While firefighters and smoke jumpers are on the front lines fighting wildfires in Alaska, their efforts are being supported by an agency on Fort Wainwright. Headquartered at Alaska Fire Service headquarters, the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center (AICC) allocates resources from around the state to ensure that those in the thick of it have the tools they need to protect lives and property. The agency is comprised of around 20 employees. Ray Crowe, Manager of the AICC, said the agency's main mission is to support wildland firefighting. "We're the main focal point for all logistical, tactical, statewide tactical shared resources. So our smokejumpers, our air attack planes, and our retardant planes and fire bosses... we coordinate their movement through this office to cover the entire state of Alaska."  

Cool, wet weather helped temper a wildfire burning near Chena Hot Springs Resort, a fire official said Wednesday. Alaska Division of Forestry spokesperson Tim Mowry said the Munson Creek Fire was "still pretty mellow." Parts of the fire had come within 100 yards of the resort. Firefighters were attacking areas of the fire that came down a ridge and were closest to the resort, located about 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks. Helicopters were dropping buckets of water, and crews were able to attack the fire's leading edges in efforts to keep it in check, Mowry said. He said firefighters planned to continue that effort Wednesday. A steady rain of at least an hour, coupled with intermittent showers, helped firefighters Tuesday. The rain helped increase the relative humidity.  

Dash camera video captured someone throw a lit firework into a car stopped at a Midtown intersection on the night of July 4. Kathy Kirby told News 2 that a car pulled up next to her son's convertible, as he was stopped at a traffic light along Church Street at 17th Avenue North Sunday night. Someone in that car then tossed a "large, lit firework" into the convertible, which had the top down, striking her son in the back of the head, Kirby explained. "He quickly reached back and picked it up to try and toss it away," Kirby said. "It burned him and he dropped it." She added, "It blew up then, first a small explosion and then a large very loud one." A friend driving behind him captured the incident on dash camera video. The driver, Colin Kirby told News 2 that the firework bounced after it hit him in the head and exploded on the convertible's top, which was closed.  

Some Toledo firefighters battling cancer are now battling something else. It's the City of Toledo itself. That's because the city is taking them to court over Worker's Comp claims that have already been accepted. It's a fight that could affect their long term health but in the short term it's causing lots of stress It all starts with a state law saying firefighters who contract cancer are presumed to have contracted it through their job and can get worker's compensation. The assumption was that would be the end of the story but the City of Toledo is digging in. We often think of the heroic things firefighters do when buildings are burning or people need help but we sometimes forget the human side. In this case it is cancer. "When this happened it was like being strapped into a roller coaster because basically I was just along for the ride," said Toledo firefighter Miguel Castillo.  

At the suggestion of Commissioner Michael Siers, the Nags Head Board of Commissioners during its July 7 meeting formed a task force to address fire safety issues in large oceanfront homes. The move comes several weeks after a two-alarm structure fire destroyed an 18-bedroom home on the oceanfront in Kill Devil Hills where more than 40 occupants had to be evacuated. "I know it's an uphill battle beyond all uphill battles, but this KDH fire kind of hit me off again," Siers told his fellow commissioners. "I've said it for the last three years – the larger homes are unsafe for multiple families. There were forty-two or forty-five people in that house. Thank goodness they all got out." While recognizing that the North Carolina Building Code Council holds the sole authority to adopt and amend the statewide building codes for residential properties.  

A man has been arrested after he reportedly taped a road flare to a propane tank, lit it and threw it at people outside a Boulder fire station. Mark Stephen Szyperek, 58, was arrested Monday on suspicion of four counts of attempted first-degree assault with a deadly weapon, fourth-degree arson and possession of explosives. According to an arrest affidavit, police were called at 6:49 p.m. Monday to a grassy area just west of a Boulder fire station at 1585 30th St. There, witnesses told police Szyperek had thrown some sort of flaming device at them before firefighters were able to put the device out. Police spoke to a firefighter who said the device was a road flare that had been taped to a foot-long propane cannister. The firefighter said that had the flare not been extinguished in time, it could have produced a serious explosion.  

VIDEO: The Spirit of Oklahoma firetruck just completed its journey from the northeast all the way back to its home state of Oklahoma. It's a truck that connects fire departments from here at home all the way to New York City. After 9/11, this truck was given as a gift from the state of Oklahoma to the New York City Fire Department for their sacrifice and strength. Now the Spirit of Oklahoma is officially back on Oklahoma soil. The journey from Massachusetts began earlier this week by an Oklahoma man who says the trip was personal. "Finally it's here, it's happening, it's not gonna go to scrapyard, it's not gonna go you know just away with history," said Brian Norton, Calera fire chief. Shortly after 9/11 Oklahoma students raised money to buy a firetruck as a thank you to the New York City Fire Department. 10 of the New York firefighters who helped in the Oklahoma City bombing died in 9/11.