VIDEO: Firefighters with the Pasadena Fire Department and Houston Fire Department worked to put out a blaze at an apartment complex located in Pasadena, officials said Tuesday. Officials said the two-alarm fire broke out at an apartment complex located at 4201 Fairmont. According to officials, a building began to collapse as firefighters worked to put out the flames. Firefighters were still working to put out hot spots around 5 a.m. Residents who live at the apartment were seen standing outside, many of them saying they lost everything but are thankful they got out in time. "I didn't hear anything. I just smelled smoke. The atmosphere was full of smoke and that's what woke me up," one man told KPRC 2's Brittany Jeffers. So far, officials said no injuries have been reported. Red Cross is helping residents that were impacted by the fire.  

Texas Tech University students participated in a live simulated training with Lubbock Fire Rescue on Monday to research for a project to create a special structural helmet for firefighters nationwide. Suman Chowdhury, assistant professor of industrial manufacturing and systems engineering at Texas Tech, said it's a $520,000 project funded by the Department of Homeland Security. "We are expecting to develop a firefighting helmet prototype that can give both a ballistic and thermal protection and can save millions of fire fighters across the nation," said Chowdhury. "We will be the first team in the world to come up with this next-generation firefighting helmet." Chowdhury said creating a fusion between the two helmets would simplify having to carry two helmets for firefighters.  

A fire at a Sherman apartment is leaving many families devastated Monday night. "Everything I worked my entire life for and for my kids to have stability, and now it's gone," said Shelby Newton, who lost her home in the fire. Around noon on Monday, Shelby Newton got a devastating call from her neighbor about her apartment going up in flames. "I work two jobs," said Newton. "I'm a single mother to two kids, and now we have the clothes on our back. I don't even know what I'm going to brush my teeth with tonight. Just the thought of it is so overwhelming. I can't even think of what's going on right now." Sherman Fire-Rescue said it started in a second-floor apartment when someone was cooking, and the wind spread the flames fast. "All eight apartments are probably going to be ruined," said Sherman Assistant Fire Chief Chris Olson.  

Two men are being charged with 2nd degree arson after deputies say they intentionally set two homes on fire early Sunday. 19-year-old, Jayden Limbaugh and 19-year-old Javon Jones both of Cooper, Texas, face two counts of 2nd degree Arson as well as a charge of possession of marijuana under two ounces. According to the Delta County Sheriff's Office, at approximately 2:20 a.m., a call was received about a house that was on fire in the 900 block of Southeast 5th street in Cooper. Delta County Fire Units were dispatched to the location, where they found the structure fully engulfed. Later that morning, while on patrol, around 3:48 a.m. deputies drove up on another residence fully engulfed on fire in the area of Northwest 7th Street and West Wilson. Immediately near the scene, they made contact with two men in a vehicle.  

Rapper Travis Scott and others should have stopped Friday's Astroworld music festival as soon as they became aware of a crowd surge that ultimately left eight people dead and dozens more injured, Houston's fire chief told NBC's "TODAY" show on Tuesday. "Absolutely. Look: We all have a responsibility. Everybody at that event has a responsibility. Starting from the artist on down," Chief Samuel Peña said when co-host Savannah Guthrie asked him if he believed Scott should have called an end to the concert once he saw what was taking place. He said evidence shows attendees tried to approach some of Scott's private security to alert them that something was wrong. "At one point, there was an ambulance that was trying to make its way through the crowd. And he's got, the artist has, command of that crowd," Peña said.  

A Blanket Intergovernmental Support Agreement between Joint Base San Antonio and the Alamo Area Council of Governments, and a resulting task order with the City of Schertz, Texas, is helping people at JBSA-Randolph get the medical care they need faster. Under the Blanket IGSA between AACOG and JBSA, the City of Schertz will extend emergency ambulance response, ambulatory patient transportation, and emergency medical flight line care, with capability to address decompression sickness and injuries related to in-flight emergencies, on JBSA-Randolph for the next five years. The extended EMS services will help protect military members, their families, federal employees, veterans, and military retirees, and will provide more comprehensive safety coverage for the base than previously available.  

VIDEO: Firefighters with the Pasadena Fire Department and Houston Fire Department worked to put out a blaze at an apartment complex located in Pasadena, officials said Tuesday. Officials said the two-alarm fire broke out at an apartment complex located at 4201 Fairmont. According to officials, a building began to collapse as firefighters worked to put out the flames. Firefighters were still working to put out hot spots around 5 a.m. Residents who live at the apartment were seen standing outside, many of them saying they lost everything but are thankful they got out in time. "I didn't hear anything. I just smelled smoke. The atmosphere was full of smoke and that's what woke me up," one man told KPRC 2's Brittany Jeffers. So far, officials said no injuries have been reported. Red Cross is helping residents that were impacted by the fire.  

More than a decade ago, Hartford Fire Department rookie Ashley Shapiro was sitting in the South Green fire station waiting for the next call when his captain dropped a rusty, sickle-shaped blade on his desk. "I hear you like this tool," Tom Dalton told Shapiro, a history buff who had recently arrived at Engine Company 1 Ladder 6. "Here's the head. Play around with it." Dalton had brought Shapiro an original Hartford hook, forged as early as the 1920s in the department's original machine shop behind their Main Street fire station. It had been a decade or two since Hartford firefighters had carried the tool, though it was once so widely used a stone carving of the hook embellishes the bay doors of the century-old fire house. Now, Shapiro is bringing back a modern version of the capital city's unique fire hook.  

Thomas Pomplin was 28 when he died from the effects of overheating and exhaustion from fighting the Storm's Cedar Tub and Pail Factory fire in Nyack in July 1854. He died eight days later. It is believed that he was the first line of duty death of a firefighter in Rockland County, but because he was black, that designation never happened. Former Piermont fire chief and now lieutenant in charge of the dive team, Daniel Goswick, is hoping to change that. "Based on our research that we have compiled, I believe that Thomas Pomplin should be recognized as the first line of duty death in Rockland County, but because of his skin color back then, I am sure he was never recognized for his heroic acts," Goswick said.  

When the alarm sounds for an emergency, blood pressure among firefighters often soars, according to preliminary research funded by the American Heart Association and presented at the Association's Scientific Sessions 2021. The meeting will be fully virtual, Saturday, November 13 through Monday, November 15, 2021, and is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science for health care professionals worldwide. From 2019-2021, 41 volunteer and municipal firefighters from the suburban Philadelphia area and from the Dover, New Hampshire, area wore ambulatory blood pressure monitors during an on-call work shift lasting at least 12 consecutive hours.  

Emergency response agencies across Missouri now have a goal of clearing an accident scene on state highways in less than 90 minutes. A handful of other states already have something similar in place, like Washington, Florida, and Tennessee. The goal is to have the roadway clear 90 minutes after a first responder arrives on the scene. The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) and the Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) say this is doable, but for serious accidents, it could take longer. Tow truck drivers across the state saw they are on board with the new initiative. "It's different but it can be done," said Michael Scott, owner of Scotty's Carriage Works in Cameron, Missouri. "Depending on whether it's a truck wreck or an automobile accident, we can quickly grab something and relocate it to the shoulder and now we've reopened that part of the road." Scott has been a tow truck driver in northwest Missouri for more than 60 years.