House fire near Duenweg brings together firefighters from multiple departments

VIDEO/PHOTO: About 7:35 a.m. Thursday morning, Duenweg Fire were alerted to a residential structure fire on County Lane 163, south along I-44 near 16 MM. Smoke and flames upgraded the automatic mutual aid requests as other departments rushed into assist. METS ambulance assisted with refreshments for firefighters as they were switching out. Jasper County Sheriff’s Deputies also assisted. Duenweg Fire tell us residents were out safely. The south wind made battling this fire tough. As they began setting up their tanker shuttle, we observed during our live video, flames whipping up over the backside of the house at least 10 feet into the air. Eventually, the fire that had made its way into the attic area broke through the roof. Firefighters could make an interior attack from below. There were no injuries to firefighters.
KOAM-TV CBS 7 Joplin/Pittsburg

Honoring Springfield’s 911 operators during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week

VIDEO: April 14-20 is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. This week, we honor those 911 operators who provide a voice to emergency services across the country and the Ozarks. The Springfield-Greene County 911 Emergency Communications Department has honored employees with activities and events this week, highlighting their necessary careers. In 2023, the emergency department took 268,825 emergency 911 calls and handled nearly 460,000 calls for service and field-initiated events. Springfield-Greene County 911 Shift Supervisor Andrew Bick said the job definitely can take a toll on your mental well-being. “Our staff is every bit as exposed to some of that trauma as the firefighters, EMS, and officers in general. That is a consideration when you apply for a position like this,” Bick said. We have a peer support team.”
KYTV NBC 3 Springfield

North St. Louis County fire chief shares importance of turnout gear through Herofund USA grant

VIDEO: First Alert 4 checked in with North St. Louis County Fire and Rescue about how its turnout gear is serving its firefighters. Gear for its crew of almost 30 firefighters was paid for through the Herofund USA grant in 2021. Drew Cannon with the department showed us his kit, he did an inspection investigating all 110 pounds of his gear that he wears each time he fights a fire. “Once the call comes out, you get an adrenaline rush so it is light weight at that point,” Cannon said. He has just over a year under his belt, so all he has known is this newer gear. This equipment is a matter of life and death for Chief Keith Goldstein. “When I was introduced to Hero’s Funds, I didn’t know they were out there,” Goldstein said. He said what sleep he does get at night is because he knows his men and women have the best gear available.
KMOV-TV CBS 4 St. Louis

Automatic callbacks for 911 hang-ups help Kansas City response times, dispatch burden

KCPD 911 dispatch implemented a new feature to try and help problems that are slowing down their ability to take calls. The system will automatically call back anyone that makes a call to 911 and hangs up. Dispatch is required to call back all abandoned calls. They receive more than one million calls a year and last year, more than 116,000 of those were hang up calls. This was a problem due to staffing issues. Steve Hoskins with KCPD dispatch told me they have 28 out of around 90 positions open, leading to a lot of work for call takers and longer wait times for callers. He hopes this automatic feature will really make a difference. “What we are hoping is that those mistakes, the ones where people accidentally call 911 will take care of those automatically and take that workload off of us and hopefully allow us to answer 911 a little faster and improve our wait times,” said Steve Hoskins, KCPD interoperability systems manager.
KSHB-TV NBC 41 Kansas City