A Plano Fire-Rescue firefighter and paramedic died Friday surrounded by family after a lengthy hospital stay, fire officials say. A family member found Phillipe Casey Talley, 46, unconscious and unresponsive Jan. 8 at his Farmersville home. He was taken to Medical City McKinney, where he remained in the ICU. Talley died Friday morning of natural causes with his family by his side. Fire department personnel were also present and were providing a silent watch, a fire service tradition, fire officials said. Firefighters will remain with him providing a silent guard until he is interred. Talley began his career in fire service with the Denison Fire Department in 2003, where he was promoted to driver operator. He was hired as a firefighter and paramedic for Plano Fire-Rescue in June 2007, and served out of the department's Fire Station 6.  

At least a dozen people were hospitalized Sunday after a carbon monoxide leak at a homeless shelter in downtown Dallas, officials say. Dallas Fire-Rescue was notified at about 11 a.m. after several guests at The Bridge Homeless Recovery Center in the 1800 block of Corsicana Street began complaining of feeling ill. Officials evaluated the patients who had symptoms including nausea, lightheadedness and headaches. Firefighters got a positive reading on the carbon monoxide detector and evacuated about 200 people from the shelter, fire officials said. At least 11 guests, one Bridge employee and a volunteer were hospitalized, but all were expected to be released later Sunday, said Nick Colletti, chief development officer with the center.  

A district judge this week reversed a hearing examiner's 2012 decision to uphold the City of Beaumont's suspension of a firefighter. Beaumont firefighter James Matthews was suspended in 2011. The city suspended him as a result of an aggravated assault charge. The charge was filed following a 2008 incident in which Matthews tried to detain Jeremiah Freeman, whom he suspected was driving drunk. The assault charge was dropped in 2009. The city did not reinstate Matthews after the charges were dropped, and he has been fighting to return to work since then. Freeman died in an accident in 2011. Judge Justin Sanderson Thursday ruled that the hearing examiner exceeded his jurisdiction in 2012 when he determined the city's suspension was in compliance with Texas Government Code.  

A Dallas Fire-Rescue ambulance has been recovered by Louisiana state police after a woman stole it and drove it across state lines Sunday afternoon, Dallas Fire-Rescue said Sunday. The ambulance was stolen from Fire Station 53, located at 1407 John West Road in east Dallas. Medics discovered the truck was missing when they were assigned to a 911 call and realized the truck was not there. Dallas Fire-Rescue was able to track the ambulance as it headed east on Interstate 20 out of Texas toward Bossier City in Louisiana. The driver, 19-year-old Kendall Tyson of Dallas, failed to stop and then led Louisiana police on a high-speed chase that ended in Bossier Parish when slow traffic stopped the ambulance. Tyson was taken into custody without incident around 5:45 p.m., Louisiana officials said.  

A volunteer firefighter has been arrested for allegedly using fire department equipment to break into a coin operated machine at a car wash. Casey Marre, a volunteer firefighter with the Burnet Volunteer Fire Department, is accused of stealing $210 from the machine at the Wash Time Car Wash in Liberty Hill, according to the Liberty Hill Police Department. Marre, 29, has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief and was booked into the Travis County Jail on Jan. 31. Records show he is no longer in jail. Surveillance images released by police appear to show a man holding a large device towards the machine. Police said the incident happened at 9:25 a.m. on Jan. 17. The device used in the burglary was identified as a Hurst, which is commonly referred to as the "Jaws of Life," according to police. It is used by fire departments to conduct rescues.  

Donna Odem-Nichols saw a lot during her 32 years with the Victoria Fire Department, including a need for a service that can be difficult to talk about and traumatic for families already grappling with immense loss. Contrary to what one might assume, families are responsible for postmortem cleanup after first responders and law enforcement leave the scene of a death. "In Victoria we've never really had a real community-oriented company that would do this work, so I've actually gotten off at 7 o'clock before and gone back to a home to clean up for people because I felt sorry for them, and I didn't want them to have to deal with that personal reminder of a tragic event." Now retired, Odem-Nichols has started a biohazard remediation company called Angels Among Us with her husband, John Nichols, to serve the residents of Victoria and surrounding counties.  

The city intends to hire a professional fire service consultant to conduct an examination and analysis of the administration, operations, training and deployment practices of the Fire Department. The study will include a master plan for the Fire Department that will assess its internal operations and staffing, and provide a gap analysis of its current situation against national standards and best practices, according to City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. Simultaneous with that study, Augustus said, he will conduct a review of the Division of Inspectional Services, since it works with the Fire Department to ensure the safety of all buildings in the city. The manager said a coordinated approach by both departments is critical to keeping residents and first responders safe.  

VIDEO: It's not just for video games anymore. The Myrtle Beach Fire Department is now using virtual reality as a way to better educate the community on what it's like to be a firefighter. Firefighters plan to debut the technology to students at Pathways to Possibilities next week at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. The hope is to get younger kids interested in a career in the fire service. When the headset is put on, the video immerses the viewer in a 360-degree video, taking the viewer from sitting at a table preparing for the day inside Fire Station 1 to rushing out on a call. Myrtle Beach fire Capt. John Evans said that they received money from the Horry Georgetown Fire Chiefs Association and worked with the IT department in the city of Myrtle Beach to get the 360-degree camera and make it happen. Evans said when they were first researching ideas on how to use new technology, he noticed other departments weren't using this.  

After a photo believed to have been taken last year of a D.C. Fire recruit class showed three white men making what looked like an "OK symbol" with their hands, an internal investigation found they were not aware the hand gesture is associated with white supremacy. Weeks before an internal investigation cleared three members of recruit class 387, D.C. Council member Charles Allen, D-Ward 6, asked about the photo in question at a council committee hearing. "I see diversity in the class, but I only see the symbol being displayed by white men, so that to me gives me major cause of concern," Allen said. D.C. Fire Chief Gregory Dean said, "Racist symbols are not consistent with our core values." The internal investigative report obtained by WTOP found the symbol was part of a game that some members of the class would play called the circle game, where they would display an upside-down OK hand gesture below their waist.  

Paramedic Trent Bowers received a call on a recent January night: A woman had been beaten at a St. Louis Family Dollar store. When Bowers arrived, the woman showed him injuries across her body. "This looks like it's out of place," he said, looking at her knee. He suggested she take the ambulance to the hospital, but the woman said she couldn't afford it without insurance. In less than an hour, a recording of the exchange reached hundreds of thousands of viewers on national TV's "Live Rescue," an A&E reality series that features "almost live" feeds of fire crews and emergency medical service units in seven U.S. cities. Since its premiere in April, the St. Louis Fire Department has been one of the show's most reliable stars. Last month, fire officials agreed to participate in a third season.  

When firefighter Richard "Dick" Boyer responded to a fire call at the Reading YMCA on a bitter cold morning in January 1985, he immediately sensed something wasn't right. "The fire hose on the sidewalk was burning, and the handle on the Knox box had melted," recalled Boyer, 76, a retired Reading fire chief. In the moments that followed, Boyer would discover the tragic reason that caused a fire so intense it consumed a hose intended to destroy it. A flashover, a type of incendiary explosion that erupted in the kitchen, unleashed a firestorm that swept down a hallway, through the lobby and up the stairways of the first three floors of the six-story structure at Washington and Reed streets. In its wake, the killer fire claimed the lives of a firefighter and three YMCA residents, and badly burned two other firefighters.