A Waltonville firefighter suffered minor injuries Wednesday night while working a residential structure fire in Bonnie. According to Assistant Waltonville Fire Chief Scott Pennington, they responded around 6:25 p.m. Wednesday to a report of a fire at a home in the 11-thousand block of East Bonnie Road. While fighting the blaze, a plastic box of batteries exploded as the firefighter was walking by. He was knocked to the ground and suffered temporary hearing damage. Pennington also says ammunition was going off inside the home as they fought the fire. The home is reportedly a complete loss. He says it appears the fire started on the rear patio of the pole-barn style home but the cause isn't clear at this time. Woodlawn, Sesser and Mt. Vernon City provided automatic mutual aid.  

Manpower and quick response times are two things Springfield Fire Chief Brandon Blough said make a successful fire department. "We cover 124 square miles. We cover 150 percent more area than what Peoria covers," Blough said. "3.41 was our average response time over all calls." But, those two things could be affected by budget cuts. The department came to city council with a proposed $41.5 million budget. Instead, their budget was burned by $1.4 million. "It was a cut of about three percent of our total budget," Blough said. "Several of the aldermen said they were not going to be in favor of it but at the last minute, changed their minds." Alderwoman Erin Conley was among the four council members who voted against the cuts. "I don't want to rely on cutting our way out of problems," Conley said. "I'd like to find other solutions that allow us to maintain a high level of service to our community." Conley said these cuts will reduce basic services people require.  

Three men are facing federal arson charges, after authorities say they set a Chicago Transit Authority van on fire during the widespread civil unrest in the city last May. According to the indictment, 24-year-old Denzal Stewart, 23-year-old Lamar Taylor, and 19-year-old Darion Lindsey destroyed a CTA van by setting it on fire on May 30. The indictment does not state where the incident took place, but widespread looting, arson, and violence erupted downtown on that evening in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The unrest later spread to the city's neighborhoods over the span of the next few days. Stewart and Taylor were arrested Wednesday morning and pleaded guilty later in the day at their arraignment hearings. They're due back in court on Friday for detention hearings.  

VIDEO: Three workers were injured as a massive North Texas foam recycling plant fire burned all day Thursday and into the next day. The fire broke out at the Richland Hills corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility for Advanced Foam Recycling at 2525 Handley Ederville Road, southwest of Texas 121 and Loop 820, at about 12:45 p.m. The Fort Worth Fire Department, who is assisting in the fight, said Thursday there is 125 personnel from eight local departments who have been fighting the fire for more than three hours. By Friday morning, there were nine fire department agencies at the scene continuing to put out hot spots, Richland Hills police tweeted. Officers cautioned that heavy smoke and road closures remain in the area. Texas Sky Ranger flew to the fire Thursday afternoon and quickly spotted a huge plume of thick, black smoke on the horizon. As they arrived, heavy fire and smoke could be seen coming from the large building.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: A Brockton fire truck that has been missing for a number of years is making its way home where it will serve as a permanent memorial to the lives lost at a deadly fire decades ago. The nearly 100-year-old Squad A truck was used to battle the massive Strand Theater fire in 1941 that claimed the lives of 13 firefighters, four of whom rode to the blaze in that very truck. "It really is a living piece of history and it's much more than just a truck — it's a part of Brockton's soul," Retired Fire Chief Kenneth Galligan said. "This was a very big moment in history for our department and our fire service. They will never be forgotten." Galligan was contacted last year by an antique fire truck collector who is also a firefighter in Billerica. He said the man told him he bought the truck from a family in New Hampshire and believed it was from Brockton. "The bottom line was, he told me about the truck and I said, ‘You know what that sounds like a Brockton truck," Galligan said.  

PHOTO: Making a positive difference in people's lives is what motivates Laurel Countian Nathan Kirby. So he took his artistic talents, his past and present experience and his passion for others and combined those qualities to enhance his interests to recognize his profession and the professionals who save lives. Kirby submitted a re-design of the state's firefighters' license tag to the Kentucky Firefighters Association - hearing recently that his design was the one chosen among several other submissions. Kirby, a full-time firefighter for the Corbin Fire Department, dedicates his life to helping people, juggling his time between several other public service jobs. He works part-time with the London City Fire Department, part-time with Ambulance Inc. of Laurel County and volunteers with the London-Laurel County Rescue Squad. He became involved in public service when he trained as a firefighter with the London unit and the rescue squad. "It just clicked with me," he said. "I knew that's what I wanted to do."  

The process of tracking down where COVID-19 vaccines are available could soon get a little easier, thanks to a tool backed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The goal of VaccineFinder website is to make it easier for the public to find information about locations that carry vaccines in their communities and how to make an appointment. The website also gives vaccine providers an outlet to report if they are still stocked with the coronavirus vaccine or not. The tool was made in partnership with the CDC, Boston Children's Hospital Harvard Medical School and Castlight Health. In most states, the initial website launch is limited to just pharmacy and drugstore chains that are getting vaccines directly from the federal government. However, NRP reports that in Alaska, Indiana, Iowa, and Tennessee, the tool also already shows hospitals, clinics and public health vaccination sites.  

Sgt. Dan Carbonaro of the Port Authority Police was in the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 when a bomb went off. He told the Staten Island Advance, "You couldn't see your hand in front of your face. I was in Vietnam, and this was worse than any explosion I witnessed in Vietnam." At 12:17 p.m. on Feb. 26, 1993, a 1,200-pound bomb in a rented truck exploded in the parking garage of the North Tower, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others. The explosion knocked out the World Trade Center's power - which disabled the sprinklers, generators, elevators, public address system and the emergency command center. The Staten Island Advance reported that thick smoke "sent tens of thousands of workers streaming out of the complex in Lower Manhattan." "Many of the victims their eyes tearing and their faces smeared with soot were gasping for air as they stumbled to waiting ambulances. Some had spent more than an hour making their way down smoke-filled stairwells."