A 400-acre fire prompted evacuations in Horseshoe Bay Thursday afternoon. Horseshoe Bay posted on its website that there is a "major brush fire" in the Trails Subdivision and Blue Lake Subdivision, which are on the western edge of the bay. Just before 11 p.m., the fire was 50% contained, according to Texas A&M Forest Service. Voluntary evacuations were lifted Thursday night, but one building was reported destroyed. Although no one was hurt, many homes were threatened as the flames tore through the area. One of those homes belonged to Scott Jones. He says he received a text alert around 3:30 p.m. about the massive fire approaching his neighborhood. "It's a little frightening as you're riding up, and the smoke was just so large, and the flames were still visible, and you just start checking the wind real quick," Jones said. As the flames surrounded his neighborhood — worry set in.  

An appeals court will not hear oral arguments in a legal battle between the city of Houston, the Houston Professional Police Officers Union and the Houston Professional Firefighters Association. The 14th Court of Appeals instead is asking each party to submit written briefs by Sept. 3. The court made the announcement Aug. 12. The decision is the latest development in a yearslong clash between the city and the firefighters union. After contract negotiations between the two failed, the union led a successful ballot initiative, Proposition B, requiring equal pay for firefighters compared to police officers of the same rank. The initiative, which nearly resulted in hundreds of firefighter layoffs, has been caught in legal proceedings since its passage in November 2018.  

A local Congressman announced $86,435.60 in funding for firefighter safety and operations in the city of Donna, Edinburg and Pharr on Thursday. Congressman Vicente Gonzalez said that these grants were awarded as part of the Assistance for Firefighters Program (AFG) by the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency in cooperation with the U.S. Fire Administration. "Firefighters are heroes and serve our society well by protecting our life, property and safety," said Congressman Gonzalez. "They are an integral part of our community and I am proud to support these brave men and women who run toward danger on a daily basis to help others. These funds will help support the firefighters in our community with safety and operation costs so they can better serve us."  

It was fanfare and well wishes for Lubbock firefighter Matt Dawson on his return home. He is still recovering from a mid-January crash which claimed the life of a fellow firefighter Lt. Eric Hill and Lubbock police officer Nicholas Reyna. Dawson survived, but suffered serious injuries. "And the man sitting in that red vehicle right here in front of you left out of that fire station over there in a fire truck to render assistance to someone he had never met," Shaun Fogerson, Lubbock fire chief, said. And now, Dawson is back in Lubbock in good spirits. In front of friends, family and strangers Dawson returned to the Hub City. This is his first time home in months.  

Rounding up your change at Amarillo's Firehouse Subs an make a huge difference. The business recently donated over $24,000 to the Boys Ranch Fire Department for new equipment that will help save lives. The department purchased four new self-contained breathing apparatuses with the funds and is thankful for the donation. "Oh my gosh, that was a God send," said Captain Mike Pacino, with the Boys Ranch Fire Department. "This equipment has a value of about $24,400. That's more than we get the budget for our fire department for three years." The department is comprised of 30 volunteer adult and junior firefighters. The new carbon fiber tanks will replace 20-year-old steel SCBA's. According to Coby Jones, the owner of Firehouse Subs, this donation was all thanks for the Amarillo community.  

Investigators with the Texas Forest Service said Wednesday that the cause of a 27 acre wildfire at Bastrop State Park was "mechanical in nature." "Anything that produces heat or can make a spark can start a fire just as easily," said Texas Forest Service Firewise Coordinator Kari Hines. "Whether its a lawn mower blade hitting a rock, parking or driving on dry grass, a chain saw blade finding embedded metal in a tree, welding or grinding outside, metal hitting the road as a car drives down or so many other things — we implore residents to think about how they can prevent wildfires and have a plan in case one starts while they are working outside." The fire that burned 27 acres of Bastrop State Park on Monday may continue to billow smoke possibly through the weekend under close supervision, a state park official said.  

It was the worst of the worst. Good young men. Running for their lives. Nowhere to hide. The fire was relentless. This month marks the 83rd memorial anniversary of the worst forest fire disaster in Wyoming history when it comes to loss of firefighter lives. In an obscure and difficult place to reach called Blackwater, a group of forest rangers and Civilian Conservation Corps firefighters lost their lives on Aug. 21, 1937. Lightning started the fire that burned some 1,700 acres in the Shoshone National Forest west of Cody. Although the fire began on Aug. 18, it slept and was not detected until two days later. Some 58 men were deployed in the area. A weather event called a "dry cold front" was instrumental in the fire blowing up and engulfing the crew that died. Nine men perished immediately and another six died later of their horrific burns.  

When everyone who tests positive for coronavirus in your community gets a call from a public health worker asking them about their contacts, and those contacts are then asked to quarantine, that can be a powerful way to keep the virus from spreading. But contact tracing can do more than that: At scale, the data gathered in those calls also offers vital information about where transmission is happening in a community. That data can drive policy, and even guide individuals in assessing what's more or less safe to go out and do in their communities. NPR has surveyed the health departments of all U.S. states and territories three times to ask about contact tracing capacity — first in April, then again in mid-June, and most recently in late July. The latest survey, done in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, also asked states about contact tracing data: what they were gathering and what they're making public.  

VIDEO: Prankster Stephen Gilchrist Glover, better known as Steve-O, was removed from a Hollywood billboard to which he taped himself Thursday. Glover posted a selfie on Instagram, showing several layers of what appears to be black tape covering his body from his armpits to his thighs. Video of him being removed from the billboard showed he only wore what appeared to be white underwear underneath the tape. "There is zero chance of me falling, and it's important to me that we not waste any valuable city resources on this," he wrote in the post. Nonetheless, images posted on Twitter show firefighters gathering below the billboard, in the 1700 block of North Cahuenga Boulevard, preparing to remove him from the billboard and lower him back to the ground. The LAFD confirmed they were at the scene and that one or more lanes may be shut down until the apparent rescue operation is completed.  

A Lebanon firefighter who was injured in an explosion at a hotel on Christmas Eve morning last year is telling what happened. Capt. Jeffrey Egner was one of two firefighters who were injured in an explosion at the Element Hotel in Lebanon on the morning of Dec. 24. According to the Lebanon Fire Department, they received an alarm just after 5:15 a.m. from the hotel on Foothill Street. "The whistle on our roof actually went off with box alarm, so it was a little eerie to begin with," Egner said. He added that when they arrived, the hotel was dark. When they got inside, someone led he and Firefighter Todd Hamilton to the first floor. "And as we were going down the hallway, we noticed a puddle of water on the ground, coming out from underneath a doorway, figuring that was odd and that was probably where our issue was," Egner said.  

Eric Retterbush has never liked taking photos of people. The practice feels invasive and risks overlooking the beauty of, say, a wheelbarrow or a particularly striking façade, he says. It also teeters on voyeurism. How many in the throng of a bustling Burmese market—one of the countries he works in as a travel guide (his day job)—have been photographed without their permission? Wasn't it Honoré de Balzac who said all physical bodies were made of ghostlike images, "an infinite number of leaflike skins laid one on top of the other," and repeated exposure to a camera stripped these—that is, the very essence of life—off? No—street photography, candid portraiture, a shot of someone who doesn't know you—it was never Retterbush's pull. And yet, for the past four months, it has been people who are the subject of Retterbush's photos.