Texas's 14th Court of Appeals ruled Thursday in favor of Houston firefighters in the long running 2018 Proposition B pay parity fight, saying that it is constitutional. Prop B was approved by Houston voters in 2018 after a petition drive by firefighters prompted the item to be placed on the ballot. The referendum called for the city to tie HFD pay to those of similarly ranked Houston police officers. "Houston firefighters, our families, and voters thank the appellate court for its careful and thorough review," said HPFFA President Patrick M. "Marty" Lancton. "Houston voters approved pay parity for firefighters and now the courts have upheld that vote. Prop. B is the law, and it is time to sit down and get this issue resolved." Mayor Sylvester Turner campaigned against the initiative and fought it in court once it was approved.  

When substantial leaks erupt within the Houston area petrochemical complex - bad things usually happen. Wednesday's massive release at the LyondellBasell plant in La Porte would prove no different, claiming two lives and forcing the hospitalization of 30 others. "This unit was partially shut down due to maintenance when the incident occurred," said Stephen Goff, plant director. "Approximately 100,000 pounds of acetic acid was released." 50 tons of toxic material LyondellBasell claims has been contained on site. As decontamination and clean-up commenced, the company offered assurances to those living and working near the plant. "For our community neighbors, our air monitoring continues to demonstrate there were no off-site impacts," said Michael VanDersnick, LyondellBasell Manufacturing Director.  

Firefighters from across Texas have made their way to College Station for the 92nd annual Municipal Fire School. The training brought in more than 1,000 firefighters for a week of hands-on drills that will make an impact in their hometowns. Drills included scenarios in combating structure, car, and fuel fires, amongst other disasters. The economic impacts of the fire school are being felt across the Bryan and College Station area. Kindra Fry, Senior Director of Tourism with the city of College Station, said the city is glad to have the fire school back in session this summer. "Typically in years past, we have seen roughly, when you add the larger of the three together, about a $6 million economic impact to the community," said Fry.  

Lightning has struck two homes in Smith County, Fire Marshal Jay Brooks says. Both homes are still habitable and there are no reported injuries. The first bolt struck a home in the Hailey Court Addition in Tyler around 4 p.m. The strike hit the highest point of the roof and scattered bricks up to 100 feet from the home. A small fire was quickly put out by the Bullard, Gresham and Noonday fire departments. The second strike happened at 4:22 p.m. in the 11200 block of Fox Trail in Flint. There was no fire, but there was a small bit of smoke that was stopped by the Bullard, Gresham, Dixie and Noonday fire departments. There was some electrical damage within the home, and neighbors say an electrical surge knocked out devices in several surrounding homes.  

The Certified Fire Investigation division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is joining the investigation of the fire that caused millions of dollars in damages to Waco's historic G.W. Carver Middle School. ATF investigators were at the school Wednesday. The fire appears to have started in the front portion of the 65-year-old building, around the office and library. The cause has not been determined. Two-dozen firefighters responded to the school at 1601 JJ Flewellen Rd. at around 1 a.m. Tuesday. The first crews on scene saw heavy smoke coming from the building. Inside firefighters "found extremely high heat conditions leading to extensive fire progression," officials said in a press release Wednesday.  

A traffic stop in Northeast Bexar County early Wednesday morning proved to be a costly experience—not for the driver who was stopped, but for the sheriff's deputy. According to deputies at the scene in the 5400 block of Wood Glen, a Bexar County sheriff's patrol car caught fire and was destroyed in what one of them called "a freak accident." They say it happened after one deputy had stepped out of the vehicle to talk to a driver who he had stopped for a traffic violation before 4 a.m. A second deputy who arrived to help noticed smoke coming from the first deputy's vehicle. The car quickly went up in flames. Deputies say the patrol car had a box of flares in its trunk which somehow ignited, starting the fire. By the time it had been put out, all that was left was a burned out shell of that SUV.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: A fire that officials say started from welding sparks destroyed a house in Hurricane on Wednesday afternoon and for a time threatened Hurricane Middle School and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' seminary building. There were no injuries and by 4:58 p.m., the fire was contained. The fire was first reported as a brush fire at 3:41 p.m., provoking a response from Hurricane wildfire crews. But the flames spread to an adjacent home located on at 366 W. 300 North. Flames and smoke could be seen rising out of the home into the Hurricane sky. Officials initially said the sparks that started the fire came from the junkyard, but Hurricane Valley Fire Battalion Chief Nick Wright said it was actually someone working on the house.  

When Jeff Bowen was growing up in Southern California he would walk home from school by a fire station. One day, after the 6-year-old did not come home, his mother, Laurel Bowen, said she went looking for him at the station where she knew some of the firefighters. A captain pointed her inside. "He said, 'You know he stops every day to talk to us.'" The boy was sitting in the driver's seat of a fire engine. After his mother expressed her concern, he said to her, "Mom, I want you to know something. I'm going to drive one of these one day," his mother recalled. He did. After putting out wildfires in California, Jeff Bowen moved to Asheville where he was promoted to fire department engineer and later captain. On July 28, 2011, the day a four-alarm blaze ripped through a medical building at 445 Biltmore Ave., Laurel Bowen and other family members came to the scene.  

Last week at a media conference Vice Admiral Roy Kitchener, the commander of US Navy warships, outlined the actions that have been taken since the Bonhomme Richard caught fire in San Diego last year… and he has completely missed the point. "We found that in some cases maybe we weren't doing as well as we should have," Kitchener told US Naval Institute editor Sam LaGrone. "We're pretty good at firefighting at sea and all those procedures. When we got to the industrial environment, it was ‘OK, looks like we need to kind of make sure there's a little bit of education." His solution? The Admiral and his team decided to "beef up the safety staff" and added a mix of civilian and military fire marshals to check ships on the waterfront and in the yard. He didn't mention that crews did not have THE single most basic piece of equipment needed to fight large ship fires: a fireboat.  

A year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, the world looks a lot different than it used to. And so does the coronavirus itself. As it's infected hundreds of millions of people around the globe, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been in a state of constant change, making small tweaks to its genetic code as it goes along. New variants have taken over from the virus's earlier forms — like the highly contagious delta variant that is currently throwing a wrench in our "new normal." Here, we break down what you need to know about the viral variants sweeping the world. The coronavirus, like other viruses, spreads by hijacking human cells to make copies of itself. But that process isn't always perfect: Sometimes, the copied versions of the virus have a few typos in their genetic code. This means the coronavirus is constantly mutating as it spreads.