Two drivers face charges of driving while intoxicated for separate crashes at the same location overnight, Houston police said. The first crash happened at about 12:10 a.m. Tuesday in the westbound lanes of I-10, the Katy Freeway, near Kirkwood. Police and firefighters responded to find a car struck a disabled big rig on the shoulder of the freeway. Firefighters used a fire engine to block the scene of the crash, and that's when another suspected drunk driver came along and hit the fire truck, police said. There were no injuries reported. Police took both drivers into custody on suspicion of DWI.  

Against all odds, a Denton firefighter whose left leg had to be amputated last fall is back on duty. Not only did Gary Weiland have to learn to walk again with a prosthesis, he also had to train for months to get back to the job he loves. "This was my ultimate goal, getting back to work full-duty," Weiland said. "Waking up in a hospital bed, the doctor saying we're going to have to amputate your leg, which is pretty unbelievable considering I was just running around on the football field, throwing a ball with the kids, and having a great time," he said. "So it was tough to swallow." But Weiland stayed focus on his goal. "Gary, two days post-op of removing his leg, was already telling anyone who would visit him that he would make it back to full-duty, full-shift work, quicker than any person out there," said Chief Kenneth Hedges with the Denton Fire Department.  

A Fort Worth firefighter was among 92 added to the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial during an annual service in Emmetsburg, Maryland this weekend. William Thompson began his career with the Fort Worth Fire Department in 1988 and served until he became unable due to a respiratory illness he developed on the job. He continued to serve Fort Worth by working as a dispatcher and retired from the department 22 years later. Thompson later died on April 28, 2014, due to the work-related illness. A 7-foot stone monument features a sculpted Maltese cross and an engraved plaque that bears a message from former President Ronald Reagan. Plaques encircling the monument list the names of the men and women who have died in service to their communities since 1981.  

The latest round in the long running Prop B pay battle between Houston firefighters and city hall has a $4,000 price tag for dozens of former firefighters. Months ago, in the midst of a mid-summer city council meeting, Mayor Sylvester Turner warned this day would come and now it's here. Retiring and resigning firefighters paying a big price to leave the department. The City of Houston is clawing back pay paid to firefighters after a judge declared Prop B the law. Since then, an appeals court judge declared Prop B unconstitutional and the city wants that back pay back. "We're being sensitive, but we cannot give a $17 million gift," Mayor Turner told Houston council members on June 12, 2019. That day, Turner said there was no current plan to claw the money back, but those who left the city would have to. In the last several weeks, the city started deducting the money from retiring and resigning firefighters' final checks. Firefighters say they had no warning.  

With the start of the new fiscal year Tuesday, policies to better regulate how much money the City of Corpus Christi gives its employees in overtime pay are now on the books. "Those standard operating procedures will help departments manage overtime so we're not wasting money," said city manager Peter Zanoni. The city government is divided into more than two dozen departments, each of which has its own overtime policy. But as of Oct. 1, on Zanoni's orders, every department now includes in its policies a requirement that overtime be approved in writing before an employee works it. On June 27, we reported that the city paid almost $262,000 to just six workers in the city's Asset Maintenance Department. Similar to that department, the Corpus Christi Fire Department averages between $2.5 million and $3 million in overtime every year because of job vacancies. Zanoni is combating that in the city's new budget by increasing the number of cadets at the city's fire academy from 34 to 50.  

A baby girl, only a few hours old, was comforted by firefighters at a station in southwest Houston after they say a woman surrendered her and left without being questioned. Police say a woman dropped the newborn girl off at Station 21 around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday and left. At this time, officers do not know if the woman was the little girl's mother. The firemen at the station accepted the baby without questioning her because of the Safe Haven law, also called the Baby Moses law. "At this point, CPS and HPD juvenile investigators will do a follow-up investigation to see if we can determine circumstances of how the child was dropped off at the fire station," said HPD Lt. Larry Crowson. Authorities say the newborn girl was taken to Texas Children's Hospital where she was checked out and appears to be fine.  

Several shops were destroyed by a major fire in downtown Ballard on the 2300 block of NW Market Street. The fire started around noon on Monday. Flames and heavy smoke poured out of the building. La Isla restaurant, Supercuts, Kitchen N Things and Octo Designs & Jewelers sustained heavy damage and are a total loss. The Pho Vietnamese restaurant that borders Coleman Jewelers was also damaged from smoke exposure and water, according to the Seattle Fire Department. Nearby apartments were also evacuated. At the fire's peak, 150 firefighters, or about 65% of Seattle Fire's on-duty resources, were responding. One firefighter was taken with minor injuries to a hospital, officials said. No one else was injured in the massive fire.  

Some people were stuck on the Skyliner at Walt Disney World for up to three hours on Saturday night. A union representative for the fire department that responded says they were prepared to rescue people off the Skyliner, but it never should have happened in the first place. "We were told that this would not happen, that this wouldn't happen to the ride and within a week it happened to the ride," said Reedy Creek Professional Firefighters Association Vice President Sean Pierce. The gondolas smashed together, causing a three-hour delay and rescue operation Saturday night at Disney. Pierce says Reedy Creek Fire Rescue rescued six people off one of the gondolas. It was an operation that required a specialty truck reaching 116 feet in the air.  

VIDEO: The latest round in the long running Prop B pay battle between Houston firefighters and city hall has a $4,000 price tag for dozens of former firefighters. Months ago, in the midst of a mid-summer city council meeting, Mayor Sylvester Turner warned this day would come and now it's here. Retiring and resigning firefighters paying a big price to leave the department. The City of Houston is clawing back back pay paid to firefighters after a judge declared Prop B the law. Since then, an appeals court judge declared Prop B unconstitutional and the city wants that back pay back. "We're being sensitive, but we cannot give a $17 million gift," Mayor Turner told Houston council members on June 12, 2019. That day, Turner said there was no current plan to claw the money back, but those who left the city would have to. In the last several weeks, the city started deducting the money from retiring and resigning firefighters' final checks. Firefighters say they had no warning.  

In Episode 5, Chief Michael O'Brian, Brighton Fire Area Authority (Michigan), and Retired Deputy Chief Mike Cox, Henrico County (Virginia), discuss the elements and value of a comprehensive community risk reduction (CRR) program and the opportunities it can create. The issues and topics to be addressed are: Differences between CRR and traditional fire prevention; What's on the CRR horizon and how fire chiefs can prepare; Using GIS to align strategic resources and improve outcomes; Success stories of departments integrating GIS and risk reduction; and Low-cost analytic tools for departments with limited resources.  

The safe drug disposal program in Indiana is expanding. Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke says it's a partnership with the Rx Abuse Leadership Initiative (RALI) Indiana and the Professional Firefighters Union of Indiana (PFFUI). The expansion will provide Indiana fire departments with an additional donation of 75,000 safe drug disposal pouches to help fire departments across the state in the fight against the opioid epidemic. "I am proud of the efforts of RALI Indiana and the Professional Firefighters Union of Indiana to help curb the opioid epidemic across Indiana," said Mayor Winnecke. "With these additional pouches, Evansville fire departments will be able to distribute the preventative pouches to our local communities, allowing more Hoosiers to easily and safely dispose of unused prescription medication from their own homes."