ORLAND, IL - The Orland Fire Protection District next week is unveiling a state-of-the-art simulation training program that it hopes eventually will become the go-to facility for departments across the region. The system uses computer-graphic imaging to depict real-life firefighting situations. It is only the fourth in the country based on the Blue Card command training program created by a retired ...

HARKER HEIGHTS — A mobile home fire at the corner of Beeline Lane and Amy Lane early Monday morning sent one Harker Heights firefighter to the hospital and displaced four adults. The four adults are currently being taken care of by the American Red Cross. The firefighter remained in the Scott & White Intensive Care Unit in Temple with fellow firefighters ...

NEW YORK - A buildup of carbon monoxide under a Midtown street caused an underground fire and a manhole explosion Tuesday afternoon, prompting the evacuation of four buildings near Times Square, the authorities said. The explosion occurred at 4:30 p.m. outside of 226 West 52nd Street, the Novotel Hotel. No one was injured, but the hotel and three other buildings were ...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Authorities say a small plane has crashed in a busy business district near downtown Anchorage, Alaska, killing a small child and injuring the four other people onboard. Jennifer Rodi, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, says the single-engine Cessna 206 went down shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday after departing Merrill Field about a mile away. The ...

NEW YORK - After many years of costly litigation, the news broke this week that lawyers for thousands who were injured in the World Trade Center attacks have reached a settlement with the City of New York and others that could provide more than $650 million to those who sustained illnesses or injuries in rescue and recovery operations at Ground Zero. ...

SEATTLE - The father who was killed in a New Year's morning blaze was training to become a firefighter and had recently passed his initial firefighting tests, says the manager of the apartments where he died. David Thompson, 32, who was killed in the apartment fire along with his four sons, also worked as a maintenance assistant at the apartment complex ...

QUEENS, NY - A 23-year-old Queens man was charged on Thursday with setting a fire that killed his pregnant girlfriend and her 2-year-old son, the authorities said. The boyfriend, Jimmy Humphrey, was charged with arson and assault, said Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney. The woman, Linda Anderson, 25, died early Tuesday, apparently in the fire at her home on ...

BERLIN — A 650-foot ferry was ablaze in the Baltic Sea on Saturday after an explosion on the upper deck, officials said. Firefighting ships stopped spraying the vessel, fearing that it would capsize and spill around 170 tons of fuel. There were 204 passengers and 32 crew members who were rescued by six ships that moved in to help after the ...

PHILADELPHIA - There were moments when Upper Darby Police Officer Raymond Blohm thought about quitting his dream job and never returning to the streets again. "I had doubts and, yes, a lot of sleepless nights at first," he said of a shooting this year that left him injured and struggling with questions about his career. Blohm was among 39 police officers ...

MILWAUKEE — Two felons were charged Thursday with homicide and arson in the deaths of a mother, her two young children and a woman who also was the men's alleged accomplice in a case that began with an $800 robbery. Desmond Laster, 21, and Anthony Edward Barnes, 23, of Milwaukee, face four counts each of first-degree intentional homicide and arson. They ...

VIGO COUNTY, IN - Brandon Hoopingarner said he was fighting a barn fire when a 55 gallon drum of paint thinner near him exploded. "Got up and I thought I was OK and I looked down and I was just on fire," Hoopingarner said. He told us the gear he was using saved his life, and minimized his injuries. Doctors treated ...

BOSTON - Residents heard the fire alarms just before 2 p.m., but thought little of them as they made their way down the stairs of their 10-story condominium building in the Back Bay. But the alarm turned out to be the largest firefighting operation the city has seen in recent years — flames roared out the seventh-floor windows, and smoke billowed ...

DETROIT - No one was injured and there were no reports of significant damage from an electrical fire at a Detroit auto show exhibit that shut the event down for a few hours today, officials said. The fire, which spread smoke throughout Cobo Center and forced the evacuation of the main showroom, began in scaffolding and high-powered lights in the ceiling ...

NEW YORK - Supreme Court Justice Paul Feinman dismissed a suit filed by Firefighter Timothy Brown with the backing of the American Center for Law & Justice, a Washington conservative group. Feinman ruled that Brown didn't have a leg to stand on legally in his suit that challenged the city's refusal to grant landmark status to 45-47 Park Place, a building ...

The first frantic call for help as a wildfire gathered momentum in the foothills west of Boulder came from a longtime firefighter who was helpless as flames burst across his wooded property, devouring trees and torching a propane tank. His breathless descriptions — captured on a dispatch tape — detailed the fury of a blaze that, by Wednesday evening, had charred ...

SAN CARLOS, CA - Four of five San Carlos City Council members said this week they are open to dropping the pay of new firefighters by as much as 10 percent to increase the city's savings when it forms a new fire department in October. If the council decides at its Monday meeting to pay new firefighters that much less than ...

TAMPA - It's a dessert. Bananas, ice cream, cinnamon and butter. You wouldn't exactly imagine having to save someone from bananas Foster. But for the finishing touch, it's a flambé. Most recipes call for a quarter-cup of dark rum, brought to the table and ignited. On Saturday night, a fun dessert went terribly wrong and five customers at a Palm Harbor ...