Two people and one dog died in a house fire this weekend in Taylor. According to the City of Taylor, Fire Chief Daniel Baum said the fire happened at about 1 a.m. Sunday at a home located at 601 West 11th Street. When firefighters received the call to respond, they learned there may be people and animals still inside the home. When they arrived, the city reported that flames fully engulfed the home. The intensity of the fire prevented firefighters from entering, so defensive fire operations began from the outside. The fire was mostly put out an hour later, and that's when firefighters could start searching the building, the city said. Firefighters located one adult victim as well as the body of a dog, according to the city. They found a second adult victim after putting out the rest of the fire and additional searching.  

Lubbock Fire Rescue is partnering with the Texas Tech Whitacre College of Engineering to help improve firefighter safety. Their current project is developing a safer firefighter helmet to help mitigate the risk of traumatic head injuries while on the job. Lt. Brady Robinette said what spurred this research was the tragedy on Jan. 11. "Lt. (Eric) Hill and Officer (Nicholas) Reyna were working the scene of a traffic accident. They got struck by a vehicle and killed, and also the horrendous injuries that Matt Dawson sustained in that same accident, that was really the impetus for this research project," Robinette said. Suman Chowdhury, an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering, is leading the effort. "Firefighters are increasingly called up to respond to active shooter incidents, vehicle accidents and medical emergencies. So, currently we are conducting two preliminary studies in collaboration with Lubbock Fire Rescue," Chowdhury said.  

San Angelo resident Eric Robbins was asleep on the early morning of August 22, when a severe thunderstorm rolled through the Concho Valley, damaging dozens of buildings in its wake and causing more than 20,000 people to lose power. In past years, sirens would've alerted residents throughout the city to seek shelter before the storm rolled through, but the city removed the sirens last year and started alerting citizens via text messages and virtual alerts instead. This system, according to people like Robbins, doesn't always work. "I didn't receive a notification from the city or anything. I received a notification from an app that I use to look at the radar, and only got that notification after it had started," he said. City of San Angelo fire chief Brian Dunn said the city got rid of the sirens because they're outdated, expensive to repair, and often caused more confusion than they were worth.  

VIDEO: The bodies of two missing crew members of a dredging boat were found Saturday following an explosion a day earlier in the Port of Corpus Christi in Texas, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Two other crew members of the dredging vessel Waymon L Boyd remain missing, the Coast Guard said in a news release. A Coast Guard helicopter and boats were searching for the missing crew members. The explosion happened at about 8 a.m. Friday when the dredging vessel struck a submerged pipeline, Coast Guard Lt. Marina Lawrence said. The Port of Corpus Christi has said it was a natural gas pipeline. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the impacted crewmen and their families," Sean Strawbridge, CEO, Port of Corpus Christi, said in a statement.  

The prospect of two simultaneous hurricanes churning in the Gulf of Mexico on course to strike the coast this week would give any gulf-state resident pause. But to Bastrop County firefighters, it could spell the end of a challenging fire season "We're in such a drought right now that it's going to take, what we call, a rain with a name — a hurricane or storm that can come in here and stall over us," said Fire Chief Josh Gill with Bastrop County Emergency Services District No. 2. "We don't wish that on anybody, but typically that's how we end our drought." Both prospective hurricanes — Tropical Storm Laura, which is expected to strengthen into a hurricane Tuesday, and Marco, which was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm Monday — are forecast strike the Gulf Coast this week.  

VIDEO: A huge fire broke out at an apartment building that is under construction in central Phoenix early Tuesday morning. Video from the scene shows massive flames engulfing the building north of 12th Street and Indian School Road. A large plume of black smoke could be seen for miles. Capt. Todd Keller with the Phoenix Fire Department said it is a two-story apartment building that has been under construction for about seven months. It reportedly was still in the framing stage which means there was plenty of exposed wood to feed the flames. So far, no injuries have been reported and firefighters are working to gain control of the blaze.  

PHOTOS: When Jeannette fire Chief Bill Frye and Mark Scalzitti were junior firemen, they would jump on the back of a 1965 Mack fire engine to respond to calls. Too young to drive it at the time, both have fond memories of getting suited up in the fire station and riding Engine 6 through town, the siren blaring. The engine spent the last 19 years with private collectors elsewhere in the state after the city sold it in 2001. Now the old friend is back home. And this time Frye and Scalzitti get to drive. "I appreciate it for the history that it is, and I'm glad that people get to enjoy it now," said Scalzitti, the proud owner of a vintage fire truck. Engine 6 served the city for 21 years and, after that, it acted as a backup to a newer truck until it was sold to someone on the other side of the state, Frye said. Then someone else near Carlisle bought it three years ago, Scalzitti said. When it was put up for sale recently, Scalzitti jumped at the chance.  

VIDEO: Lubbock Fire Rescue is partnering with the Texas Tech Whitacre College of Engineering to help improve firefighter safety. Their current project is developing a safer firefighter helmet to help mitigate the risk of traumatic head injuries while on the job. Lt. Brady Robinette said what spurred this research was the tragedy on Jan. 11. "Lt. (Eric) Hill and Officer (Nicholas) Reyna were working the scene of a traffic accident. They got struck by a vehicle and killed, and also the horrendous injuries that Matt Dawson sustained in that same accident, that was really the impetus for this research project," Robinette said. Suman Chowdhury, an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering, is leading the effort. "Firefighters are increasingly called up to respond to active shooter incidents, vehicle accidents and medical emergencies. So, currently we are conducting two preliminary studies in collaboration with Lubbock Fire Rescue," Chowdhury said.  

People living in some of the largest U.S. cities and their surrounding areas face the highest risk of contracting COVID-19 in the near future, according to a new set of online dashboards created by researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. The risk analysis model used by the website examines more than 3,000 U.S. counties and features three dashboards that focus on aspects of community resilience: risk, exposure and vulnerability. Counties are scored on 13 different variables across the three dashboards, accounting for socioeconomic circumstances, population density, transportation infrastructure and other important metrics for measuring the pandemic, such as available intensive care unit beds and the average number of new cases. The researchers said the new model presents the most comprehensive look yet at the virus's current and future spread across the U.S.  

Back in April, in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a national shortage of protective N95 masks. Ryan Githens and Joe Webster, both engineers for Oceaneering, an engineering and applied technologies company with offices in Hanover, used their design skills to create a workaround solution to keep first responders in their community safe — an adapter that allows firefighters to use their SCBA masks as an N95 filter, "protecting their respiratory system and face from potential exposure to the virus," Githens said. Githens, a senior electronic technician, is also volunteer firefighter with the Abingdon Fire Company. It's as a volunteer firefighter that Githens and his colleagues rely on Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, or SCBA, masks while on duty. Githens' work brought a fix for the scarce N95 mask issue. An N95 is a respirator which helps with airborne particle filtration, and offers better protection than a surgical mask against COVID-19.