Two Lexington firefighters have made and continue to make world history in the Firefighter Challenge League. Both Sarah McGill and Andrew Cook received awards in the 2025 Firefighter Challenge Championship Series.

The Firefighter Challenge League is an official sporting league designed for firefighters across the nation, regardless of their experience or status, to receive recognition for their emergency services.

Each year, the league hosts the Firefighter Challenge Championship Series, a set of competitions allowing firefighters across the nation to compete with each other in different obstacle courses. Participants in each challenge are timed based on how fast they can complete the criteria for each specific obstacle course.

According to the Firefighter Challenge League, both firefighters are members of the Firefighter Challenge League Lion’s Den, an award and honor for athletes who can meet a certain amount of criteria.

In 2021, McGill received the award for a female to have a run-time less than or equal to three minutes. In 2022, Cook received the award for having a run-time less than or equal to 100 seconds.

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VIDEO: A massive fire happened at an historic building in Cullman. Crews got the initial call to the Stiefelmeyer Building before dawn. The building houses multiple businesses.

Cullman Fire Chief Darren Peeples said they arrived at the scene at about 4 a.m. and would most likely be there till midnight or later. While the blaze is contained, there were still flames in pockets and voids in the roof and attic area of the 134-year-old building.

It took crews and equipment from Cullman and several other jurisdictions to get the massive blaze under control. Dozens of residents camped nearby to watch the 134-year-old structure go up in flames.

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Firefighters battled a massive fire that erupted at an apartment building in Manhattan on Sunday morning. The fire broke out around 6 a.m. at a six-story building on 7th Avenue between West 22nd and 23rd streets in Chelsea.

According to the FDNY, the building where the fire started is vacant. Heavy fire was reported on the first, fifth and sixth floors of the building.

Video captures heavy flames engulfing and thick, black smoke billowing from the structure. Eyewitness News was on scene as firefighters tried to get the fire under control and extinguish hotspots.

Officials say the building was unsafe for firefighters to walk in to, so the FDNY conducted searches from the tower ladders looking into the building.

“They were able to do a search from the ladders. Right now, the way that the construction is after the fire, it’s unsafe for us to do a full search,” said an FDNY Deputy Chief during a Sunday morning press conference.

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VIDEO: Wooden ladders and a three-person bench seat wouldn’t cut it for a fire engine in modern-day departments. “It was our first fire truck that we purchased as a department.”

But for members of Factoryville Fire Company back in the 1930’s, this Ward La France pumper, bought for $750 dollars at the time, was the top of the line. “After reorganizing in 1930 and we chartered, uh, we bought this new, we ordered in 1932, it was delivered in 1933,” said Chief Brian Gow.

Fire Chief Brian Gow says the piece of firefighting history was taken out of service in 1971 and bought back by Ward Le France. “They used it as a promotional piece, a safety color that was being introduced for visibility purposes…they outfitted it with beer taps and an 8-track player, and it toured around the East Coast,” said Gow.

It did make the occasional trip back, seen in Factoryville’s centennial parade in 1983. But as it passed from one owner to another, it became lost.

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PHOTOS: Over 20 fire crews spent Saturday night battling flames at a lumber yard in Wayne County, according to the Apple Creek Fire Department. Just before 8 p.m., the Apple Creek Volunteer Fire Department responded to East Lincoln Way after receiving calls about a massive blaze at Southwood Lumber Pallet, the department said.

The department requested mutual aid after someone with the business reported seeing smoke on the building’s camera system, and numerous 911 calls came in reporting visible smoke and flames. Upon arrival, crews were met with heavy smoke coming out of the large commercial building, and more assistance from surrounding departments was requested, Apple Creek Fire said.

In total, 24 departments responded with more than 30 apparatus and over 75 personnel, Apple Creek Fire said. Crews delivered more than 500,000 gallons of water while fighting the fire, the department said. According to the Orrville Fire Department, which was among the responding departments, crews remained on the scene until about 1 a.m. No injuries have been reported.

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A family was able to escape as a fire tore through a home in Bridgewater Friday morning. The fire is on Crescent Street, just behind the police department. According to officials, three people were inside the home when the fire broke out, but a quick-thinking bystander spotted the flames, called 911, and a police officer rushed in to get everyone out safely.

Thick smoke could be seen billowing from blocks away as firefighters from multiple departments worked to contain the blaze. The roof has completely collapsed, debris is scattered across the property, and crews are using a tractor to clear the wreckage.

