APPLETON, WI - When a fire strikes their home or business, most people don't think about how much training the firefighters have gotten. They just want the fire put out. But it's worth considering. Wisconsin requires 60 hours of basic fire training. If you broke that down into eight-hour workdays, it's 7½ days. That doesn't seem like a lot when you ...

The body of a veteran climber who fell 1,500ft into the crater of Mount St. Helens volcano has been recovered today after he spent more than a day in the snow. High winds and low cloud had hampered efforts to reach Joseph Bohlig, 52, who was posing for a picture on the rim of the dormant crater when a snow overhang ...

A 28-year-old Tarzana woman was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for setting a nightclub dancer on fire. Rianne Celine Theriault-Odom was found guilty last month of aggravated mayhem and torture in connection with the February 2009 attack on Roberta Dos Santos Busby, officials said. During an argument, Theriault-Odom took a Dr. Pepper bottle filled with gasoline and hurled its contents ...

WEST MAUI, HI - A West Maui brushfire that has burned 1,100 acres since Monday in the Olowalu area is 60 percent contained and firefighters are expected to continue monitoring the area tonight, Maui County said Wednesday. The county says the area of the fire is closed to public access for safety reasons. Mayor Charmaine Tavares said Wednesday, "I would like ...

Firefighters have one of the most dangerous jobs, but half of those who die while working actually do so from a heart attack. A $1 million, three-year grant to the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health will fund research to determine whether medical treatment can help prevent the progression of early atherosclerotic disease in firefighters. Most ...

June 2 - Three explosives experts were killed and six injured as they attempted to defuse a World War II bomb in the central German city of Goettingen, police said. The 500-kilogram (1,100 pound) bomb was found late yesterday under Goettingen’s Schuetzenplatz, the city’s police said in a statement late yesterday. All the dead and injured were in the process ...

AUSTRALIA - UNION officials say they are struggling to find new ways to prevent assaults on ambulance officers following a weekend attack on a female paramedic by a nine-year-old boy. A Department of Community Safety spokeswoman confirmed the paramedic suffered a cut to the head after being kicked by the child while attempting to treat a 21-year-old with a broken foot ...

HOLLYWOOD, FL - Two south Florida men who family members said were traveling on business were killed in a twin-engine plane crash Saturday night in a far west Chicago suburb. The pilot, Gary Bradford Jr., 37, of Hollywood, Fla., and his passenger, Drago Strahija, 32, of Lake Worth, Fla., had come from Texas, spent a night in west suburban Aurora and ...

BOSTON - Federal prosecutors trying an ex-Boston firefighter on fraud charges this week plan to graphically chart what they say was the jake’s robust, healthy lifestyle of playing baseball and competing in bodybuilding contests while he was being paid to sit home with a bad back. Albert Arroyo, 49, of Roslindale is accused of applying for tax-free accidental-disability retirement benefits for ...

LOS ANGELES—A new report says poor communications and unexpected fire conditions caused the deaths of two firefighters whose truck plunged off a mountain road last year during a massive Los Angeles County wildfire. Capt. Tedmund Hall and Arnaldo Quinones died on Aug. 30 during the 250-square-mile Station fire in the foothills above Los Angeles. A county Fire Department report issued this ...

Vancouver’s fire department is rushing to remove a colourful mural from its Downtown Eastside station that features a syringe-equipped grim reaper characterizing Canada’s poorest neighbourhood as just about the end of the world. But as a senior fire official on Monday announced a hurried move to get rid of the mural, likely on Tuesday, he said the art made a valid ...

Auburn, NY — Irene Murphy was dining with her girlfriends at Lasca’s restaurant when their waiter hurried to their table. He asked them if they had heard about an explosion that rocked downtown Auburn moments earlier. Murphy sensed something may have gone bad for her husband “Spuds,” an Auburn firefighter who was working that night with his Engine No. 4 company. ...

NEW HAVEN — A city firefighter faces felony charges for allegedly striking his 14-year-old stepson with a belt during a heated domestic argument. The young man called police. Dawud Amin, 35, was arrested May 24 after police responded to his home on Norton Street. According to a police report, Amin and his stepson argued over a Bluetooth device that Amin suspected ...

MONROE, Ohio (AP) - A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said. The "King of Kings" statue, one of southwest Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just ...

A few years ago, Brian Jones applied to become a Shreveport firefighter. He didn't make the cut, so he submitted his application to Bossier City Fire Department and was hired. The 25-year-old worked two years for Bossier City before being laid off in December due to budget cuts. On Tuesday, Jones returned to Shreveport Fire Department as a member of its ...

BOSTON - Though he was weary and exhausted with newborn triplets at home, Boston Fire Academy instructor Danny Gomes was able to snap into action when he witnessed a man being stabbed in front of him on an East Boston street by treating the victim and pointing the suspect out to police. As Gomes, 40, walked out of Muzzy Day Square ...

OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma City police officers and firefighters squared off against each other in a jalapeno eating contest Tuesday at the Whataburger at NW 36 and MacArthur Boulevard. The firefighters won and received a $750 check to be donated to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The police officers received a $250 check that will be donated to the Police Action League. ...

BALTIMORE - Three firefighters were injured Wednesday night while battling a fire in East Baltimore, officials said. A fire broke out just before 11 p.m. in a vacant two-story brick building in the 1100 block of North Patterson Ave., according to fire department spokesman Chief Kevin Cartwright. One firefighter battled the fire from the roof, fell through, and suffered an injured ...