Alaska State Troopers are investigating an early Wednesday morning building fire on Chena Hot Springs Road near Fairbanks, which they believe to be arson. A trooper dispatch said no injuries were caused by the flames and noted that the building was vacant at the time of the fire. At 2:56 a.m. Wednesday, troopers and the North Star Volunteer Fire Department were notified about a fire at a vacant commercial building located near milepost 10 of Chena Hot Springs Road. The volunteer firefighters extinguished the flames, but troopers said the building was "a total loss."  

Ketchikan's fire department is asking the City Council to approve nearly $200,000 in budget transfers to cover higher-than-expected overtime and supply costs. Fire Chief Abner Hoage explains in a memo that despite a roughly 60% cut in the fire department's overtime budget amid a pandemic-fueled drop in revenue, city leaders directed him to ensure emergency services would remain at normal levels. And that has meant more overtime. "Unfortunately, the nature of emergency response does not always allow for implementation of cost-control measures without impacting the level of service that is provided," Hoage wrote. Hoage says a majority of the overtime is contractually required. Smaller portions, totaling roughly a quarter of overtime hours, are due to budget-related staff shortages.  

VIDEOS: Firefighters put out a fire that engulfed two boats at a marina in Dania Beach. 7SkyForce hovered over the scene at 299 Lewis Lane, just south of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Wednesday afternoon. The two boats could be seen fully engulfed in flames as heavy black smoke billowed from them. "We couldn't breathe in all the bad stuff," said neighbor Gayle Snow. It took 50 firefighters to fight back the intense flames burning on the boats on Dania Beach Cutoff Canal. "And one caught the fire, and then it caught the next boat and there was a big superyacht that was right behind them," said witness Tony Pereira. "They were lucky to get that out of there." Broward Sheriff's Office Fire Rescue said the fire may have been the result of the work being done on one of the boats.  

This year, we will mark 20 years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks. For one retired firefighter, the tragedy and a firefighter's helmet called him home to New York to help. In the heart of the South Bronx is Engine 73, Ladder 42, and in the hearts of firefighters at the Prospect Avenue fire house are the heroes lost on Sept. 11, 2001. "What do you feel when you look around here?" CBS2's Jenna DeAngelis asked retired FDNY firefighter Jerry Sanford. "Oh, it's just, it just floods back to me, looking at the house," Sanford said. The last time Sanford was inside the fire station was nearly 20 years ago and he says it all "started with a helmet." "There's the helmet, 1914. This is kind of amazing," he said. Sanford was working as a public information officer in Florida when a fire chief there showed him the antique helmet with the number 42 on it, which Sanford recognized.  

Chief Justin McKenzie leads the newly-formed, full time fire department in Fultondale, and he's using flames in a unique way. A master of the grill, McKenzie was recently a contestant on Food Network's Guy's Grocery Games – a show hosted by Guy Fieri in which different cooks compete for prize money. "When I first got [the invitation], ‘I was like no way,'" Chief McKenzie said. After an EF-3 tornado hit Fultondale in January, he was invited to be a contestant on the show along with fellow firefighters for a special episode. "All this stuff has happened in the city… We had 260-something residential buildings down, 61 businesses affected – if not destroyed. There's a lot that I was worried about just for our city and residents," McKenzie said of the devastating tornado.  

Even when he works two consecutive 24-hour shifts, Chris Aberle rarely sleeps at the fire station. Sometimes he tries. If he is lucky, he might pick up a couple hours of rest. But lately his shift has been getting calls at night. "No one ever sleeps, you know, even if we had no calls from midnight to 8 a.m.," he said. "No one really sleeps because you're just waiting for that bell to go off." Twenty-four hour shifts can be exhausting, he said. Back-to-back 24-hour shifts are worse. "It's tough to stay two days in a row. Because you're like, if you've been up all night, I don't want to be here another day. It wrecks your body. It wrecks your body and trying to do it all over again the next day, you're like, ‘Here we go.' " Lately, Aberle and the other firefighters at the Biddeford Fire Department have worked extra shifts, which are first assigned on a volunteer basis. If no one volunteers, the fire chief informs the person at the top of the "force list" that they must take the shift.