At least two ladder trucks remain raised over the home as firefighters continue to knock down hot spots. When crews first arrived, the roof and several cars in the front yard were already engulfed in flames. The chief also confirmed that gas tanks inside the garage exploded during the fire, which explains the loud boom heard by nearby residents. There are no injuries to report, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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VIDEO: Technology aimed at keeping fans from across the globe safe is being deployed ahead of the FIFA World Cup. As Atlanta prepares to host one of the biggest events in the world, no matter if you’re on an iPhone, an Android, or any other phone, Atlanta’s 911 center can use your device to not only track you but to get to you faster.

“This is really going to be a game changer,” E-911 Executive Director Desiree Arnold said. With a surge of visitors expected for the World Cup, Atlanta’s E-911 center is launching new technology to speed up emergency response. The system called Rapid SOS also breaks language barriers.

“It’s detecting the language in Uzbeck, and it’s translating in English, and then we’ll type back in English, and it will detect we’re speaking in English,” Arnold told Channel 2’s Brittany Kleinpeter as she showed her how the program works.

And it does more than translate. It pinpoints exact locations. Right now, 911 operators get approximate locations. But the new system shows exact coordinates, helping first responders get to you faster.

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VIDEO: An attack on four EMTs inside a Bronx apartment building has left the first responders injured and a suspect in custody Friday morning.

The assault happened just after 10 p.m. Thursday on the seventh floor of an apartment building along Sedgwick Avenue in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx.

The EMTs were responding to a call involving a resident of the building when they were attacked in the hallway. Cleanup crews were seen inside the building overnight, clearing shards of broken glass scattered across the floor.

Police say there was also blood on the hallway floor and walls. According to authorities, the EMTs were assaulted by a 22-year-old resident when they arrived on the seventh floor. The reason for the attack is still under investigation.

A 32-year-old EMT suffered a laceration to the head, while a 20-year-old EMT was treated for injuries to the face. Both were taken to the hospital in stable condition. Two other EMTs also sustained minor injuries.

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VIDEOS: Investigators are examining a video posted to social media as part of their investigation into a massive warehouse fire that broke out early Tuesday morning in Ontario.

Arson investigators say the video appears to show cases of toilet paper being set on fire inside a warehouse while a person repeatedly says he is not paid enough to live on.

“If you’re not going to pay us enough to (expletive) live or afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this,” the person in the video says. Police have arrested 29-year-old Chamel Abdul-Karim on suspicion of felony arson.

Authorities say he was working at the Kimberly-Clark Distribution Center through a third-party company at the time. Investigators say they are reviewing the video but have not confirmed whether the person shown in the footage is Abdul-Karim.

A co-worker of the suspect told reporters he had just met Abdul-Karim moments before the fire broke out and said there was initially no suspicion that he was involved.

“There was no suspicion that it was him, actually he was missing. So everyone was trying to find him. Everyone was blaming the robots at first. We were almost 100% sure it was the robots until the action in the video of course,” said Alex Montero of San Bernardino.

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VIDEO: A bill passed in this year’s West Virginia Legislative Session aimed at protecting first responders while they’re helping people in need will soon become law after receiving Gov. Morrisey’s signature earlier this month.

Senate Bill 4 was drafted by Senator Mike Oliverio (R-Monongalia) last spring after he found similar legislation passed in Florida. This bill states that the public, upon receiving a verbal warning, must stay 30 feet away from first responders to ensure their safety and to keep patients and bystanders safe, as well.

12 News spoke to Senator Oliverio on the importance of prioritizing first responders’ safety.

“Whether it’s a law enforcement officer, a firefighter or EMS, we understand that the public wants to see what’s going on, and if the public wants to record with their phone or take photographs, that’s fine, but we just need to make sure that they’re out of the way of the first responders.

And this just makes it very clear that if a first responder thinks the person is in their way, they can instruct them to move back 30 feet, or simply 10 yards,” Senator Oliverio said. Failure to move after being warned by a first responder could result in a misdemeanor charge, leading to a fine of up to $500 and/or a year of jail time.

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VIDEOS/PHOTOS: Thirteen people were injured after an explosion was reported at a manufacturing building in East Providence on Wednesday night.

Police said they responded to Aspen Aerogels on Dexter Road at 8:14 p.m. for a report of an explosion and fire inside the facility.

Officers said they located multiple people with minor injuries inside and outside of the building. There are no reports of major injuries. Fire officials said the back of the building suffered significant damage.

“There is a process they do in the building, they do super insulation, as part of that process, the insulation is dried in basically an oven. And during that process is when the explosion happened,” said Chief Michael Carey.

