High temperatures are already dangerous enough for the average person. How much worse could it be for firefighters? "It would be like putting your thickest winter coat on, a hood on top of that, sweatpants, gloves and then go running a mile. And then trying to work after that. That's exactly what we do," David Saenz said, battalion chief for Corpus Christi Fire Department. On Monday, Saenz detailed how CCFD tries to stay safe when the hot weather comes to town. He said hydration is the most important part. "Actually hydration starts at night, the night before," said Saenz. "It's good to start drinking water the night before because when you go to sleep you're not drinking any water. You wake up you've gone six to seven, eight hours without drinking water. So, we ask the guys start hydrating early if they can the night before. And for sure when we get to work, start drinking a bottle of water."  

PHOTO: There's a new Starbucks opening in a historic building in downtown Fort Worth: Fire Station No. 1, located at 203 Commerce St., which proudly served the City of Fort Worth for 114 years, will become a newfangled Starbucks Pickup store, designated for coffee to-go. According to a release, it will open in the fall. Starbucks Pickup stores are designed for customers on-the-go who order and pay ahead using the Starbucks app, then pick up their order on their way to their destination. The first Starbucks Pickup store opened in New York City in November 2019. In June 2020, Starbucks announced plans to accelerate the opening of more than 50 of these stores by the end of the year.  

Fire station #5 in Temple has fire damage in the kitchen and smoke damage throughout the building after a kitchen fire Saturday evening because a stove was left on. "We are human, we forget too," Santos Soto with Temple Fire & Rescue said. "Even though we tell the public all the time to be mindful of what they are cooking and what they are doing in the kitchen, it happens to all of us." Soto says it can be easy to forget when responding to an emergency when second matter. "These guys are busy on a day-to-day basis running calls, busy with classes and different trainings that they do," Soto said. That's why there's technology to protect our first responders that kicks in automatically when a call comes in. "It's connected to the radio system through the Bell County dispatch and when the station picks up that bump-out tone, the radio sends that to a little transponder that shuts off the equipment," Soto said.  

VIDEO: A crowd was cheering outside of the Central Fire Station in Temple on Monday – following a successful ceremonial push-in of a brand new fire truck. Members of the department and city leaders pushed the $1.3 million ladder truck into the station's bay. A group of six firefighters made up a committee which designed the apparatus from the ground up. It features a 100-foot ladder and carries 500 gallons of water.  

Investigators on both sides of the state line in Texarkana are looking into a series of fires in the downtown area over the past few weeks. Three of the four fires over the past three weeks in the area have happened within the past several days. Officials say the average is ten fires a month. So far, there have been nine in the past month. Some were in abandoned buildings. One fire started at a popular local restaurant, TLC Burger, that now has a "closed" sign on the door. "It's not common, but it has happened before," said Texarkana, Texas Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Chris Black. "We'll have one or two. Then we'll have a string of them. You know, sometimes coincidences, sometimes not." Investigators are looking into the possibility that homeless people could be behind the fires in some of the abandoned buildings.  

A fire on June 15, 2021 in the 2900 block of East Bates St. has been ruled arson, according to the Lubbock Fire Marshal's Office. The fire started around 12:20 p.m. and was discovered by neighbors who called 911. The Fire Marshal's Office report says there were were multiple areas were the fire was started. The house was not occupied and no injuries were reported. The report states the cause of the fire is classified as criminal.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: A massive early morning fire ripped through Lakewood's Picnic grocery store located at 357 Squankum Road, leaving the building fully destroyed. The blaze started at around 4:30 am and was burning for over 2 hours. The building was immediately evacuated and no civilian injuries were reported. Dozens of firefighters including mutual aid were on scene battling the blaze. Over 100 area residents were evacuated due to the fire. A first responder tells LNN that he was part of the evacuation process trying to get the neighbors to safety in case the fire would spread. He says that it wasn't easy, as many neighbors were not answering the door as they were deep asleep. Some doors had to be forced open in order to get people to safety. Damages from the fire were reported at nearby structures.  

VIDEO: A local volunteer firefighter is highlighting the dangers of the job after nearly being killed in the line of duty. Now, he's warning drivers to slow down and move over when they see emergency lights flashing. Haley Dalton wants people to see the look on her son's face when she had to tell him his daddy was hit by a car. Five-year-old Finn was terrified. Two-year-old Parker Kate just wanted to fix him. But volunteer firefighter Spence Dalton was never worried about himself. "Where's my wife, where's my two kids. I knew it wasn't my time to go and I was going to fight my way through it," he said. "And not let myself go on that side of the road." He spoke to 11Alive on the phone because he still thinks his injuries are too hard to look at on camera. But he wants people to see the devastation of what can happen when drivers don't move over when they see an emergency vehicle.  

PHOTO: There's a new Starbucks opening in a historic building in downtown Fort Worth: Fire Station No. 1, located at 203 Commerce St., which proudly served the City of Fort Worth for 114 years, will become a newfangled Starbucks Pickup store, designated for coffee to-go. According to a release, it will open in the fall. Starbucks Pickup stores are designed for customers on-the-go who order and pay ahead using the Starbucks app, then pick up their order on their way to their destination. The first Starbucks Pickup store opened in New York City in November 2019. In June 2020, Starbucks announced plans to accelerate the opening of more than 50 of these stores by the end of the year.  

The Centers for Disease Control calls suicide a significant health problem, and first responders are at a higher risk. One Utah firefighter took his experience as a first responder to the airwaves in an effort to raise awareness about the problem. You wouldn't know it when he's on a scene with South Davis Metro Fire, but Mike Shafer is an aspiring rapper, and he recently released the first track on his newest album — a song about suicide. It's a message that's personal for Mike. "It's honestly something that hits home to me," he said. Mike has been the front lines for nearly a decade, there's no doubt the South Davis firefighter has positively impacted hundreds of lives. Now he hopes to broaden that reach, through song about a tough topic… suicide.  

Some states are making great strides in vaccinating their residents against COVID-19, but the ones that are not may soon be contending with a more transmissible variant, experts say. About 45.2% of the US population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, CDC data showed, and in 16 states and Washington, DC, that proportion is up to more than half, and 16 have reached President Joe Biden's goal to vaccinate 70% of adults with at least one dose. But some states -- such as Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Wyoming -- have fully vaccinated less than 35% of residents. More than 500 days and 600,000 deaths since the first person in the United States was reported to have died from COVID-19, experts have upheld vaccines as the key to reopening the country safely and containing the variants, many of which are more transmissible.