Family displaced, Bluffdale home collapses in early morning fire
BLUFFDALE, Utah () — A family in Bluffdale is looking for temporary housing after their home was extensively damaged in a house fire early Monday morning, May 12.
The call for the fire near 3300 West and Tucannin Cove came in around 3:30 a.m., according to the Bluffdale Fire Department. Nearby residents reported hearing 'possible explosions' coming from the garage.
By the time firefighters arrived on scene, the garage had become fully engulfed in flames, and the fire extended into the attic and living space of the home.
Blended high school senior may not get the graduation he earned
Fire crews started on the offensive, battling the fire from the inside. However, about 25 minutes into the firefight, the home's roof collapsed, forcing firefighters outside on a defensive stance. Bluffdale Fire said its crews, along with crews from Unified Fire, were able to get the flames under control shortly after.
Fortunately, there were no injuries in the fire, according to Bluffdale Fire. The family was able to self-evacuate from the home safely and are currently working with Red Cross to find temporary housing.
Bluffdale Fire told ABC4 it is currently unclear what started the fire, and an investigation is underway. It is also unclear if the home is considered to be a total loss as of Monday morning.
Family displaced, Bluffdale home collapses in early morning fire
Blustery winds blow through Utah, bringing in next storm system
U.S. and China announce deal to cut tariffs
Trump faces bipartisan pressure to restore public funding tracker
How Americans fell out of love with the convertible
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
What defunding public media would mean for the West
Sage Smiley, KYUK's news director, and Morris Alexie visit the proposed site for the climate-driven relocation of Nunapitchuk, a village of about 600 on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska. Alexie is the community's relocation manager. (Photo by Katie Baldwin Basile) Late last fall, members of Bethel, Alaska's search and rescue team met at the local public radio station, KYUK, for a program called River Watch. Over an hour and a half, they took calls from listeners around the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, comparing notes on the safety of the ice at different points along the Kuskokwim River. 'Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there,' said a caller from the village of Kalskag, his voice muffled over the phone. He said he'd recently flown over the river to the east and observed lots of holes in the ice. He wanted to warn listeners in other towns: 'There is no trail right now. None of the open water is marked. So it's advised not to be traveling back and forth from Aniak.' KYUK is the only daily news source for this region, which is roughly the size of Oregon, and River Watch is a staple of its programming. In dozens of Southwest Alaska villages — including many Yup'ik, Athabaskan and Cup'ik communities — residents who live far from the U.S. highway system rely on boats and snow machines to get around. 'The Kuskokwim River in this region is like our highway,' said KYUK news director Sage Smiley. During freeze-up and breakup each year, knowing the condition of the ice can be a matter of life and death. And in the Y-K Delta, where Internet access is often limited, public radio plays a crucial role. But if the Trump administration gets its way, programs like River Watch could soon disappear. Last month, the president signed an executive order aimed at preventing congressionally approved federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) from going to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). CPB, NPR, PBS and a host of local stations have all filed lawsuits in response. Meanwhile, in its proposed budget, the administration outlined a plan to eliminate funding for CPB entirely — and this week, Trump asked Congress to take back more than a billion dollars that had already been set aside for public broadcasters. Lawmakers have 45 days to make a decision on the request, with a House vote expected as early as next week. Defunding public media would hurt stations across the U.S., but for ones like KYUK, which relies on CPB for nearly 70% of its revenue, it would be 'catastrophic,' Smiley said. The data show that stations serving rural and Indigenous audiences in the West would be the hardest hit. Here's why, by the numbers. CPB is an independent nonprofit created by Congress nearly 60 years ago to distribute federal funds to noncommercial TV and radio stations across the U.S. Today, it funds more than 1,500 stations, many of which buy NPR and PBS content to distribute locally alongside local news, music shows and other programming. Collectively, the stations in the public media network give 99% of the U.S. population access to public broadcasting. Nearly half of CPB grantees are rural, and together they employ close to 6,000 people. As nonprofits, local public media stations rely on a variety of funding sources, including federal funding, state funding, listener donations, grants, and underwriting from local businesses. On average, federal funding accounts for 16% of a local public media station's revenue. But for many stations, that percentage is much higher. Three factors unite the stations most reliant on federal funding: They are located in the West, they are rural, and they are tribal stations. Among stations in the 50 states, those in the Western U.S. are by far the most dependent on federal funding, according to a recent analysis of station financial reports for fiscal year 2023, carried out by former NPR product manager Alex Curley. (Limited data is available