In addition to fighting fires, this year, the Anchorage Fire Department has been battling a budget shortfall. The department is around $4 million over-budget, and the department has begun rolling closures to save money. The city and the department were aware of a money shortage early in the year. "We had signals that the budget was going to be challenged in the Summer,"said Municipal Manager Bill Falsey. "But of course, you'll also remember that this Summer was a record-hot Summer, with all kinds of wildfires." So they waited until cool weather rolled in to roll out the closures. "A couple days before October first we issued a memo telling our operations staff, and the rest of the mayor's office, the manager's office that we would be conducting rolling closures if people called in sick over a certain number," said Anchorage Fire Chief Jodie Hettrick.  

VIDEO: It's been a few months since the McKinley Fire threatened parts of the Mat-Su Valley, but for many, gratitude for the firefighters has become the overwhelming emotion. For Robert McCoy, whose house was spared, that gratitude became a work of art. The McKinley Fire started on Friday, August 17, just four-and-a-half miles from McCoy's home, which sits along the Parks Highway in Talkeetna. "We could see all of the helicopters and planes making drops from our porch and from our bedroom window," said McCoy. That following Sunday, he got the alert to evacuate. As a former firefighter himself, McCoy knew it was serious. "I knew how quickly it could move, especially with how dry it was and how windy it was getting," McCoy said. "Once we got those alerts it was probably just about an hour or so and we were out of here."  

The FDNY-Uniformed Firefighter Association is criticizing the decision to shut down streets around Rockefeller Center for pedestrians during the holidays. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that the city would expand pedestrian space in the area and close streets to traffic, saying the increasing number of people in the area is "creating a real safety issue." Gerald Fitzgerald, president of the firefighters union, put out a statement Sunday saying he believes there will be increased citywide gridlock as a result of the changes — and that gridlock could affect emergency vehicles. "The move to increase ‘pedestrian space' surrounding Rockefeller Center is misguided and makes this city less safe – plain and simple. As it is, traffic is interfering with our firefighters' abilities to reach the scene of a fire, but this new plan will have wide-felt repercussions in the form of traffic from river-to-river," he said.  

In view of the Nov. 13 house fire that claimed the life of 39-year-old Lt. Jason Menard, the department's second line-of-duty death in less than a year, City Manager Edward M. Augustus, Jr. Friday announced his intention to name a task force to look at firefighter safety. The task force will do its work alongside the typically yearlong federal review the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health conducts as a matter of course after a firefighter dies on duty. Augustus announced his intentions the same day a strongly worded editorial by Kathy Spencer was published in the Telegram & Gazette. Spencer is the widow of Lt. Thomas Spencer, one of the six city firefighters who died in the Worcester Cold Storage & Warehouse Co. fire on Dec. 3, 1999. She is also the mother of a current Worcester firefighter, Daniel Spencer. Spencer's piece, among other suggestions, called for better training.  

When buildings and vehicles are set ablaze, toxic chemicals are released into the air. Those chemicals can last by hanging on to firefighters' gear, even taken back to the station after fires are put out -- causing troubling consequences for health and safety to those in duty. According to a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study, firefighters are twice as likely to get skin and testicular cancer and mesothelioma. Fairfax Fire and Rescue is looking to reduce those numbers with a new approach. The department partnered with the National Fire Protection Association Research Foundation on a four-phase study that aims to improve equipment that can filter through the carcinogens and make for healthier firefighters. The partnership aims at a "holistic approach" to improving that gear and reducing cancer exposure.  

Fast food chain In-N-Out was responsible for a 2017 grass fire in rural Arroyo Grande, a lawsuit filed by Cal Fire in San Luis Obispo Superior Court alleges. According to the lawsuit, a wildfire sparked Sept. 20, 2017 on a property owned by In-N-Out at 9815 Huasna Road in Arroyo Grande. The fire was caused by a tractor mowing grass on the property, Cal Fire says in the suit — noting that the property was covered in "dry annual grasses and scattered brush, which created a receptive bed of flammable vegetation." According to the lawsuit, chaff built up on the mower deck before being ignited by a hot clutch and then blown off the mower deck, landing in the dry grass below. It quickly spread to the surrounding vegetation, aided in part by warm and windy temperatures that day.  

Use an ambulance, don't pay the bill and face criminal charges. That is what's happening in one Westmoreland County community. EMS companies all over the area are facing huge debts. Rescue 14 in Adamsburg in Westmoreland County is no different. But the district attorney has signed off on its new groundbreaking method of bill collecting. So far, it's working and the unit has collected thousands of dollars. Over the years, Rescue 14 Operations Manager Don Thoma tried to get money from patients in civil court, but he said it took too much time and too much money. He came up with the idea to file criminal complaints for theft against them after he heard of another ambulance company doing it. Target 11's Rick Earle asked him if he ever feels bad about filing charges. "It's not like I don't care," Thoma said. "It bothers me that they don't care."