After a cargo plane’s ‘amazing’ water landing, this Honolulu rescue team jumped into action

VIDEO: Three Honolulu aircraft rescue firefighters are talking for the first time about their role in helping save two pilots earlier this month after engine failure caused their Boeing 737 cargo plane to crash in the ocean off Kalaeloa. On July 2, the pilot of Transair Flight 810 to Kahului alerted air traffic control it was headed back to Honolulu’s airport because of an in-flight emergency. “We’ve lost number one engine,” the pilot said over the radio. “And we’re coming straight to the airport. We’re going to need the fire department. It’s a chance we’re going to lose the other engine, too. It’s running very hot.” “It was about 1:40 in the morning,” said Airport Fire Lt. Ray Vegas. Everybody at the fire station was asleep.“You hear the alarms go off and you get up real fast,” said Airport Equipment Operator Terrence Kashima.
Hawaii News Now

Boston Fire Department focusing on mental health, well-being in ranks

VIDEO: When tragedy or disasters strike, first responders rush to the scene — often putting their own lives in danger. Now there's a renewed focus in Boston to make sure that when emergency personnel head home, the traumatic images they witness on the job don't have dangerous or potentially deadly impacts on their mental well-being. “We have this hero kind of persona, the stigma is still real,” Boston Fire Lt. Sheila Leahy said. Leahy is a peer supporter in the Boston Fire Department who is often tasked with starting a conversation with members who may not willingly admit they're struggling. “If you're used to being the person who's always the helper to other people, it's very hard to reach out and say, ‘Hey I need help,’” Leahy said. During the next month and a half, 1,500 Boston firefighters will be trained in suicide awareness thanks to the nonprofit Gelt Charitable Foundation that has designed a workshop specifically for first responders.
WCVB-TV ABC 5 Boston

Navy Sailor charged for fire started on USS Bonhomme Richard in California, destroying warship

VIDEO: The U.S. Navy said Thursday that charges have been filed against a Navy Sailor who is accused of starting the July 2020 fire that destroyed the warship while it was docked in San Diego. According to Cmdr. Sean Robertson, U.S. 3rd Fleet spokesperson, the evidence collected during the investigation is sufficient to direct a preliminary hearing for the sailer who was a member of Bonhomme Richard’s crew at the time of the fire. The massive fire erupted late on the morning of July 12 in a storage area aboard the 27,565-ton military sea vessel and soon was sending thick columns of acrid smoke above San Diego Bay and across much of the city. In August 2020, a senior defense official said that arson was suspected as the cause of the July 12 fire that left extensive damage to the USS Bonhomme Richard.
KFMB-TV CBS/CW 8 San Diego

Teens Train To Become Next Generation Of Volunteer Firefighters At New York’s Camp Fahrenheit 516

VIDEO: Instead of wearing shorts and swimsuits, teens are in heavy fire protection gear at a special summer camp on Long Island this week. They’re learning what it takes to become volunteer firefighters amid a national firefighter shortage, CBS2’s Carolyn Gusoff reported Thursday. Camp Fahrenheit 516 is named for the blazing heat campers encounter while training as the next generation of volunteer firefighters. “There’s not switch to turn off in here. They’re going into this building, what they come across burning is what, they’re gonna go on a call one day when they’re in their departments, and they go into a residence or a commercial building,” said Jerry Presta, chairman of the Nassau County Junior Firefighter Association. At the nation’s only junior firefighting training camp with hands-on experience like this, 28 Long Islanders ages 14 to 17 learn if they have the right stuff to serve their communities. Many already know they do.
WCBS-TV CBS 2 New York

Study: 9/11 first responders with highest exposure to toxic dust at risk of liver disease

Twenty years after the devastating attacks on September 11, doctors are still uncovering the fallout from the destruction of the World Trade Center. In a new study, researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York have discovered a link between the toxic dust coming from Ground Zero and liver damage. Their findings show that the earliest first responders on the scene have an even higher risk of fatty liver disease than others in the area after the terror attacks. The report is the first to connect higher odds of liver disease to time spent near the rubble in 2001. Study authors find that emergency personnel at Ground Zero within the first two weeks of the attack encountered the highest concentrations of toxic materials. These individuals are now showing greater signs of decreasing density in their livers — a key measure of liver disease due to chemical exposure (or hepatic steatosis).
StudyFinds.org

Fire destroys house near middle school in Utah

VIDEO/PHOTOS: A fire that officials say started from welding sparks destroyed a house in Hurricane on Wednesday afternoon and for a time threatened Hurricane Middle School and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ seminary building. There were no injuries and by 4:58 p.m., the fire was contained. The fire was first reported as a brush fire at 3:41 p.m., provoking a response from Hurricane wildfire crews. But the flames spread to an adjacent home located on at 366 W. 300 North. Flames and smoke could be seen rising out of the home into the Hurricane sky. Officials initially said the sparks that started the fire came from the junkyard, but Hurricane Valley Fire Battalion Chief Nick Wright said it was actually someone working on the house.
St. George News

North Carolina firefighter’s death in the line of duty 10 years ago changed the department

When Jeff Bowen was growing up in Southern California he would walk home from school by a fire station. One day, after the 6-year-old did not come home, his mother, Laurel Bowen, said she went looking for him at the station where she knew some of the firefighters. A captain pointed her inside. "He said, 'You know he stops every day to talk to us.'" The boy was sitting in the driver's seat of a fire engine. After his mother expressed her concern, he said to her, "Mom, I want you to know something. I'm going to drive one of these one day," his mother recalled. He did. After putting out wildfires in California, Jeff Bowen moved to Asheville where he was promoted to fire department engineer and later captain. On July 28, 2011, the day a four-alarm blaze ripped through a medical building at 445 Biltmore Ave., Laurel Bowen and other family members came to the scene.
Citizen Times - Metered Site

Opinion: Dear Admiral Kitchener; San Diego Urgently Needs A Fireboat

Last week at a media conference Vice Admiral Roy Kitchener, the commander of US Navy warships, outlined the actions that have been taken since the Bonhomme Richard caught fire in San Diego last year… and he has completely missed the point. “We found that in some cases maybe we weren’t doing as well as we should have,” Kitchener told US Naval Institute editor Sam LaGrone. “We’re pretty good at firefighting at sea and all those procedures. When we got to the industrial environment, it was ‘OK, looks like we need to kind of make sure there’s a little bit of education.” His solution? The Admiral and his team decided to “beef up the safety staff” and added a mix of civilian and military fire marshals to check ships on the waterfront and in the yard. He didn’t mention that crews did not have THE single most basic piece of equipment needed to fight large ship fires: a fireboat.
gCaptain

Your guide to the coronavirus variants, from alpha to lambda

A year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, the world looks a lot different than it used to. And so does the coronavirus itself. As it’s infected hundreds of millions of people around the globe, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been in a state of constant change, making small tweaks to its genetic code as it goes along. New variants have taken over from the virus’s earlier forms — like the highly contagious delta variant that is currently throwing a wrench in our “new normal.” Here, we break down what you need to know about the viral variants sweeping the world. The coronavirus, like other viruses, spreads by hijacking human cells to make copies of itself. But that process isn’t always perfect: Sometimes, the copied versions of the virus have a few typos in their genetic code. This means the coronavirus is constantly mutating as it spreads.
Spectrum News 1