Over a year ago, League City officials were clamoring for more residents to join the volunteer-based League City Fire Department. After months of campaigning, the department last year saw its biggest jump in new volunteers yet. "Best year ever," Chief Gary Warren said. "There's nothing more rewarding than to spend a year working on something and then at the end of the year you have something to show for it." The recruits join the department as the city prepares in the coming weeks to open a new $5.6 million fire station to expand services and better serve newer neighborhoods on the city's southeast side. A total of 121 residents applied to join the fire department in 2019, thanks in part to billboards and other advertisements the city ran to encourage people to volunteer.  

VIDEO: On Monday, Austin fire investigators announced they now know who the man seen in the video is. They just need to find him. The Austin Fire Department released video of a suspect setting fire to a statue of a grackle that stood outside Austin City Hall. "I just kind of felt sick to my stomach and immediately got really sad," said Melinda MacLean who works downtown. She said she parks at City Hall every morning. "It hadn't been there that long, and I just enjoyed seeing it every day," she told KXAN. "It just seemed very Austin. I felt really bad for the artist. It just seemed beyond pointless, kind of cruel you know." The grackle was a piece of artwork called Ganador, which means winner in Spanish. According to the artist's website, she originally created Ganador through Austin's TEMPO program.  

City of Hewitt firefighters are being credited with saving a man's life. Firefighters on C-shift at the Hewitt Fire Department were recognized during Monday night's city council meeting. Chief Lance Bracco honored the group with a life-saving award, the first-ever for the department, for their efforts on Nov. 3. Around 3:45 p.m. that day, a man collapsed and went into cardiac arrest in the self-checkout line at Walmart. Bracco said bystanders were already administering CPR when his crew showed up and took over. "CPR is work," said Bracco. "A lot of times when we do CPR it's a very gruesome scene, there's nothing clean about it." The man didn't have a pulse, Bracco said, however, he got it back on the way to the hospital.  

East Texas firefighters have a new tool to fight wildfires and help keep homes in the path of those fires from going up in smoke. The Hainesville Volunteer Fire Department now has a custom built Interface Engine that will respond to calls in Wood County and the East Texas region. Hainesville Fire Chief Cory Clanton says Engine 2's build is a direct result of the wildfires of 2011, as well as a response to locations of more and more new homes. "We all love the trees and beautiful vegetation so we don't trim much of that and we build right in amongst it or within that, and it creates what's referred to as the urban interface problem," Clanton said. The chief said that sort of fans the flames of losing a house to a wildfire.  

Local first responders are joining together to help one of their own. A Universal City Firefighter's son was diagnosed with T-Cell Leukemia just a few months ago. UCFD Captain Jeff Vaugh said six-year-old Edui Tijerina, Jr. just started treatments and has at least another year of treatments to go, already taking a toll on the family of four. "They do have a struggle ahead of them. And that's why we're here trying to help them," said Vaughn. Universal City Firefighters and Converse Firefighters are stepping in to help the Tijerina family. "When I found out his son was diagnosed with T-Cell leukemia, it hurt," said Converse Fire Fighter, Alex Reyna. Reyna lost his father five years ago to cancer and understands the challenges the family faces in months to come.  

Shiro Volunteer Fire Department increased the firefighting power of its fleet thanks to a $20,000 cost-share grant through the Rural Volunteer Fire Department Assistance Program administered by Texas A&M Forest Service. "Our department feels fortunate to have received a grant that helped in replacing an older slip-on unit," said Shiro VFD Fire Chief Dan Sharron. "The slip-on unit not only allowed for increased water supply for firefighting but helped update the bed configuration which allowed for more storage space for rescue tools, making the truck dual purpose." The unit with its 300-gallon water capacity will help Shiro Volunteer Fire Department be well prepared for this winter/spring fire season and aid in protecting the community where there are no fire hydrants.  

Developers who are looking to build new projects in Bound Brook will now have to pay for increased security measures at construction sites after a destructive Main Street fire in January that investigators have said was purposefully set. The borough committee last week unanimously passed the new ordinance, which will be added to its construction code, that will require developers to have 360-degree motion detectors and video surveillance, along with a physical security guard, on-site at all times once there are flammable materials, like wood, at the property. "Because of the fire, I felt it was very important to tighten up security at the building construction sites," said Mayor Robert Fazen. The new ordinance, which was drafted by the mayor, comes about a month after a seven-alarm fire destroyed two apartment buildings that were under construction and two other buildings on Main Street on Jan. 12.  

A fire station south of Tucson that services about 5,000 residents is set to close by May unless union members and the company that owns the station come to an agreement. Nico Latini, president of the Old Pueblo Firefighters Association, the union that represents Rural Metro firefighters in Pima County, said Station 81, at 966 E. Hughes Access Road, south of Tucson International Airport, handles around 1,100 calls annually. Closing the station would double response times, Latini said. Rural Metro Fire does not have mutual aid or automatic aid agreements with the Tucson Fire Department, meaning other Rural Metro fire stations would have to respond to calls in the South Nogales Highway area. The two closest Rural Metro stations to the area are Station 71, on East Benson Highway near South Alvernon Way, and Station 82 in Sahuarita. Travel time between Station 71 and Station 81 is 12 minutes.  

A pair of southwest Ohio lawmakers want any workers compensation claims for a first responder's post-traumatic stress disorder to be paid from the state's unclaimed funds program. A bill submitted for introduction by Ohio Reps. George Lang, R-West Chester Twp., and Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, offers an alternative proposal to the first responder PTSD bill overwhelmingly supported last month by the Ohio House. The bill will be formally introduced at the Ohio House's next session on March 24.The bill would provide full coverage for PTSD without an accompanying injury under the Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) but the $44 million startup costs for PTSD coverage would be paid for by the Ohio Department of Commerce's Division of Unclaimed Funds.  

There were 103 reported suicides by firefighters nationwide in 2017. It's a startling number, according to the Ruderman Family Foundation, which last year published a study of first responder deaths that found suicide, not deaths in the line of duty, are the greatest peril firefighters and law enforcement officers face. That's why the Carlsbad Fire Department has begun to focus on how to provide support and resources to its personnel via Critical Incident Stress Management training. "This is a dangerous job, but suicide should not be part of it," said Carlsbad Fire Department Chief Richard Lopez. "We want to do what we can to help my men. We can't be oblivious to the issue." According to the New Mexico Department of Health, Critical Incident Stress Management — or CISM — refers to programs and interventions designed to address the mental, emotional and physical stress of repeatedly witnessing and responding to traumatic events.  

To celebrate Read Across America day, St. George firefighters visited elementary schools Monday to read to students in an effort to help promote the importance of reading. In celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday, Read Across America is a reading initiative held annually and was first incepted in 1997 by the National Education Association. According to a 2019 report published by the National Center for Education Statistics, one in five American adults are not sufficiently literate, which can cause lifelong consequences. Promoting reading at an early age is becoming increasingly important due to a number of digital temptations fighting for the attention of today's children, said Amy Mitchell, executive director of elementary education and Title I. "The digital age has also been a hurdle. A lot of children would rather play a video game than pick up a book and read," Mitchell said.