An armed man reportedly wearing body armor and pushing a shopping cart at a Walmart store in Missouri on Thursday led a store manager to pull the fire alarm and sent customers fleeing -- but an armed off-duty firefighter was able to detain the man until police officers arrived, Springfield police said.
- PUB DATE: 8/9/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fox News

The thought of flight and the consuming power of fire has fascinated mankind for centuries. Who hasn’t looked up wondering what it would be like to soar among the clouds? Who hasn’t sat mesmerized, staring into a campfire? The translucent red flames reaching toward the sky somehow hold us captive. For a select few, fire and flight go hand in hand.
- PUB DATE: 8/9/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KCET

It's a day meant to be remembered forever in scrapbooks: the first day of kindergarten, when parents walk their child to class for the first time. But for one Phoenix family, it was a bittersweet first day of kindergarten, as one parent was missing. Phoenix firefighter Brian Beck, Jr., tragically lost his battle with occupational cancer in May of this year.
- PUB DATE: 8/9/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: AZFamily.com

The Bureau of Land Management Idaho Falls District has transferred surplus wildland fire engines and equipment to 34 fire programs— including two Rangeland Fire Protection Associations —across eastern Idaho. The transfers are part of BLM’s effort to respond to rural wildland fires by giving excess equipment and supplies to local fire departments and RFPAs.
- PUB DATE: 8/9/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Idaho State Journal

Ray Kresek says the origins of what he calls the world’s largest Smokey Bear collection – which exists in a crowded but neatly arranged room in the basement of his home on the far North Side of Spokane – can be traced back to 1950. Smokey, who debuted in a 1944 ad campaign, was just 6 years old at the time, and Kresek was a 12-year-old in Oroville, Washington, whose teacher found matches in his pocket.
- PUB DATE: 8/9/2019 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Spokane Spokesman-Review