It is unclear what caused the explosion. The Office of the State Fire Marshal is investigating.

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PHOTOS: Crews battled a massive fire in a 24,000 square foot mansion in the elite Los Angeles neighborhood of Beverly Crest Tuesday. L.A. City Fire started battling the blaze in the 300 block of Delfern Drive, north of Sunset Boulevard, at approximately 1:45 p.m. About 150 personnel were on scene, LAFD said. By 5:30 p.m., firefighters appeared to be getting the upper hand on the fire.

Sky5’s Gil Leyvas was over the fire at 5:30 p.m., where white smoke could be seen rising from the roof of the massive home, which was under construction. One chimney reportedly partially collapsed. Firefighters were ordered off the roof around 4:30 p.m. and operations had continued from the exterior of the structure due to safety concerns, according to LAFD.

Access to the home was slowed due to the home’s heavy construction, officials said. Firefighters worked to salvage items like artwork and other valuables from the water, smoke and flames. The fire didn’t appear to spread to any of the brush in the area or any neighboring homes. No injuries have been reported to any occupants or workers in the home, officials say. Everyone on the property is accounted for.

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VIDEO: A new interactive tool developed right here in Cincinnati is helping teach kids how to stay safe during a fire—using something many already love: video games. It all started with a visit to the Cincinnati Fire Museum.

“We went to the Cincinnati Fire Museum,” said D’Arcy Smith, director of the University of Cincinnati’s Digital Performance Lab. “It’s got a really interesting mix of both historical things to look at in terms of firefighting in general.” But during that visit with his kids, Smith noticed something missing. “My kids… there wasn’t a ton of interactive things for them to do,” he said.

So Smith, a professor at the University of Cincinnati, decided to build something himself. He teamed up with student Tyler McCall to create Fire Escape, an interactive video game designed to teach kids what to do in a house fire. “We coded maybe how to jump, and you do the rest,” McCall said. “Everything else—the house itself, every item in it, the character models, all of it.”

The team even brought the game to life by voicing characters themselves, alongside students from Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.

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Within months of becoming chief of Double Creek Volunteer Fire and Rescue in November 2025, Jimmy Brown received sobering news: His station’s well water was contaminated with PFAS at levels that exceeded federal limits.

The station in Pinnacle, northwest of Winston‑Salem near Pilot Mountain, is one of 392 rural fire departments across the state whose wells were tested for PFAS in a recent study.

Since the revelation in 2016 that PFAS, or per‑ and polyfluoroalkyl substances, were being released into the Cape Fear River by the Fayetteville-based Chemours, awareness of the chemicals has risen across the state.

PFAS have come to be known as “forever chemicals” since they resist breaking down in the environment. They also have been linked to multiple health risks.

The study was conducted by the North Carolina Collaboratory, a research group formed in 2016 by the General Assembly. The collaboratory harnesses the expertise of university researchers to address state and local government issues.

Jeff Warren, executive director of the collaboratory, which is based at UNC Chapel Hill, said researchers initially focused on collecting and destroying containers of PFAS‑laden firefighting foam under a legislature‑funded Aqueous Film‑Forming Foam Take‑Back Program.

Building on that work, collaboratory researchers decided to test wells at rural fire departments and later shared a list of stations with elevated PFAS readings with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

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PHOTOS: Firefighters battled a massive six-alarm blaze that investigators believe was intentionally set in San Bernardino County early Tuesday morning.

Multiple agencies responded around 12:30 a.m. to a fire reported at the approximately one-million-square-foot Kimberly-Clark warehouse near South Hellman Avenue and Merrill Avenue in Ontario.

Video from the scene showed flames ripping through the roof of the warehouse as first-arriving crews immediately called for a second-alarm response to bring in more firefighting resources.

The fire, fueled by paper products stored inside the facility, eventually escalated to a six-alarm incident. Units from several neighboring departments assisted the Ontario Fire Department, according to San Bernardino County Fire officials.

As of 5 a.m., firefighters had shifted to a defensive strategy, pouring water on the hours-long blaze from ladder trucks positioned around the warehouse.

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VIDEO: Some New Hampshire firefighters have started the first phase of a new medical screening program that aims to catch cancer before it becomes deadly.

Officials said they believe the state’s comprehensive approach will set a new nationwide standard. “Firefighters are conditioned to take care of everyone else first,” said retired Nashua Fire Chief Glenn Telgen. “These exams are about ensuring we also take care of our own.”

