MACON, GA - It all started with a little trash talking at the fire station. Several months later, Macon-Bibb County firefighter Ellen Kicklighter has been honored as the fastest firefighter in the state when it comes to getting dressed into her fire gear. Kicklighter, a 43-year-old mother of two, beat out other Macon-Bibb firefighters during competition at the Cherry Blossom Festival ...

A Lancaster County firefighter lost his home in a fire early Monday. Eric Reisinger said he, his girlfriend, and his father were sleeping when the fire started, possibly in the garage of the house along Elizabeth Road in Washington Boro. He said he awakened to the sounds of tires popping. Everyone escaped the flames, but the house was gone by time ...

CHICAGO - Several people, including two children, were rescued Monday morning from a blaze in a sparsely occupied Bronzeville condo building where conditions were described as "pretty bad" by a Chicago Fire Department spokesman. A firefighter was treated at the University of Chicago Medical Center for burns to his ears, said Chief Kevin MacGregor, a Fire Department spokesman. When the firefighters ...

The debate over diversity in the FDNY has focused on one statistic - 91% of the Bravest are white. But in the shadow of the legal battle to bring more blacks and Hispanics into the department lurks another number: 31. That's how many female firefighters are employed by the FDNY, the nation's largest department with about 11,500 members, records show. It's ...

Last week, firefighters from Marion County Fire Rescue and the International Association of Firefighters Local 3169 conducted their annual Fill The Boot campaign for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. For three days, firefighters from 24 stations manned intersections across the county, offering their boots to be filled with cash and coins from passing motorists. According to Orlando MDA Executive Director, Brittany Lara, ...

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) - Forget "Fore!" "Fire!" was the cry of the day for a golfer whose off-target swing sparked a 12-acre blaze in Southern California. The golfer at the Shady Canyon Golf Course in Irvine landed a shot in the rough Saturday. On his next swing, his club snagged a rock, causing a spark that lit the rough ablaze and ...

SACRAMENTO — The tires of a JetBlue airplane caught fire yesterday during a hard landing in Sacramento that sent passengers down emergency slides to escape the aircraft and left 15 people with minor injuries. Passenger Michelle McDuffie said people onboard felt a thud when the plane touched down at about 12:50 p.m. after a flight from Long Beach, Calif., but nobody ...

BANGKOK (AP) - A 603-pound (274-kilogram) woman believed to be the heaviest in Thailand left her apartment for the first time in three years Thursday with the help of Bangkok city hall and a forklift. Neighbors of 40-year-old Umnuayporn Tongprapai contacted the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority when they learned she needed medical attention to remove a tumor in her right leg. Bangkok's ...

BRAZIL - Like a special effect from a Harry Potter film, a tornado of fire rises from the ground as if enchanted. This rare phenomenon then swept through burning fields and stopped traffic in Brazil as bush fires spread across the country. The whirlwind of flame, several metres high, was caught on camera in Aracatuba, in southern Sao Paulo state. It ...

ROCKVILLE, Md.-- Four firefighters were rushed to the hospital after a roof collapsed on their heads while they were cleaning up after a fire on Wilmart Street in Rockville Wednesday night. The fire broke out on the 1700 block of Wilmart Street at around 7:25 p.m., according to Montgomery County Fire spokesperson Beth Anne Nesselt. "Three of the four firefighters will ...

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Authorities say a South Carolina mother who died in a fire with her twin 3-year-old sons had left them alone in her house with food on the stove when the blaze broke out. Charleston County Sheriff's spokesman Maj. John Clark says 30-year-old Mary P. Brown of Charleston had left the house to pick up a friend Tuesday evening. ...

NEWINGTON — After 34 years of fighting fires, Newington Fire Chief Roy Greenleaf is hanging up his coat for retirement. His office walls are bare, only a few nails and hooks left as reminders of the memorabilia that once hung there — his three purple hearts, his bronze star and a collection of patches from the various firefighter pipe bands he's ...

ASHLAND, Ore. — Families looked for valuables, pets and mementoes Wednesday in the ashes of 11 homes destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire while a homeless man accused of starting the blaze sat in jail. John Thiry, 40, was arrested at 3 a.m. under a freeway ramp and charged with 11 counts of reckless endangerment and 11 counts of reckless burning, authorities ...

SACRAMENTO, CA - Dozens of regional firefighters Thursday got a peek at UC Davis' new facility for burn victims – a center they helped get built and a replacement for the facility where some of them were patients themselves. The renamed Firefighters Burn Institute Regional Burn Center, which will begin receiving patients in late September, was financed in part by $1 ...

TRENTON - Call Augustine Pope a miracle toddler. About an hour after falling asleep in a Trenton basement, he awoke to flames and smoke clogging the air early Thursday. As at least four others escaped the house, Augustine got trapped in the basement, which began to fill with water as firefighters fought the blaze. Somehow, he stayed afloat as the fire ...

WINDSOR, Ont. — A 19-year-old woman has been charged with careless driving in a weekend accident that injured five firefighters from the eastern Ontario town of Napanee. The crash, which occurred Saturday afternoon on the 401, set off a chain of events that led to a fatal accident Sunday morning involving some of the same men. The second collision claimed the ...

INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY - Firefighters already accustomed to the oppressive heat of real fires filed down the stairs of a five-story training structure in northern Terre Haute. The smoke - albeit fake - was so thick it shrouded the room in almost total darkness. Dave Dziedzicki, a graduate assistant in Indiana State University's athletic training department, waited at the bottom. Wearing ...

HOUSTON, TX - Terry Garrison, a tall man with an almost constant grin, is an experienced and well-educated administrator whose management style draws on openness and inclusiveness, say fire and police officials who have worked with him. On Wednesday, Mayor Annise Parker presented Garrison, 52, who until Monday was interim chief of the obscure Daisy Mountain Fire District outside of Phoenix, ...

ASHLEY, Ind. - It was discovered that the volunteer firefighter driving the Ashley fire tanker that flipped over onto its top last Friday, is partly to blame for the accident. The accident happened during a fire run. The tanker flipped over onto its right side and then onto its back as it turned left onto North Grand Avenue. The crew was ...

The National Highway Traffic Safety administration has opened a preliminary investigation of about 3 million 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees after a petition from safety advocacy group Center for Auto Safety. The CAS alleges in its petition that the placement of the Jeep's plastic gas tank behind the rear axle and below the rear bumper make it a fire risk in a ...