Personnel numbers increased on the Mount Hayes Fire (#299) as a 20-person crew from Oregon arrived Wednesday to lend a hand. Additional overhead also came in to help the Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Management manage the wildfires in the area. Firefighters remained focused on structure protection for cabins, primary homes and infrastructure in and around the perimeter of the Pogo Mine Road Fire (#191). Aircraft dropped water on the southwest perimeter where the fire continues to spread towards Quartz Lake and the Richardson Highway. Fire behavior was moderated in the Delta Junction area with cooler temperatures and mostly cloudy skies. Creeping and smoldering was reported on the fireline, while in some areas, active flames with single tree torching was observed. Scattered showers and a high temperature near 70 are forecasted for Thursday with areas of smoke.  

Recently developed artificial intelligence software can determine whether firefighters may be about to experience a potentially fatal cardiac event. That's what a team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the University of Rochester, and Google contend in a report that details their machine-learning model. Using AI technology and existing electrocardiogram data for 112 firefighters, the researchers created the Heart Health Monitoring, or H2M, model. Individual heartbeats from the EKGs were classified either as normal or abnormal, with the latter possibly indicating irregular heart rhythms. Such rhythms can prompt the heart to stop pumping blood, often because of a heart attack, and trigger sudden cardiac arrest – the leading cause of on-the-job death among firefighters.  

VIDEO: At times, Dan Jensen feels like he's caught between two worlds. One world is on display in his corner office, where he hangs artifacts from his career — his old career, back when he could barely sleep more than an hour or two before the nightmares jolted him awake. There are a few shields from his old firefighter helmets in Pine Beach and Seaside Heights, along with a few award plaques and older, turn-of-the-century firefighting antiques. But on an adjacent green, eye-catching wall is his new world. There's an old propaganda poster, from the "reefer madness" era, that describes marijuana as "a vicious racket with its arms around your children" and portrays it as a green, devil-like figure wooing a woman with a joint dangling from her lips. Jensen is in the middle of it all, trying to help the people from one half of his life realize the benefits of the other.  

VIDEO: It's a side of Portland Fire & Rescue many in the community don't see unless they're on one of Portland's local rivers. At Station 21 along the Eastbank Esplanade in Southeast Portland, there's a dock that houses a fire boat and a rescue boat. This is one of three locations that house these types of boats as part of Portland Fire & Rescue's Marine Program. With two stations on the Willamette River and one on the Columbia River, the city's fire bureau has the local rivers covered. Sean Whalen, Harbor Master for Portland Fire & Rescue, spent five years working on the fire and rescue boats. "I don't think a lot of people hear fire department and fire boat, may not think of all the other things we can do on the water," Whalen said.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: Silvis firefighters are taking on a new project: restoring an 84-year-old fire engine to its former glory. The city purchased the American LaFrance engine in 1939 and it was used as a frontline fire engine until 1964. Faded paint on the side shows it was engine #2. "It was traded in and it kind of disappeared," Silvis Fire Chief John Winters said. "We suspect that it was sold to a farmer who then used it for either watering crops or providing water for his animals. It was found in the barn years later." Winters first learned about the old engine a few years ago when he was contacted by a man who had purchased the old truck and planned to restore it. The man was gathering information about the history of the engine and noticed a plaque on the side with the names of the 1939 Silvis mayor, fire chief, and aldermen.  

While Kale Geiswite spends his days teaching criminal justice to high schoolers, most of his time off is dedicated to the real world of public safety — fighting fires and aiding search and rescue missions. He's a volunteer firefighter for the New Berlin Fire Department in Pennsylvania, but recently his work has centered around a tool that might look more like a video game controller his students might use. He's the department's chief drone pilot and program coordinator. It's a role that quite literally wouldn't exist if he wasn't around. A couple years ago when he started tinkering with a personal drone, he realized its potential for public safety missions. He wanted to introduce a drone into fire department operations, but encountered a lot of resistance.