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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Two Chippewa tribal bands are assessing damage after a massive three-alarm fire tore through a neighboring building and spread to their Minneapolis offices, forcing both to close until further notice.

Minneapolis firefighters responded around 4 p.m. on Sunday to a report of a fire burning in a commercial building along East Franklin Avenue near 13th Avenue South.

Firefighters said they received initial reports of people running from the building. Because of reports of people potentially inside the building, firefighters searched the former business for victims.

Officials said heavy shelving and a large amount of items inside the building made battling the fire difficult. As firefighters were inside, the fire intensified, forcing crews to evacuate.

Two firefighters were injured while evacuating and taken to the hospital for evaluation.

KMSP-TV FOX 9 Minneapolis

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Tampa (FL) Fire Rescue and CCI/Warrior built a combination high-water rescue/wildland engine with swappable beds for rescue and firefighting.

The post Tampa (FL) Fire Rescue Gets High-Water/Brush Truck appeared first on Fire Apparatus: Fire trucks, fire engines, emergency vehicles, and firefighting equipment.

A home was destroyed by a fire in Underwood on Sunday night, according to the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff’s office says the fire started just before 6 p.m. at the home on Peach Lane and quickly engulfed the house.

The fire briefly threatened nearby trees and other buildings, but they were not damaged. No injuries were reported. Crews from Skamania County, Bingen and White Salmon were called out to the scene. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

KPTV FOX 12 Portland

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Nearly 700,000 acres burned across Washington during this year’s fire season. That’s about three and a half times the size of all five New York City boroughs. The National Weather Service says the combination of an early start to the fire season, a lack of snowpack and a lack of precipitation led to a fire season the likes of which we’ve rarely seen in the past 55 years.

According to NWS, this year’s fire season produced the third most acres burned in the Spokane area in one year since 1970.

Looking forward, the NWS says there are a variety of factors that we could see in the coming months that can potentially impact how much damage we see during fire weather next year, especially with a strong El Nino potentially affecting our winter.

“Because the temperatures do skew warmer, the precipitation that we get frequently falls as rain rather than snow and mountain snow, making it hard to build a durable mountain snowpack,” said Valerie Thaler, lead meteorologist at NWS.

NWS says even though we may see warmer temperatures and less snow this winter, that doesn’t spell disaster for next year’s fire season. The true markers will be the temperatures and amount of precipitation happening early next summer.

KXLY-TV ABC 4 Spokane

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