A Seattle-based seafood company has reported that Alaska seafood plant workers have tested positive for COVID-19, including one who was taken to a hospital. The Seattle Times reports that Trident Seafoods reported the four employees were roommates and have returned to work after undergoing a 14-day quarantine and testing negative. The Trident Seafoods' plant is a processing center for Bering Sea harvests of pollock, crab, and cod in Akutan, about 750 miles southwest of Anchorage. The plant is the company's largest Alaska location. Chief Executive Director Joe Bundrant said in a statement on Monday that it is assessing potential operational impacts of COVID-19 spreading at the facility.  

VIDEO: Harrisburg city's fire department has released video from a firefighter's helmet camera that shows the rescue of a North 15th Street resident from his burning home shortly after first crews arrived. Chief Brian Enterline said the man was seen by firefighters at a second-floor, bedroom window in the 1400 block of North 15th as they were making initial exterior checks of the structure. The man, who has not been named, was successfully pulled out by responding firefighters, and received treatment for smoke inhalation at Holy Spirit Hospital. Enterline said he was in good condition as of Sunday night. Unfortunately, another resident in the residence died in the blaze, which was dispatched at 4:15 p.m. Sunday. Enterline said the city and Dauphin County Coroner's office expect to release more information on the victim and what investigators have learned about the blaze on Tuesday. As of Monday night, however, he could confirm that the fire was accidental in nature.  

Nearly 200 San Diego Fire-Rescue personnel have so far turned down a COVID-19 vaccine, showing reluctance as health officials scramble to protect frontline workers like firefighters from the highly infectious coronavirus. As of Wednesday, 191 personnel had declined to take the vaccine; 895 had gotten the shot, according to department figures. The vaccine is available to all of the department's roughly 1,500 employees, including lifeguards and non-sworn staff, a spokeswoman said. The force includes 943 firefighters, who double as paramedics or emergency medical technicians, placing them on the front lines of the pandemic. As of Wednesday, 99 firefighters had tested positive, according to the department. Department spokeswoman Mónica Muñoz said the vaccination figures may not account for vaccines administered by employees' health care providers, adding that the department is not privy to personal health information.  

As rental and home prices increase throughout the state, some firefighters say they can't afford to live in the communities they work in. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, South Carolina's annual mean wage in 2019 was $36,360, one of the lowest in the country. Bill Pesature, the vice president of the Professional Firefighters Association of SC, says salaries for firefighters have not kept up with the cost of living. "They can't live where they work anymore. It just doesn't happen," Pesature said. "You need to raise your rates for what you pay people and take care of your people. Retention is vital." Pesature also says many firefighters are leaving the state for better pay, and investments aren't being made into the people who have been in fire departments for a long time. Instead, money is being used to train new people. Justin Lenker, the president of Midway Professional Firefighters Association Local 3617 and a firefighter with Midway Fire Rescue, says their salaries tend to be lower, and the cost of living on Pawley's Island is about 11% higher than surrounding areas.  

One-hundred -twenty-six years ago this past week, the city of Butte was rocked by a massive explosion that killed 58 people. On January 15th 1895, the Kenyon-Connell Warehouse explosion not only ended the lives of its innocent victims; it devastated their families and broke the city's heart. For some time now, community leaders, historians and artists have been working on a project to construct a monument to honor the men who died in that explosion. Butte Historical Memorials, a non-profit, has published a book about the explosion and its aftermath called 'Out of the Ashes: The Forgotten Story of the 1895 Butte Explosion.' To begin a retelling of the story, the group's chairman Jim McCarthy and its vice-chairwoman Lindsay Mulcahy took NBC Montana to an industrial section of the city. Home to warehouses and empty fields scattered with old machinery, Lindsay told us "we are at Ground Zero of the Butte Warehouse explosion site."