Telgen is battling pancreatic cancer. He’s urging his fellow career firefighters to participate in a new, state-funded comprehensive cancer screening program that launched Monday. Gov. Kelly Ayotte and fire service leaders from across the state gathered Monday to announce that the first firefighters started receiving their cancer screenings under the new program that morning.

Lawmakers passed a $5 million appropriation in 2024 to fund the initiative, which runs firefighters through a battery of tests, including CT scans, full-body ultrasounds and extensive blood work.

“It’s historic, because it’s the first state or province in our international union across two great countries to do something with CT scans, the diagnostic ultrasounds and the blood tests, that trifecta … is going to save lives,” said Jay Colbert, IAFF district 3 vice president.

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VIDEO/PHOTOS: Multiple couches, hay bales and other furniture met an early demise as students lit more than 40 fires across Ann Arbor after Michigan basketball’s national championship win Monday night.

Hundreds of students took over South University Avenue and nearby streets shortly after 11 p.m., April 6 to set off fireworks and climb anything they could find: light poles, shoulders, trees and fences, included.

The Wolverines‘ title, clinched in a 69-63 win over Connecticut in Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, is the second in program history and their first since 1989.

Celebrating throngs quickly moved outward into surrounding neighborhoods, dispersing into groups of students darting across darkened streets to the next party. And it didn’t take long for a soundtrack of cheering coeds and jovial car honking to have a new instrument join the medley – the wail of fire trucks.

One of the first fires came roughly 20 minutes after the Wolverine win. By 12:30 a.m., students showed no signs of slowing down, per Mike Kennedy, chief of the Ann Arbor Fire Department.

Firefighters blared their horns at cars and pedestrians alike as they rushed from one intersection to the next. Most of the fire appeared to be pieces of furniture.

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Crews battled a massive fire at an abandoned chemical factory for several hours overnight in Paterson, New Jersey. Smoke continued to pour out of the rubble throughout the day Saturday.

The flames, which began around 11:30 p.m., burned through the old facility on Piercy St. near Presidential Blvd. and the Passaic River, also damaging power lines that caused some people nearby to lose electricity.

“I was about to go to bed and looked out the window, saw the flames, felt the heat,” neighbor Ramon Pacheco told NBC New York, about the fire that also threatened nearby homes. “Just woke the wife up and the kids, and you just got out (of) the house before anything happened.”

Paterson Deputy Fire Chief Michael Cleenput says the factory has likely been abandoned for about two decades. “We had one operational hydrant and severe low water pressure. So, that took a while to really overcome and get an effective firefight here,” he said.

Other fire departments were called in to help battle the 5-alarm fire. “We were surprised to find out that after all the years of this building being vacant, that there was a live gas feed,” said Cleenput. Crews were eventually able to shut down the gas feed.

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VIDEO/PHOTOS: Two fire chiefs who were searching for a missing Berks County woman while riding on a UTV were struck and killed by a man who was driving under the influence, police said.

Fire Chief Jeffory L. Buck and Assistant Fire Chief Robert R. Shick, Jr., of the Walnuttown Fire Company, were driving in the UTV northbound on the shoulder of Kutztown Road in Richmond Township, Pennsylvania, shortly before 6 p.m. on Saturday when a Toyota Camry was seen by witnesses swerving while going southbound, police said.

Officials said the Camry swerved off of the road and hit the UTV head-on. The two firefighters died from their injuries, according to police. “You don’t really prepare yourself for an incident like this,” Walnuttown Fire and Rescue Lieutenant Ryan Tyson said. “Let alone two at the same time.”

NBC10 crews at the scene saw a red-colored off-roading vehicle on its side in the middle of the roadway and a gray-colored sedan with extensive damage off the side of the road.

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A truck driver was critically injured overnight after the 18-wheeler he was driving crashed, knocking down power lines before catching fire, police said.

Officers responded to a crash around 1 a.m. on Sunday, April 5, at a Valero gas station located at 13900 Trinity Boulevard, the Fort Worth Police Department said in a press release. The crash involved a car and an 18-wheeler carrying 9,000 gallons of gasoline, the release states.

Powerlines were knocked over in the crash, causing the 18-wheeler to catch fire, police said. The driver of the 18-wheeler attempted to stop gasoline from leaking and draining in the gas station parking lot, but the fire spread to the gasoline, causing it to ignite, police said. The driver was taken to a hospital in critical condition, according to the press release.

The fire burned for hours overnight as fire crews worked to spray the tanker with water to keep it cool, the release states. Firefighters also used foam to fight the fire, and sand trucks were used to prevent the foam from running off, police say. Crews fought the fire for six hours, leaving the scene at 7 a.m., according to the release.

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