A firefighter on board an ambulance was injured Saturday in a crash on a southwest Houston road. It happened in the 9900 block of Keegan Rd. at Huntington Park Drive after 8:30 a.m. The ambulance was running with lights and its siren while transporting a patient then the crash happened, police said. The ambulance didn't yield at an intersection and crashed into a pickup truck. Neither the pickup driver nor the patient inside the ambulance was injured, according to authorities on scene. The firefighter was transported to Memorial Hermann in the Texas Medical Center, fire officials said. There was no word on their condition. An ambulance on the scene had damage to the front end and the pickup truck ended up in a ditch.  

Katy Fire Chief Rusty Wilson tendered his resignation to Katy Mayor Bill Hastings according to a brief press release from the mayor's office released Friday evening. The notice said Wilson's resignation will be effective at the end of the day Oct. 23. "Effective October 23, 2020 at 5:01 p.m., Asst. Fire Chief Kenneth Parker will be the Interim Fire Chief for the City of Katy," Hastings said via the press release. Wilson took over the department in 2016 and was tasked with restructuring the department from a volunteer organization to a professional fire department. Since that time, he was able to institute changes that led to the department obtaining a Class 1 designation from the Insurance Services Office in October of last year, making Katy FD one of the top 300 fire departments in the nation. Wilson was also named fire chief of the year by the Texas Association of Fire Chiefs in 2018 and was instrumental in the development of Katy's Fire Station 2 near Katy Mills.  

A fire destroyed three booths at the Texas Renaissance Festival near Plantersville in Grimes County, Friday afternoon. A spokesperson for the festival said firefighters from Todd Mission, Plantersville/Stoneham, Whitehall, Tri-County, Rolling Hills and Magnolia responded to the fire near the Polish Pub. The blaze destroyed booths, 63, 64, and 65 and damaged two other booths. There were no injuries reported. The fire happened as the festival was winding down the first week of opening while under the pandemic. The festival plans to open as scheduled for the second weekend of the 46th season. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.  

An alleged serial arsonist who authorities say may be responsible for setting dozen of blazes that have terrorized the city of Houston in recent weeks has been arrested. The suspect, 28-year-old Joshua Rauch, was arrested on Saturday after arson investigators scouring surveillance video spotted Rauch's car at the location of some of the fires, giving them enough probable cause to get approval from the Harris County District Attorney's office to place an electronic tracking device on his vehicle to follow his movements, officials said at a news conference. Rauch has been linked to at least seven fires that have occurred in the Houston area, including several set in the city's popular Greater Heights neighborhood, but investigators said he allegedly confessed to setting other fires in the community.  

They're the first on the scene at major trauma events and this weekend, San Antonio firefighters, EMS and police officers were the first in line to give back to the community by donating blood. Conrad Gonzales, a retired San Antonio firefighter, felt he needed to step up when he heard that the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center's blood supply continues to be at an all-time low, due to the pandemic. "I thought, you know, let's get the firefighters (and) make this, like, a first annual first responder blood drive," Gonzales said. Gonzales reached out to Christy Cracraft, a supervisor at STBTC, to plan the Battle of the Badges Blood Drive, a two-day event hosted at the San Antonio Fire Department's Union Hall. According to STBTC, blood drives provide about 70% of the community supply. However, due to COVID-19, those numbers have declined rapidly and drastically.  

At 3:10 this morning Temple Fire & Rescue responded to the report of a structure fire at 106 W. Avenue D, behind the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store. First arriving crews found heavy smoke coming from the building, with the exterior showing signs of fire inside. There were no known occupants or workers inside the building at the time of the fire, and no fire-related injuries have been reported, at this time. Building renovations inside of the warehouse, limited access to the structure, and the area of the fire. The fire was finally called under control at 5:15 am. Temple Fire & Rescue responded with 10 Firefighting apparatus and 28 personnel. Also on the scene were Temple Police Dept and Temple EMS.  

VIDEO: Jason Cortez, a beloved San Francisco firefighter-paramedic who was killed during a training accident last week, was knocked over a third-floor railing by a water blast from a valve he had "inadvertently" opened, authorities said in a preliminary report released Sunday. Cortez, 42, was participating in a training drill Wednesday when he was injured. The married father of two died an hour later at a hospital. Fire officials previously described his death publicly as a "training accident." His death has rocked the department. "Jason worked in a variety of assignments and was loved and respected by his colleagues," the fire department said in a statement. "We are aware of the many speculative reports citing what may have occurred, and ask that you respect Jason, his family, and our department as we determine the factual causes that lead to this tragedy … Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones, especially his wife and two young children."  

VIDEO: An extra-alarm fire involving multiple homes in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood Sunday night has left one firefighter suffering from minor injuries. The fire started just after 11:30 p.m. inside of a vacant 2 1/2-story home in the 800-block of North Lawndale Avenue, the Chicago Fire Department said. The vacant home was destroyed and two other homes damaged in the 2-alarm fire. The vacant home collapsed during the fire. One firefighter was taken to a hospital with a minor injury. At least four people are trying to figure out where to go next as their homes are boarded up. The cause of the fire is under investigation, but a neighbor told ABC7 he saw two men in the backyard overnight lighting a bonfire.  

Across the US, coronavirus outbreaks seem to be larger than ever before. On Saturday, 12 states hit record seven-day rolling average case counts, according to a Business Insider analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project, which compiles data from state and territory-level public health authorities. Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and Utah recorded more new infections in the last seven days than they ever have in a one-week period. The US overall has recorded more than 50,000 new cases each day for the last four days. The country hasn't seen such a streak since mid-August. Case counts are high - with a seven-day daily average of at least 15 new cases per 100,000 people - in 26 states, according to analysis from The New York Times. Daily case counts are growing in another 16 states and Washington, DC.  

More than three-quarters of FDNY employees who retired last year qualified for annual pensions exceeding $100,000 — with many awarded extra because of disabilities related to 9/11, a new study and data reveal. Forty of the 491 retirees landed gold-plated pensions of more than $200,000 a year, according to the study by the Empire Center for Public Policy. The largest pension went to retired Assistant Chief James C. Hodgens, who once headed the Fire Academy and was eligible to collect $282,476 a year. He qualified for a disability pension, which enables uniformed officers to retire with pension payouts of at least 75 percent of their final salary instead of usual 50 percent. Such disability pensions made up 60 percent of all of the department's retirement costs last year, according to a Post review of the FDNY's annual pension report.  

They're the first on the scene at major trauma events and this weekend, San Antonio firefighters, EMS and police officers were the first in line to give back to the community by donating blood. Conrad Gonzales, a retired San Antonio firefighter, felt he needed to step up when he heard that the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center's blood supply continues to be at an all-time low, due to the pandemic. "I thought, you know, let's get the firefighters (and) make this, like, a first annual first responder blood drive," Gonzales said. Gonzales reached out to Christy Cracraft, a supervisor at STBTC, to plan the Battle of the Badges Blood Drive, a two-day event hosted at the San Antonio Fire Department's Union Hall. "I feel like by leading the way, that we get a better community response," Cracraft said. According to STBTC, blood drives provide about 70% of the community supply.