for American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, but according to Curley, the few stations there rely even more heavily on federal funding.) On average, Curley found, Western stations depend on federal money for just over 20% of their revenue — compared with just under 15% for the next highest region, the Midwest. The states with the highest average dependency, in order, are West Virginia, Alaska, New Mexico and Montana. In Alaska, the most dependent Western state, public media stations rely on federal funding for an average of 36% of their revenue. If all the stations with a dependence of at least 20% were forced to close, Alaska would lose 15 stations — half of its total, Curley said. More than 50 stations around the country belong to the Native Public Media network, and they are also particularly vulnerable to funding cuts. All but one of the Native Public Media stations with available data relied on federal funding for at least 20% of their revenue, and the average reliance was more than 50%. Source: CPB defines rural stations as those whose coverage areas have a population density of 40 or fewer residents per square kilometer. The stations defined as rural on this map come from CPB's FY 2024 list of rural station grantees. The funding percentages come from a list of the most vulnerable public radio stations compiled using CPB data from FY 2023, the most recent available. Tribal stations are defined as stations that are 'tribally owned, managed or staffed by tribal members,' according to this map and station websites. (Map design by Luna Anna Archey/High Country News) According to CPB data shared with , 79 radio stations in the U.S. relied on CPB for 30% or more of their funding in FY 2023. More than half of those stations (42) are located in the West. Of the vulnerable Western stations, all but two are rural — and 20 are also tribal stations. Not only would these stations be drastically impacted by losing federal funding, they would also find that money especially hard to replace. Urban stations have large audiences to turn to for help, but rural stations by definition serve sparsely populated areas and often lower-income communities. According to CPB, 40% of the average non-rural station's revenue comes from listener donations, compared with just 28% of the average rural stations. Meanwhile, the average rural station relies on CPB funding nearly twice as much as a non-rural station does. This past fiscal year, KYUK raised just under $20,000 from a total of 413 members, comprising 2% of the radio station's revenue. 'We live in a subsistence region,' Smiley said. 'The way people survive and thrive here does not necessarily follow the traditional Western economic model.' To her, this is part of the beauty of public media: Stations like KYUK allow people to get thoughtful, nuanced coverage of the place they live, whether or not they can afford to pay for it. In Bethel, that includes public safety alerts and emergency coverage on shows like River Watch — but also, local news accessible to everyone in the region. The oldest Indigenous-owned and operated bilingual radio station in the U.S., KYUK broadcasts local news in both English and Yugtun, the Yup'ik language, three times a day. The station also airs several other Yup'ik public affairs and culture shows throughout the week, sharing traditional knowledge and conversations between elders. Villages in the Y-K Delta — like many rural and Indigenous communities — tend to receive a flattened portrayal in the national media, when they're covered at all. Outside reporters often miss the good news: The Bethel student robotics team bringing Yup'ik dance to an international stage, say, or a Cup'ik artist using traditional carving techniques to tell the evolving story of hunting and fishing in his community. Celebrations of berry picking and high school graduation — the everyday activities and special events that make headlines at a local publication run by the same people who coach youth sports and act in community plays. These are stories at stake in the fight over federal funding, Smiley said: 'This idea that a region that has been historically underserved by the state and by the country could lose a public media organization that is focused on providing what people here need, which is public safety information and a reflection of a life that is multifaceted and beautiful — that really, really tears my heart out.' This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Key US weather monitoring offices understaffed as hurricane season starts
More than a dozen National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices along the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico coast are understaffed as the US plunges into an expected active season for ruinous storms, data seen by the Guardian shows. There is a lack of meteorologists in 15 of the regional weather service offices along the coastline from Texas to Florida, as well as in Puerto Rico – an area that takes the brunt of almost all hurricanes that hit the US. Several offices, including in Miami, Jacksonville, Puerto Rico and Houston, lack at least a third of all the meteorologists required to be fully staffed. Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the Miami-based nerve center for tracking hurricanes, is short five specialists, the Guardian has learned, despite assurances from the Trump administration that it is fully staffed ahead of what's anticipated to be a busy hurricane season that officially started on Sunday. Related: 'Chaos': Trump cuts to Noaa disrupt staffing and weather forecasts The center and local field offices work together to alert and prepare communities for incoming hurricanes, but they have been hit by job cuts and a hiring freeze imposed by the president, with more than 600 staff departing the NWS since Trump took power. 