The Pflugerville Fire Department could be out of money in four years if it doesn't receive additional funding sources or have a drastic cuts in services, fire officials said. Finance Director Jessica Frazier shared the bleak financial forecast during an annual strategic planning session on May 30 with the Travis County Emergency Services District No. 2, which funds and operates the Fire Department. Frazier said the department has spent more than $200,000 in extra expenses due to the coronavirus pandemic. The costs were mostly related to overtime wages for firefighters covering for quarantined firefighters and additional personal protective equipment for firefighters and emergency medical technicians, she said. Even without the impact of the pandemic, which could reduce the district's property tax base and cut sales tax receipts, the ESD could be looking at "financial calamity" in fiscal year 2024 as it accommodates increased growth in northeastern Travis County, according to a recent news release from the ESD.  

We have a sad update this morning coming out of Galveston where Tim Miller of Texas EquuSearch confirms the body of missing firefighter Kent Zavala has been found. Zavala, 20, went missing after a rollover crash on the causeway on Sunday evening. Miller said his remains were found in the same area as the crash around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday. "We ask that everyone keep his family and friends in your thoughts and prayers at this time," EquuSearch posted on Facebook. The search got underway Sunday evening after Zavala and a dog were ejected from a crash into the water below the causeway. Two others in the wrecked Jeep were taken to the hospital. Boaters under the roadway rescued the dog shortly after the crash, but they couldn't immediately find Zavala. Although the United States Coast Guard suspended its search Monday afternoon, Texas EquuSearch volunteers kept looking.  

COVID-19 cases continue to climb in Texas and Harris County as the state reopens. How much of a toll is that taking on first responders? According to the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, it's beginning to strain manpower at the fire department. Since March, over 500 HFD employees have been quarantined and 75 have tested positive for COVID-19. HPFFA president Marty Lancton said before the pandemic struck, about 300 firefighters left the department due to pay and benefit disputes with the city. Now, he said due to COVID-19 cases, the losses have created a serious manpower problem. "It should be alarming that you have the number of firefighters and paramedics that are not on the front line if you will and we have been supplement working the apparatus with a tremendous amount of overtime," Lancton said.  

Had the parlor game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon instead been designed with Lisa Camp in mind, everyone in Friendswood and La Porte would have been directly or indirectly touched by the longtime emergency medical services leader. The Friendswood native is the EMS chief for the volunteer fire departments in both Friendswood and La Porte. Because of Camp's introduction of innovative treatments for patient care, the 100 Club recently honored her with its Lifetime Achievement Award. The 32,000-member organization, which serves 32 counties in the region, provides financial support for the dependents of law enforcement officers and firefighters killed or seriously injured in the line of duty. The honor has Camp reflecting on a career filled with challenges and rewards. She helped bring programs in Friendswood such as use of induced hypothermia in heart-attack cases.  

Wildfires are continuing to blaze in and around the Concho Valley on Monday after the weekend left over 9,000 acres scorched, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The McDaniel Fire in Coke county, northwest of San Angelo, has grown over 2,000 acres since Sunday and is 30% contained as of 8:30 a.m. Monday, June 15, 2020. The forest service estimated the fire has burned 3,200 acres since it began Saturday. Volunteer fire departments from Robert Lee, Grape Creek, Carlsbad, Quail Valley, Dove Creek, Bronte and East Concho responded to the McDaniel fire. In Sutton County, the Arroyo Grande Fire near Sonora has been 85% contained and burned an estimated 5,300 acres since it began Thursday as of 8:30 a.m. Monday, June 15, 2020. Fire departments from Sonora, Eldorado and Crockett County responded to this fire.  

The Newton Firefighters Association said on Monday it is taking legal action against the city for taking down a remembrance flag last week that had been hanging inside Station 4 for the last 2½ years. Marc Rizza, Local 863 president, said in a statement that hanging the Thin Red Line flag "is a protected activity under the collective bargaining laws of the Commonwealth." In response to what Rizza called the city's "unilateral" action, "Local 863 has filed a charge against the city with the Commonwealth's Department of Labor Relations." Mayor Ruthanne Fuller's office was unable to comment Monday on the union's decision. "We fly the remembrance flag in honor of the valiant men and woman who sacrificed so much to protect their communities. Keeping alive the memory of those who gave their all is a deep part of who we are," said Rizza.  

New numbers released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer a comprehensive picture of who in the United States has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and how they fared. The latest figures confirm that older people, minorities and those with preexisting health conditions are at the highest risk of death. There was a total of 1,761,503 cases of COVID-19 and 103,700 related deaths in the country between January 22 (when the first case was confirmed) and May 30, according to the surveillance report, published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The data come from local, state and federal sources and is consistent with those reported through the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. Overall, 184,673 (14%) patients were hospitalized, 29,837 (2%) were admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU), and 71,116 (5%) died.  

Had the parlor game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon instead been designed with Lisa Camp in mind, everyone in Friendswood and La Porte would have been directly or indirectly touched by the longtime emergency medical services leader. The Friendswood native is the EMS chief for the volunteer fire departments in both Friendswood and La Porte. Because of Camp's introduction of innovative treatments for patient care, the 100 Club recently honored her with its Lifetime Achievement Award. The 32,000-member organization, which serves 32 counties in the region, provides financial support for the dependents of law enforcement officers and firefighters killed or seriously injured in the line of duty. The honor has Camp reflecting on a career filled with challenges and rewards. She helped bring programs in Friendswood such as use of induced hypothermia in heart-attack cases.  

Within a few months, teams of mental health workers and EMTs will be dispatched in some Alameda County cities to help people having a mental crisis or substance abuse problems. The pilot program, called the "Community Assessment Treatment and Transport Team," or CATT, will roll out in Oakland, San Leandro, Hayward and Alameda sometime this summer. Each team will have a licensed behavioral health clinician and an emergency medical technician. The mental health workers will be from the county, and emergency medical technicians will be from the ambulance company Falck Northern California. They will travel in a modified Chevrolet Tahoe. They will be dispatched through 911 calls and if necessary will work with local police officers and firefighters at the scene to assess people and get them treatment.  

The following highlights some of the notable fires or building collapses in the lower Valley in the past 10 years... Sept. 11, 2010: Fire destroys the Housatonic Wire complex in Seymour. The building was slated to be the site of a new development. Jan. 6, 2014: A four-story Howe Avenue building opposite the Shelton end of the Derby-Shelton Bridge burns and collapses, leaving five injured and several homeless. June 26, 2014: Four firefighters are injured as an overnight fire damages the Latex International Foam factory on River Road in Shelton. This blaze comes 11 years after the company's original site in Ansonia burned down (pictured). The company, now known as Talalay Global, was formed by executives from the Sponge Rubber Company, whose downtown Shelton plant was destroyed in 1975, one of several notable acts of arson in the city in the past 50 years.