Columbus officials are weighing a nearly $30 million plan to replace aging city hall, police, and fire buildings.

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Springfield approved $6 million in borrowing to buy 73 new police cruisers, a fire engine, trash trucks, and street sweepers under a coordinated vehicle replacement plan.

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Connecticut’s Highway Operations Center in Newington monitors road conditions 24/7, sends alerts, and helps detect incidents like crashes, disabled vehicles, and wrong-way drivers.

The post Inside CT’s Highway Command Center, Where Crashes and Issues Become Alerts in Minutes appeared first on Fire Apparatus: Fire trucks, fire engines, emergency vehicles, and firefighting equipment.

Fire crews have been battling a massive, stubborn fire for hours overnight at a commercial building in Somerville, Massachusetts, that sent two firefighters to the hospital and damaged about a half a block of businesses.

Officials tell us the fire broke out around 10 p.m. Monday in the 100 block of Broadway.

The most damage happened to a barber shop, Brazilian restaurant Rei Da Picanha and a Santander Bank branch. The roof and part of the first floor collapsed, making it even more difficult to put out the fire.

The fire chief says they think the flames started in the basement, and it was too smokey and dangerous to fight in the building, so crews had to pour water from the outside.

“It’s an old building and, old wood. And it got, there’s layers, it had an old tin ceiling, it’s probably been renovated several times over the years. So you have a lot of void spaces to deal with and that just creates a lot of smoke. And then when the fire got up and the roof gets involved, you have rubber roofing material, roofing tar, it produces very acrid smoke,” said Somerville Chief Charles Breen.

WBTS-CD NBC 10 Boston

The post VIDEOS: Massive fire damages Massachusetts businesses, sends 2 firefighters to the hospital appeared first on Daily Dispatch.

VIDEO: Firefighters say new homes are burning close to 10 times faster than older homes, giving families only a few minutes to escape once a fire starts.

“We’re seeing an uptick in our residential structure fires, how quickly they are burning,” said Heath Jones, Toney volunteer fire chief.

Studies from the National Fire Protection Association show modern homes burn up to 8 times faster than older homes, according to information presented in the report. That has reduced the average window of escape from 17 minutes to 3 to 4 minutes, according to the report.

“They don’t make cars like they used to, they don’t make houses like they used to,” Jones said.

Experts say a mix of engineered lumber, open floor plans and synthetic furniture can reduce the time families have to escape. “All of those are petroleum-based that just fuel the fire,” Jones said.

WAFF-TV NBC 48 Huntsville

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