'Safer' cigarettes credited for drop in number of fires
The number of fires started by cigarettes is decreasing, and the drop may be due to legislation requiring all cigarettes to meet a specific fire-safety standard.

In 2007, Utah became the seventh state to pass fire-safe cigarette legislation, said Ron Morris, the state fire marshal.

Local firefighters join in air tank reinvention
FORT WAYNE -- It’s a nightmare scenario for firefighters everywhere.

A ceiling collapses, bringing with it a bird’s nest of telephone wires, fiber optic cables and power cords. A firefighter tries to escape, but the round fiberglass air tank that sits 8 inches off his back – the only thing allowing him to breathe in a burning building filled with noxious smoke and gases – becomes tangled, trapping him inside.

Prince George's man declared dead a day too soon by medics
PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY -- The daughter of a Prince George's County man who was mistakenly left for dead by paramedics Friday said she and her mother had already notified relatives when she learned from a medical examiner that he was, in fact, alive.

George Waters, 70, ultimately died Saturday evening at Prince George's Hospital Center, according to his daughter, Laverne Waters.

Fast snow melt raises fire danger in Minn.
FOREST LAKE, Minn. -- Firefighters north of the metro spent Monday afternoon battling a couple of large grass fires.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says one of the fires burned about 12 acres in Forest Lake just off of Interstate 35W. It came dangerously close to some homes, apparently melting the siding off of a shed.

Burning Memories: Modesto firefighters talk about fateful night
MODESTO -- After 24 years of fighting fires, Jim Adams had become an expert with the hook.

So on New Year's night, with fire raging in the garage of a home on Modesto's Coston Avenue, the 46-year-old Modesto fire engineer climbed onto the roof and began prodding away. He used the rakelike tool to confirm structural stability, looking for the best and safest place for his partner, J.D. Clevenger, to rev up the chain saw and cut a hole in the roof.