VIDEO: Houston-area firefighters worked to put out a blaze at a home that was reportedly sparked by lightning Monday. Officials received a call around 10 p.m. about a house located in the 1400 block of Modeste Drive in the Cabot Cove section of the Victory Lakes subdivision that caught on fire when lightning struck the home as a strong line of thunderstorms pushed through the area. Two League City Police Department patrol officers arrived at the scene and reported the roof line was ablaze, League City Fire Chief Michael Lugo said. Lugo said the two people that were inside the house and their pets got out safely from the fire that spread quickly to multiple parts of the residence. According to Lugo, the lightning strike actually sparked several fires throughout the home.  

VIDEO: Harlingen firefighter Bree Rios has been on the job for five years now and continues to inspire girls all across the Valley. Rios is the city of Harlingen's first female firefighter. "Whenever I first came in, I didn't come in thinking, ‘Oh I want to be the first,'" Rios said. "It was just something I wanted to do and it happened." It's a line of work that runs in the family. "My dad also works for the fire department. He's put in 20-plus years," Rios said." "It was just something I grew up around and it was always something that intrigued me, and I loved being around. I always loved going to the station when I was younger and stuff like that. When you're younger, you don't see the dangers that come with the job, you just see your dad taking off in the fire engine with lights and sirens and you think, ‘Ok that's cool. I want to do that.'"  

One Longview firefighter was taken to the hospital after responding to a fire at a storage building Sunday afternoon. According to the Longview Fire Department, firefighters responded to 1823 Blueridge Parkway for a reported residential structure fire. When they arrived, a portable storage building was on fire and the heat started to damage a nearby structure. LFD reported that the fire caused about $10,000 in damage, and one of the firefighters was transported to the hospital for a heat-related illness. The fire department responded with three fire engines, two ladder trucks, one ambulance and four support vehicles.  

A recording of the radio communications between emergency responders is providing new details about the mass casualty event where a large number of migrants were discovered in a tractor-trailer on Monday in San Antonio. Marcelo Ebrard, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, tweeted Tuesday that 50 victims have died. KSAT obtained dispatch communications from Broadcastify.com, that reveal more details about the early stages of the tragedy. The communications between first responders and SAFD dispatch begin about 10 minutes before 6 p.m. "Got an 18-wheeler, looks to be about 60 people that are inside. Looks like quite a few of them are already deceased," said one of the first responders on the scene. "We're gonna start sorting through the ones that are currently breathing. None of them are able to talk as of yet, but we do have a lot of snoring respirations. I can count at least 10 that are have snoring respirations."  

The city of Tomball and Harris County Emergency Services District No. 15 broke ground on Tomball Fire Department Station No. 4 during a ceremony June 27. Station No. 4, to be located at 10333 Mahaffey Road, Tomball, will help reduce response times to emergency calls in the eastern part of Tomball's extraterritorial jurisdiction—the area just outside the city limits—Tomball Fire Department Chief Joe Sykora said during the June 27 event. "We are very thankful for the citizens that support us in this endeavor. We have purchased this piece of property about four years ago, and it's exciting that we are breaking ground today to provide the service that these residents greatly need and reduce those response times, which is something very important as well with today's fire development," ESD 15 Commissioner Jason "Bear" Wilson said during the groundbreaking event.  

Multiple Van Zandt County-area fire departments battled a 100-acre grass fire Sunday. According to a post on the South Van Zandt Fire Department Facebook page, SVZFD firefighters were dispatched to several calls in less than an hour Sunday. "Thank you, is all we can say to our neighboring fire departments for the help today," the Facebook post stated. "South Van Zandt Fire Department was dispatched to several calls in less than an hour's time today, and this fire was one of them. Needless to say, we were overwhelmed and needed help." In the Facebook post, Chief Gregg Beverly said fire crews faced extreme heat, dry weather conditions, overheating trucks, and no water supply. "We rely on our training in times like this, and the crews did an outstanding job," Beverly said in the Facebook post.  

A team of National Transportation Safety Board investigators will arrive in Missouri on Tuesday to probe the derailment of an Amtrak train that left at least three people dead and sent surviving passengers scrambling from the wreckage. The derailment occurred as the train, traveling eastbound to Chicago, collided with a dump truck at a crossing near the town of Mendon in north-central Missouri at about 12:42 p.m. Monday, according to Amtrak. Eight of the train's cars and two locomotives left the track, the company said. "We started feeling the train tilting over to the right. That's when it kind of went through my mind that this is life or death. This is very serious," Dax McDonald, who was on the train with his sister Samantha, told CNN's "New Day." Their train car had tipped over and was laying on its side.  

Amtrak's worst wreck in terms of deaths was the Sept. 22, 1993, derailment outside Mobile, Alabama, when the Sunset Limited plunged off a bridge and caught fire in the pre-dawn hours. Forty-seven passengers and crew were killed and 103 injured in what became known as the Big Bayou Canot rail accident. The bridge over that arm of the Mobile River had been damaged by a barge shortly before the passenger train started to cross it. The worst wreck as far as overall casualties was the 1990 collision of an Amtrak train with a Boston commuter train that left 453 injured, but there were no fatalities. There is no record of an Amtrak wreck in Missouri having 20 casualties or more, according to Wikipedia's list of serious accidents. Prior to Monday's wreck, in which at least 50 were reported injured along with multiple deaths, the Southwest Chief and its predecessor, the Southwest Limited, had been involved in three serious wrecks along its 2,265-mile route from Los Angeles to Chicago that met that 20-casualty threshold.  

VIDEO: From the porch of a vacant row house in Northeast D.C., a film director yelled, "We are rolling … and action!" On his cue, several D.C. firefighters jumped out of their fire truck, bounded up the steps, donned protective gear and lunged into thick fumes. It's all a simulation of sorts. For the next three days, those directors' commands will take the place of a real 911 call, as members of D.C. Fire and EMS have been selected to star in a national training video designed to teach firefighters across the country about the dangers of fighting a row house blaze. Firefighters said it's one of the most dangerous structure fires to battle. "We've had injuries and line-of-duty deaths that have been attributed to these types of buildings," said Deputy Fire Chief Anthony Kelleher.  

A celebration was held at Lido Beach Suday for fallen hero Casey Skudin, a New York City firefighter from Long Beach who was killed in a tragic accident while on vacation with his family in North Carolina. More than 200 people headed out into the Atlantic Ocean for a paddle-out memorial in honor of Skudin. The Long Beach father of two was killed last week when a 2,000-pound tree fell on the SUV he was in. He died two days shy of his 46th birthday and Father's Day. Casey and his family were driving up to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina as part of a family vacation. Casey was a long-time lifeguard in the Town of Hempstead and a beloved member of the surfer community in Long Beach. "He was just the bravest, kindest most epic human being and he's going to be really missed," said his widow, Angela Skudin. She and their two sons, Ben and CJ, led the surfers into the ocean off the same beach where Skudin spent many summers working as a lifeguard.  

VIDEO: As a paramedic, nothing would stop Sara Cathey from stepping up to save a life. As it turned out, the Beaufort EMS worker was able to help one of her own family members. "She brightens my day," Sara said of her niece, Natalyn. "Makes any bad day good." It was a devastating day when she found out that 2-year-old Natalyn had a genetic condition that nearly killed her. "She had a double nephrectomy, so both her kidneys got removed June of last year," remembered Sara. The whole family took tests to find out who might be a kidney match. "You never think it's going to be you," Sara said. "I am out here every day with strangers. I love these strangers. I really enjoy being a paramedic, helping people. I get emotionally invested with these complete strangers. So I can't really explain how much it really hits when it's her."