraded to a 3rd Alarm prompting additional resources to respond to the incident. County Fire reported the fire was extending into multiple palm trees and adjacent storage buildings. Crews were in an operational retreat and switching to a defensive fire attack, according to a tweet. The fire has established in 5 units of a large single story strip mall and there's heavy fire through the roof.