During the celebration of the new aerial ladder for Jarrell Fire Rescue, one firefighter who is battling cancer attended with his family. 24-year-old Jake Owen has been with the Fire Rescue for over four years. "Seeing him back here with his brother firefighters in his home where he belongs with his fire service family, it was emotional, but it was fulfilling to see it," Stewart said. During the celebration of the new aerial ladder for Jarrell Fire Rescue, Jake Owen, who is battling cancer, attended with his family. Stewart says last month, Owen started getting headaches, and doctors found a tumor. He has gone through hours of surgery and was set to be one of the drivers on the new aerial ladder. He will be starting chemotherapy. Stewart says the firefighters and the community have rallied around him.  

VIDEO: Dozens of firefighters from multiple departments converged on a massive fire in north Harris County on Thursday evening. Westfield Fire Department responded at about 6:30 p.m. to the home and business behind a high fence on Bentley Street just west of the Eastex Freeway. Huge black clouds billowed into the air. The initial call was for an outside fire, but it quickly spread to the mobile home that was on the property. Resident Allan Rodriguez said he was working on headlights with a charger nearby when something blew up. "I don't know what to do. My mind is blank right now," Rodriguez said with a stunned look. He got his young son out, but his family's two dogs remained. One emerged just fine, but Petey was not. "The dog still had a heartbeat but was not breathing," Arthur Ashley, fire captain from Lexington, Kentucky, said.  

A legislation that would improve benefits for Texas first responders who suffered long-term injuries in the line of duty was filed by Representative Dustin Burrows and Senator Charles Perry, according to a press release from the Texas State Association of Firefighters. The press release stated the bill would help first responders like Lubbock firefighter Matt Dawson. Dawson, along with Lubbock Police Officer Nicholas Lee Reyna and Lubbock Fire Rescue Lieutenant Eric Hill, were responding to a crash in north Lubbock on January 11, 2020, when they were struck by a pickup truck that crossed over the median of Interstate 27. Reyna and Hill lost their lives as a result. Dawson was critically wounded and suffered disabling injuries.  

VIDEO: A pawn shop on the South Side was destroyed on Friday morning following a fire. The fire started at around 2:15 a.m. at the EZ Pawn in the 3000 block of Goliad Road, near Southeast Military Drive. Firefighters arrived to find billows of smoke coming from the store. They had difficulty extinguishing flames due to entry problems and windy conditions, according to SAFD. The fire has since been extinguished and the building was demolished. Debris from the fire and demolition was seen in the roadway around Goliad Road and Military Drive, causing some lane closures. Drivers should expect to see delays in the area. SAFD believes the fire started outside the building, but the cause is unknown at this time. Fire investigators are at the scene.  

For Elisabeth Hartley, South Texas College was the answer when she changed careers and enrolled at the college's Fire Academy. With a bachelor's degree in Counseling and Crisis of Trauma and a master's degree in Clinical Mental Health, she had previously worked with first responders through a mental health program, an experience she said inspired her to join the academy. Hartley, now a firefighter with the Harlingen Fire Department, said she is grateful to STC's Fire Academy and now gives back by volunteering at the Regional Center of Public Safety Excellence training future firefighters and promoting mental health and breaking stigmas. "I love this job, there's so much to it. I enjoy going back to STC and talking to the students because as a first responder, we see a lot of trauma. Thankfully now, talking about mental health is more acceptable, it's losing its stigma and we can take care of each other," she said.  

Progress is being made on a plot of land that will soon be the new home to the Silsbee Fire Volunteer Department. The site is located along 5th street and highway 418. A project two years in the making will house many new amenities, beneficial to Southeast Texas firefighters. "The new fire station is gonna be a great thing for us, we are real excited about it. At the same time, we are here to support this community, any way we can," said Silsbee Fire Chief Robin Jones. Construction crews started in January, prepping the land to build a state-of-the-art facility. "We tried to build a station that would fit all of our needs and the needs 20 years from now. The station that's coming will have rooms upstairs for dormitories and we will have showers and restrooms," Jones said.  

PHOTOS: Two people are confirmed to have died in a two-alarm house fire in the Makiki area, Thursday afternoon. Honolulu firefighters were called out to the scene in the 900 block of Spencer Street just before 1 p.m. When crews arrived they could see flames shooting from the roof of a two-story building. Firefighters worked quickly and were able to get the fire under control around 1:05 p.m. while simultaneously searching for people inside the building. Crews had the fire fully extinguished at 1:40 p.m. Two people, both said to be elderly individuals, are confirmed to have died in the fire, according to the Honolulu Fire Department and the Medical Examiner's Office. An elderly man was found just outside of the home under the exterior staircase of the building and one elderly woman was found in one of the bedrooms on the ground floor.  

The American Heart Association hosted dozens of CPR trainings throughout February's Heart Month with a focus on training those in minority communities. This focus has been years in the works for the American Heart Association (AHA). American College of Cardiology recently found that Black and Hispanic individuals were 41% less likely than white individuals to receive CPR when suffering cardiac arrest in public and 26% less likely to receive CPR when the cardiac arrest occurred at home. These numbers and the fact that Black adults are 32% more likely to die from heart disease than white adults are the reasons why the American Heart Association spent countless hours this month teaching CPR to minority communities.  

Norfolk Southern announced Friday that they are donating over $1 million combined to the East Palestine school district and fire department. According to the press release, a $300,000 donation will be given to the East Palestine City School District, while $825,000 will be given to the Village of East Palestine Fire Department. Norfolk Southern said that the donation for the school will be used for the district's academics, athletics, extra-curricular activities and its long-term contingency planning regarding the impacts of the derailment. Schools have recently forfeited games, despite the district being cleared to host athletic and extra-curricular activities. The donation to the fire department will be used as reimbursement for fire equipment used in the derailment response.  

It's difficult to pinpoint how Dr. Leonard Cobb came up with the idea to train firefighters in emergency medical care, but friends and family believe one particular afternoon more than 60 years ago played a role. Cobb and his wife, Else, had stopped at a market in Seattle's Madrona neighborhood for a frozen snack when they noticed a man slumped over in a nearby car. When Cobb opened the car door to check on him, the man sagged to the ground. Cobb stayed with the man while his wife rushed to a nearby fire station for help. A firefighter hurried over to bring oxygen, but there wasn't much else he could do until the man was taken to the hospital, Else Cobb, 88, remembers. "It was an incident where Leonard felt the fireman could have done more if he had known what to do," his wife said this week.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: It's not every day you see a 40-foot fire hydrant carried down the streets of downtown Columbia — or anywhere, for that matter. The "Busted Plug" sculpture, an iconic piece of public art by artist Blue Sky, was moved from its longtime home on Taylor Street on Thursday. Bucket truck crews had to lift up power lines as a flatbed carried the core of the hydrant along Taylor and Bull streets. Traffic backed up on all sides of the intersection around lunchtime, and cars honked as the sculpture made its way through the streets on the hot day. The sculpture is being moved after a new owner purchased the property it has sat on since 2001. Sky, a well-known Columbia artist, also created the "Tunnelvision" mural on the building behind Busted Plug's longtime spot.