The Rock City Fire Protection District mourns the loss of one of its own. Firefighter Cody Penticoff died in a motor vehicle crash on Aug. 23, the district announced on Facebook Saturday evening. Details about the crash were not shared. The fire protection district says funeral arrangements are pending. Following the announcement on social media, several area fire departments including the Win-Bur-Sew Fire Protection District, Pecatonica Fire Protection District and German Valley Fire Department offered their condolences. Rock City is a village in Stephenson County, about 10 miles northeast of Freeport.  

VIDEO: Several people are displaced after a large house fire in Lakeview Sunday morning. It happened at around 6 a.m. in the 1400 block of West Fletcher Street and was declared a two-alarm fire. Chicago fire officials have yet to release details on what caused the blaze, but did say the building is a total loss. City crews even had to coordinate a controlled demolition of the home as part of the backside had already collapsed. WGN News spoke with Samantha McNelis who lives one building down from the home that caught fire. She said while the fire did not reach her home, water did. "I don't know how the water thing works with the fire hydrants, but it caused the basement in my apartment to flood completely," McNelis said. She added her roommate woke up to 18 inches of water in the basement.  

VIDEO/PHOTO: The Normal Fire Department responded to a fire near the Rivian Automotive manufacturing facility Saturday night. According to the department's spokesman Matt Swaney, fire crews responded to reports of a vehicle fire in the parking lot on the north side of the facility at about 9:43 p.m. The fire damaged multiple vehicles in the parking lot before it was extinguished. The Rivian facility was unaffected by the fire. No injuries have been reported according to Swaney. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. The fire department is expected to release more information when it becomes available. According to Rivian's Corporate Communications Sr. Manager Kelli Felker, Rivian is also investigating the cause of the fire. She also confirmed that the plant was not affected by the fire.  

PHOTOS: A large house fire that sent one to the hospital devastated a home in Skiatook, taking multiple departments and tanker trucks hours to put out. 2 News got a call from a viewer about the fire. By the time crews got there, the home was completely engulfed. It was a shocking scene in Skiatook on Aug. 23. According to neighbors, a large 10,000-square-foot home that had recently been for sale caught fire. Deputy Chief Sam Little with the Skiatook Fire Department said the home was a total loss. He said the fire started in the attic on the left side of the house. After being exposed to the outside, the winds blew the fire throughout the attic and into other areas of the house. For hours, several units, including Skiatook and Sperry fire, battled the blaze.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: Firefighting is a tough, dangerous job, especially in Arizona where wildfires are prevalent and deadly. Phoenix launched its first fire department in 1886 when a special bond raised $10,000 to purchase equipment and improve the water supply. In the decades after, the city worked to expand staff and upgrade equipment to effectively fight blazes around town. Arizona's firefighting history includes the Yarnell Hill Fire, which overran and killed 19 wildland firefighters with the Granite Mountain Hotshots crew on June 30, 2013. It is the deadliest wildland fire for U.S. firefighters since 1933 and the greatest loss of U.S. firefighter life since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. If you're interested in firefighter history or seeing historic fire trucks and equipment, head to the Hall of Flame Fire Museum near Papago Park in Phoenix.  

VIDEO: Crews with Dallas Fire-Rescue (DFR) rescued 15 people associated with the Los Angeles Chargers -- both players and members of the team's traveling party -- who were trapped in an elevator at The Westin hotel in Downtown Dallas on Friday night. The Chargers, in town for their final 2024 preseason matchup against the Dallas Cowboys on Saturday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, acknowledged in a social media post Friday night that members of the team were stranded in an inoperable elevator in the team's hotel. According to DFR, crews responded at around 7:44 p.m. to reports of an elevator emergency at The Westin, located at 1201 Main Street. DFR said an elevator technician made efforts to try and get the elevator working, but was not successful in their attempts.  

Near the end of an April workday in 2022, the Virginia International Raceway fire and rescue team was notified that a racecar driver had fallen and hit his head just after getting out of his vehicle. The driver had collapsed while talking to his pit crew, and the response team soon learned that the situation was more serious than a simple fall. "We were all packing up in order to go home, and we were almost out the door when we heard that someone had fallen," said Corey McBride, co-assistant director of fire and rescue at the raceway. One of the ambulances that hadn't packed up for the day responded to the call, and the team quickly radioed for additional help because the driver had gone into cardiac arrest. This caught McBride off guard because the raceway's on-site fire and rescue staff typically respond to fire and trauma emergencies more often than medical emergencies, he said.