Fighting Fire


Nightclub Fire in Santa Maria, Brazil, kills at least 230

Photo credit: Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images
A fire at a nightclub in Brazil has killed at least 230 people in an incident that harkens to the Station fire in Rhode Island back in 2003, which also similarly killed 100 people after fire broke out at a popular club. There appears to have only been one exit to [...]

Fire, Crane Collapse in Syndey Captured on Video

Photo by Nick Moir, Sydney Morning Herald.
An arm of a crane collapsed on top of a construction site at the University of Technology, Sydney, after earlier catching fire. The collapse of Lend Lease’s crane’s jib brought down scaffolding. No one was injured. The crane operator was able to escape by climbing down a ladder, while [...]

20 years ago: Windsor Castle Fire

Photo by Thierry Saliou, AFP/Getty Images
20 years ago today, at 11:33am on November 20, 1992, a massive fire swept through Queen Elizabeth’s weekend home, Windsor Castle. The cause was determined to be a spotlight burning through a curtain on the first floor chapel of the northeast wing. After the alarm was called, castle workers formed [...]

Photo of the Day, September 7, 2011

Hundreds of families have been left homeless after a wind-fueled wildfire swept through Central Texas. More than 1,000 homes were destroyed, and 5,000 residents evacuated, as the flames spread yesterday to cover more than 25,000 acres. Firefighters were last night hoping for a drop in the winds, the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, so they [...]

Firefighting planes have perhaps been too long on job

Smoke plumes from the Wallow fire fill the sky in Luna, New Mexico, on Monday. Photo courtesy of AP.
With wildfire season starting early and fires already raging across Arizona, the U.S. Forest Service is confronting a longtime problem that many inside and outside the agency think needs an immediate fix: The large tanker planes leased [...]

Photo of the Day, January 22, 2011

On Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 3:04 AM, units of the San Jose Fire Department responded to a reported structure fire at 450 Drake Street near downtown San Jose. Photo from Firefighter-EMT.com regular group contributor smokeshowing.

30 Years Ago Today: MGM Grand Hotel Fire, November 21, 1980

Don Polke / Las Vegas Sun / Sun File Photo
Precisely 30 years ago today, at 7 in the morning of November 21, 1980, a fire at the luxury hotel and casino MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, killed 84 people. The majority of the fatalities were due to smoke inhalation, caused in part by [...]

Updated: Deadly high-rise fire in Shanghai

Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua is reporting that 53 individuals have died in a massive high-rise building fire in downtown Shanghai. 70 individuals are hospitalized, 13 of them critically.

Photo courtesy of the Associated Press.
The blaze broke out at approximately 2 p.m. local time on the scaffolding of the residential high-rise but quickly spread to the [...]

Firefighters sit and watch home burn

Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won’t respond, then watches it burn. That’s exactly what happened to a local family tonight.
A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.
The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for [...]

Wildfires in Russia Continue

A firefighter works to extinguish forest fires on the outskirts of the Russian city of Voronezh, July 30, 2010. (REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin) As of Tuesday, the Russian government said 529 major blazes were raging across central Russia, including what the official meteorological service described as a “fiery ring” of 90 suburban peat bog fires encircling Moscow, [...]