Fire crews were on scene Wednesday afternoon fighting a fire that erupted in a building containing apartments and a business in Mt. Vernon. Mt. Vernon Fire Chief Kevin Sargent said they got the call of a structure on fire at 2:58 p.m. at 1101 Perkins Ave. Fire crews and police rushed to the scene to find heavy flames and smoke coming out of the rear portion of the building. Sargent said police were able to get a person out of the building at the time it was on fire. Crews fought the flames and extinguished the fire, wrapping up at around 5 p.m., a couple hours after they arrived on scene. Sargent said the building was once a church but was recently purchased and turned into a couple of apartments and a resale business. He said the building is a total loss.  

Crews responded to a still and box alarm fire at an Englewood home early Thursday morning. Fire officials say the blaze broke out around 4:30 a.m. at a two-and-a-half-story home located at 5521 South Emerald Avenue. First responders had to go on the defensive to fight the flames. The fire was put out by 5:35 a.m. Crews then began to salvage and overhaul the residence. There were no injuries reported and no one was hospitalized.  

The union representing Springfield firefighters wants to see the city move into the ambulance business, transporting patients to the hospital in the most urgent situations to reduce waits for care. "We'd like to grow our department," said Kainan Rinaberger, president of Springfield Fire Fighters Local 37. "We have the resources. We have the people. We have the paramedics on the job, and we want to provide that service because that's what people expect of us." City officials are studying a fully or partially municipally operated ambulance service as one option for improving emergency medical services. The concept was discussed in a January analysis of fire department operations done by the nonprofit Center for Public Safety Management in Washington, D.C.  

As drivers take it slow on the icy roads, rescue crews and first responders face even more challenges getting to emergencies. For every call they get, first responders say their top priority is to help those who need it. However, they must also worry about getting to the scene, before they become the emergency themselves. In Boone County, District 2 Fire Chief Brian Kunce says during ice storms the emergency vehicles carry salt to minimize sliding as they get to a scene. "It takes a longer time to get there, we've already had two in this last hour," said Kunce. But Kunce says vehicle accidents are just one concern during severe winter weather. Many people get hurt slipping on the ice, and freezing rain can build up on power lines, weighing them down and causing them to snap. In some cases, they start fires.  

On May 30, 1963, fire claimed one of Tacoma's oldest and grandest structures. "On some level I think everybody felt like wow this was a gut shot," said historian Michael Sullivan. The fire broke out at the Music Box during a matinee screening of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." "There was an old bearing and a fan in an old projector room that caught fire," said University of Washington Tacoma historian Kim Davenport. "And it was so high in the building it spread to everything under the rooftop before there was anyway the firefighters could get to it." Moviegoers got out safely only to witness a smoking spectacle from the sidewalk: history going up in flames. It was an event all captured on film preserved by retired Tacoma firefighter Matt Holm who contacted Tacoma Home Movies filmmaker Mick Flaan after seeing a story about his restoration of home movies on KING 5 Evening.  

VIDEO: After nearly 20 years of delays and planning, Fire Station 18 in northwest Fresno is now up and running after Wednesday's ribbon cutting. For the past 17 years, firefighters at Fire Station 18 have been working out of a three-bedroom home but now they have one of the most advanced firehouses in the valley. "It was a typical residential home and it was very comfortable like a resident home should be but it wasn't up to the standard where we should be at," said Fresno Fire Captain Wiley Erickson. Wednesday's grand opening comes, after years of planning and construction the crew of Fire Station 18 received a new state-of-the-art firehouse. The station will not only improve community response it is also safer due to its advanced technology. "This fire station has a ramp-up alert system that gets progressively louder studies have shown that this new method releases psychological and cardiovascular stress," said Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer.  

The FDNY is proposing to raise the price of an ambulance ride by over 50 percent. The cost of a ride, that is called through 911, would go up from $900 to nearly $1,400. There would also be an increase in charges per mile to the hospital from $15 to $20. The department says the hike is needed because of inflation, as well as a pay bump for EMS workers. It handles about 70 percent of the city's hospital transports. Costs for advanced life support emergency transports, which require more highly-trained paramedics, could see similar increases. The last price increase was in 2021, when the price for an ambulance ride ticked up 16% from $775 to $900. Final decisions about this proposal will be made in late March. If the ambulance price hike is approved, the change would go into effect in the spring.  

A bill to make it easier for New Mexico firefighters to legally use medical marijuana got off to a hot start Friday. House Bill 292 would narrow the definition of "safety-sensitive position" in the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act, which governs the state's medical cannabis program. As proposed, the definition would only include employees who are required to carry a firearm or operate a vehicle with a commercial driver's license and "whose performance under the influence of drugs or alcohol would constitute an immediate or direct threat of injury or death to the person or another." State law currently defines a "safety-sensitive position" ineligible for the medical cannabis program more broadly, barring firefighters from using medical cannabis without their employer's permission.  

VIDEO: The annual Guns ‘N Hoses event at Enterprise Center presented a huge check Wednesday from last year's event. The event raised one million dollars for the BackStoppers this past November. "That's two years in a row at a million dollars, and how they've supported us," said Chief Ron Battelle, executive director of the BackStoppers. "My reaction to that is thank you to the community for all they did to support us." For the second year in a row, the boxing match, which features St. Louis police, firefighters, and EMTs going toe to toe, was carried live on FOX 2. It is also the second year in a row that a million dollars have been raised for the nonprofit that assists first responder families. "We had the opportunity to get involved with the stations in 2019," said Kurt Krueger, general manager of KTVI and KPLR 11.