U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski urged the Interior Department to advance drilling in Alaska's Cook Inlet and distribute wildfire prevention funding during a Senate hearing Wednesday... "I feel strongly when it comes to the five-year plan that the administration has to move and move quickly to finalize a plan that keeps at least the current acreage available for offshore leasing, including in my state," Murkowski told Haaland in her opening remarks. Murkowski and other senators from the West, including Democrats Dianne Feinstein of California and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, highlighted their states' need for comprehensive investment in wildfire management and prevention. The proposed budget includes $1.5 billion for the Interior Department's Wildland Fire Management program.  

A supply camp for the proposed Pebble Mine was destroyed in a wildfire over the Fourth of July weekend, according to a Pebble Project spokesperson. The camp, situated approximately 17 miles northwest of the communities of Newhalen and Iliamna, according to Pebble Project spokesperson Mike Heatwole, is considered a near-total loss, with just a handful of metal drill casings surviving the blaze. Heatwole said no hazardous material was burned in the incident. The area described by Heatwole is nearest the Upper Talarik Fire, which is considered part of the Lime Complex wildfires that have burned since early June. The Upper Talarik Fire was last reported Wednesday to be 9,133 acres in size and is unstaffed by firefighting crews. Pebble Limited Partnership has long sought to begin work in developing the controversial Pebble Mine.  

In an effort to recoup the costs of fighting a 2019 wildfire, the federal government is suing a Copper Center-based fishing charter business and one of its guides, who allegedly started the fire. The lawsuit, filed Friday, says Grove's Salmon Charters and guide Joshua McDonald are responsible for negligently starting the Klutina River Fire in July of 2019 and are liable for the roughly $1 million cost of fighting it. According to the lawsuit, McDonald was guiding a group of four clients fishing near mile 17 of the Klutina River when he started a fire at the river's edge to warm the clients and keep bugs away. The lawsuit says they were on land managed by the Alaska Native corporation Ahtna Inc. and had an Ahtna permit, but McDonald started the fire despite wildfire-prone conditions, an Ahtna burn suspension, and stern warnings from the state not to burn in the area.  

VIDEO: Logan Schneider thought his day was done on his family's cherry farm last week when it was really just beginning. "Looking at what happened, I don't know how we both got out," he said. Logan was riding a tractor in the orchard about 12 miles north of Wenatchee last week when a helicopter hit overhead powerlines and landed on top of him. "I was pinned against the steering wheel, stuck with the nose of the helicopter sitting right behind me," the recent high school graduate explained. Logan freed himself from the wreckage only to find the helicopter pilot trapped -- dangling upside down in his harness. "I heard him screaming," said Logan. "I looked and I saw him upside down hanging. Fire was everywhere. When I was in the moment I really wasn't thinking. I was just doing." Logan was able to free the pilot.  

VIDEO: Every day at work, Dyllon Ryser gets to help people. Whether it's fighting fires, providing urgent medical care, or sometimes offering a pep talk on the side. "Good job. Keep up the hard work, man. Keep your head up, OK," Ryser said to a man needing first aid. "I know it's hard out there on the streets." All things that he says he loves doing with the Ogden Fire Department. "Just having that opportunity to see every situation and trying to help somebody is just the greatest." But part of what makes Ryser good at what he does is where he used to be. "I was 10 years old when that happened. My parents divorced and then my dad had nowhere to go, so he became homeless," he recalled. Ryser grew up on the streets of Salt Lake City in the Rio Grande area. "I had two younger brothers and one older sister. We kind of watched after them," he said.  

Maine is home to one of the most important training sites in the country for law enforcement canines. That's according to the people who pay for all of it. State Farm Insurance has been funding arson dog purchasing and training since 1993. Heather Paul, the company's national arson dog program coordinator, said the average residential house fire costs them $45,000 to insure. Each accelerant-detecting canine costs about $25,000 to buy and train. As they try to catch and deter insurance fraud, it's easy math to comprehend. "Arson is one of the most difficult crimes to solve," Paul explained. "The evidence burns up. It's a dirty, smelly environment. And, as a human, we don't have that superpower sense of smell." She added that the dogs are equally useful for ruling out arson as the cause of a fire.  

Peoria Fire Department is gearing up for fall recruitment by thinking outside the box to attract talent. Interim Fire Chief Shawn Sollberger said recruitment numbers have been down for a while. "What we're used to is hundreds of people wanting to be a firefighter, and now we're running into dozens of people wanting to be firefighter," he said. "We're actually cautiously optimistic to be honest with you, and we've done a lot of recruiting efforts with our recruiting team." In an effort to reach a wider audience, Sollberger said they are using new recruitment tactics, like the City of Peoria Career Fair this fall. "It would be a unique and just really trying to get focused on people wanting to be employees for the City of Peoria," he said. Another method is using social media.