PHOTO: Video captured flames shooting from a massive house early Sunday morning in Montgomery County. KHOU 11 reached out to the Magnolia fire chief, who said that the fire was suspicious. Later in the day, the Montgomery County Fire Marshal's Office announced that a 30-year-old woman had been arrested and charged in connection with the fire. She's charged with arson of a habitation, a felony, MCFMO officials said. The Magnolia Fire Department said they got the call at around 2:30 a.m. about the fire at a home on Nichols Sawmill just south of County Lake Drive. Crews arrived to find the 6,800-square-foot home completely engulfed in flames. Fire officials said they had trouble accessing the home because of low-hanging tree limbs over the driveway. While the home was burning, parts of the roof and chimney collapsed.  

VIDEO: Two years ago, an explosion at Highland Hills Apartments in Dallas left three firefighters severely injured. They are still coping with their injuries to this day. "It came in as a carbon monoxide leak," Ron Hall said. "I just heard the force that the gas was coming out." Hall was a driver engineer with Dallas Fire-Rescue and dedicated 38 years to the department. He was working out of Station 25 when the call came in. It was not carbon monoxide, but a natural gas leak. "We've made hundreds of gas calls through our career. Just unfortunately, that's the one that had to explode that day," said Hall. On Sept. 29, 2021, the explosion sent flames and smoke in the air, destroying the apartment building and damaging several other buildings and cars around it. Hall, Captain Chris Gadomski and Officer Pauline Perez were at the center of it all.  

San Antonio firefighters say what began as a fire outside a far East Side home has since destroyed two houses early Monday morning. The fire was called in around 1 a.m. at a home in the 5800 block of Lake Bluff, found not far from Rigsby Avenue and outside Loop 410, inside the Lakeside neighborhood. Firefighters said when they arrived, they found the roof of a home engulfed in flames and the house next door to it catching fire. Fire officials said a gas meter broke and the fire was shooting up from the ground. The blaze caught the second house and then the fire spread across to the attic, firefighters said. The fire was eventually put out, but not before both homes became a total loss. There were no reported injuries as a result of the fire. Everyone inside both houses made it safely out. The residents, however, are now displaced.  

As of 12:01 a.m. Sunday morning, firefighters with the City of Nolanville answered the call to be ‘on duty' as part of a "hybrid" fire department model, according to officials at City Hall. Firefighters Ian McCormick and Alexis Bermea gave a tour of the temporary space at City Hall. It includes a place to rest and relax as well as for preparing paperwork and team meetings. Equipment and trucks are located steps outside the building and a nearby storage building holds equipment which will be put in place once the permanent building is ready. On May 22, the City announced the hiring of Fire Chief Robert Cunningham—who recently served as the Captain for the City of Killeen Fire Department and their Honor Guard Commander.  

PHOTOS: A row of Cypress trees caught fire on Friday night, threatening nearby structures and residents. Video from the scene, near the intersection of Waring Avenue and Highland Avenue, captures onlookers warning others to get away from the fire that started around 10:30 p.m. Firefighters rushed to the area and were able to extinguish the blaze before it completely spread to an apartment building adjacent to the row of trees. One person was taken to the hospital, but their condition is unknown, authorities said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.  

A Cincinnati firefighter is the first woman in the history of the Cincinnati Fire Department to be certified as a bomb technician. Firefighter Nykeba Banks joins a select few as a prestigious United States Public Safety Bomb Technician, the fire department said in a news release Monday. She received her certification from the Hazardous Devices School at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala. Banks was one of only two women in her six-week training class. She graduated on Sept. 22. It's estimated that nationally only about 9% of 3,000 certified bomb techs are female, according to the city's release. "They told us [at the school] that only 400 people would graduate from the program this year. They said that more people would climb Mt. Everest this year," Banks said in the release.  

The Valley Hispanic Bomberos have been mentoring aspiring firefighters for decades. Now that those volunteers are on Valley firefighter crews, they're carrying on the legacy. From outreach to training programs, the Bomberos are connecting with Spanish-dominant neighborhoods to get teens involved. They've partnered with Franklin Police and Fire High School in Phoenix to put on workouts for aspiring recruits. "We're a small organization, but our bread and butter is mentorship and community involvement," said Phoenix Fire Captain Greg Morales who volunteers with the Bomberos. Capt. Morales got his start with the organization. "They helped me and guided me to do all the things that I needed to do to get hired," he recalled.  

Massachusetts State Fire Marshal Jon M. Davine said that the Department of Fire Services has added mammograms to the complement of free, early-detection cancer screenings available to Massachusetts firefighters. "Firefighters are at greater risk of developing cancer, developing it at younger ages, and receiving a late diagnosis than the public they protect," said State Fire Marshal Davine. "This includes the growing number of women firefighters in Massachusetts and across the nation. As we kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we're proud to announce that we've added mammograms to the array of free cancer screening options we offer to Massachusetts firefighters." An April 2023 article in Frontiers in Public Health found that breast cancer accounted for more than 25% of cancer diagnoses among women firefighters who took part in a 2019-2020 survey.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: The Indianapolis Fire Department rescued an unruly police drone that got stuck on top of a crane this weekend. The crew was asked to get the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department drone after it landed on the structure near the "Rise on Meridian" apartments construction site on South Meridian Street on Saturday. The fire department posted a video and pictures of the retrieval on social media, showing a firefighter making the 130-foot climb. The rescue started around 10:15 a.m. on Saturday. "After an errant IMPD drone perched itself on top of a construction crane while in the course of its duties overnight, IFD TacTeam 7C utilized the ask by IMPD Logistics to help retrieve it, (and took it) as an opportunity to conduct some spur of the moment high angle ropes/crane training," IFD wrote in the post.