A new bill that has passed the Illinois Senate could bring tax incentives to volunteer fire and EMS personnel to encourage recruitment. This comes just two weeks after the I-55 crash that took the lives of seven people and left dozens injured. The tax credit would provide $500 to those who have been a part of the force for at least nine months and have not received compensation totaling more than $10,000. "We shouldn't have to wait for [the] I-55 crash to bring this up," Captain and volunteer for North Park Fire, Matt Hehn said. "Volunteers [are] a dying thing. We need more than what they're willing to give. We need to step it up a little bit to help pay for the guys are spending their time here and helping out the communities that they serve." Although North Park Fire is grateful for the incentives, they don't believe its enough to encourage recruitment.  

The new mayor of Springfield has big plans for the city, including possibly creating a citywide ambulance service. It comes amid concerns about firefighters riding in ambulances. Mayor Misty Buscher said instead of fighting fires, they're providing medical care. Buscher said at least 10 times a month a firefighter has to give medical care because no one was present. We sat down with the first-term mayor, who is just one week into her term. She said it was time to find a different solution. "Ten times that our firefighters got into ambulances is when there were no ALS providers on the ambulance, they were just BLS," Buscher said at last week's Committee of the Whole meeting. That's according to officials at a meeting earlier this year, including Springfield Memorial, SIU, and HSHS St. John's.  

What started as a final hurrah for newly graduated U of I students could follow some of them to court. "There was one couch put in the middle of the street. Then all of a sudden there [were] 20 couches and it was kind-of the craziest thing I've ever seen," U of I senior Jared Kurland said. Then, that pile of furniture was set on fire as hundreds of people watched. Students say the crowd started gathering just before midnight. By 12:15, the fire ignited at the intersection of S Oak and E Chalmers Streets in Champaign. By 1 a.m. Monday, multiple citations for open alcohol violations were issued. "I mean, I probably inhaled half a couch just being in the vicinity because everything was going up in the air," U of I senior Spencer Gallagher said. That's a sentence you don't hear every day. "Someone wanted to start a fire and that's exactly what happened," Kurland said.  

PHOTOS: Evansville firefighters are on the scene of a fire in the 400 block of Northwest Third Street. Firefighters were dispatched to the old Pearl Laundry building just before 2 a.m. Wednesday morning. When crews arrived, they were met with flames shooting from the building. According to Division Fire Chief Mike Larson, fighting the blaze hasn't been easy. Larson says all of the fire equipment put a heavy demand on the water supply, making it difficult to get water to the building at first. That problem has since been solved. The scene is still very active, and parts of downtown are currently without electricity as a result of the fire. "CenterPoint Energy has been down here with us as they always do. Great, great work. They've got the electricity shut off to a big portion of this downtown area here because they couldn't initially isolate the building," says Larson.  

VIDEO: The newest and most expensive truck in the Providence Fire Department's fleet is out of service after a partial roof collapse caused significant damage. The city's fire chief says Tower Ladder One is primarily used for its 100-foot extendable ladder and bucket. Crews responded Saturday afternoon to a fire at a three-story, multi-family home on Stanwood Street. They used Tower Ladder One to reach a third-story window and search for people inside. Once it was in place, a portion of the burning roof fell onto the truck's bucket. "When it was extended in the air, that roof came down into the bucket and effectively turned the inside of this bucket into a fire pit," Chief Derek Silva told 12 News. The interior of the bucket was burned and its cables and controls melted, according to Silva.  

As the number of fentanyl overdoses soars on Oahu, the City Council is debating whether to arm bartenders with Narcan, a nasal spray that can reverse an opioid overdose. A bill before the body would make Honolulu the first jurisdiction in the country to mandate all bars, night clubs and restaurants that serve alcohol have Narcan on site. Some Honolulu bars, like Proof Social Club in Chinatown, already do. Owner Jasmine Mancos said business is finally getting back to normal following the pandemic. "It's definitely picking up," she said. "We do a lot of live music. DJ's. Different shows." But as Honolulu's nightlife returns, fentanyl has become an emerging threat to the social scene and beyond. "It's definitely an issue," Mancos said. "Not just with bars and night clubs, but restaurants and really, anywhere you go nowadays."  

Stellantis is recalling more than 132,000 Jeep Cherokees at risk of catching fire due to an electrical problem that a previous recall failed to fix. The company instructs owners to park their vehicles outdoors until the problem can be addressed, though no repair is available yet. Issued last Thursday, the recall concerns the power liftgate module used in some 2014-2016 Jeep Cherokees. As originally built, water could find its way into the power liftgate module and cause an electrical short. A recall in 2015 attempted to fix that issue by replacing the module's organic resin cover with a waterproof one, as well as any corroded connectors. That repair may not have fixed the problem, as the new recall warns that the short could cause a fire in the power liftgate module when the ignition is on or off.