'The system is already overstretched and at some point it will snap,' said Tom Fahy, legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, an independent labor union and provider of the office staffing data. 'We are at the snapping point now.' An NHC spokesperson said the agency still has enough people to function properly. 'NHC has a sufficient number of forecasters to fill mission-critical operational shifts during the 2025 hurricane season,' she said. 'NHC remains dedicated to its mission, providing timely tropical weather forecasts and warnings pursuant to our public safety mission.' But experts warned the turmoil unleashed by Trump upon the NWS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the national disaster agency that has had multiple leadership changes and still does not have a completed plan for this year's hurricane season, will dangerously hamper the response to a summer that will likely bring storms, floods and wildfires across the US. 'Staff will put in an heroic effort but there is high probability of significant consequences because of the cuts,' said Rick Spinrad, who was administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) until January. 'If I were a citizen of Texas, Florida or Georgia, I wouldn't be sure how well warned I would be of a hurricane. And if a hurricane was heading for a major city, I'm not confident Fema would be able to respond to the forecasted warnings.' The NWS, which is part of Noaa, has been upended like other agencies by the efforts of Trump and the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) to slash the government workforce. The weather service has scrambled to fill gaps with temporary secondments from other offices, but many roles remain unfilled in outposts that usually have about 25 employees each. The agency is now asking for relocations to fill empty meteorologist-in-charge positions, the most senior role at a field office, in Houston, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana – both places that have experienced devastating hurricanes in recent years. Cover for dozens of other meteorologist roles across the US is also being sought, including in the hurricane-prone areas of Miami and Key West, both in Florida, and Mobile, Alabama, according to an internal NWS document. In some cases, the loss of weather service personnel – from the firing of probationary workers and early retirements offered to veteran staff – has forced offices to shut down overnight rather than operate 24 hours a day as normal. In seven of the 122 NWS stations across the US, including in Jackson, Kentucky, where a tornado killed 19 people this month, there will be no round-the-clock operation from 1 June. Of the 122 offices, 30 lack a meteorologist-in-charge. While the weather service, which has existed in some form since 1870, has always had to shift around resources to deal with extreme events, former staff said the scale of the cuts place an unprecedented strain upon its ability to provide detailed, localized forecasts. The release of weather balloons has been scaled back, technicians who maintain radar equipment have been fired and there are concerns that 'hurricane hunter' flights into storms will not be fully operational. Related: 'Flooding could end southern Appalachia': the scientists on an urgent mission to save lives 'I slept on the floor of the office during the hurricanes last year, but you can't do that every day because it leads to burnout. What the National Weather Service is doing now is a short-term fix of musical chairs, it's not sustainable,' said Brian LaMarre, a 30-year weather service veteran who took early retirement in April from his role as meteorologist-in-charge of the office in Tampa, Florida. 'What's needed is for the National Weather Service and Noaa to be funded properly.' While the tracking of hurricanes, which has improved markedly in recent years as technology and forecast models have advanced, will still be handled by the NHC, there are concerns that understaffed local offices won't be able to properly apply this information to affected areas. 'They can move the deckchairs on the Titanic but they just don't have enough bodies to do the job they are supposed to do,' said James Franklin, a retired NWS meteorologist who is a hurricane specialist. 'I'm worried the local offices won't be able to communicate with local emergency services and local officials about threats because they won't have the bodies to do it. The uncertainty level of the forecast will go up, too.' Franklin said the cuts to jobs and to longer-term Noaa research aimed at improving forecasts will have a lasting impact. 'It's not even shortsighted, it's no-sighted,' he said. 'Even if you don't see an impact this year, in five or 10 years you certainly will. They aren't even going to save any money doing this; it seems ideologically driven to me.' The tumult within the US's premier weather agency comes as its leadership acknowledges that warm temperatures in the Gulf, a symptom of the climate crisis, will probably spur an above-normal number of hurricanes this year. Six to 10 storms are expected to become hurricanes with winds of 74mph (119km/h) or higher, with as many as five reaching at least 111mph (179km/h). 'Everything is in place for an above-average season,' Ken Graham, director of the NWS, said last week. 'We've got to be prepared, right now. We've got to be ready.' Yet uncertainty is now commonplace throughout the US government's apparatus to predict and respond to disasters. The situation at a depleted Fema is particularly parlous, with the agency reducing training for state and local emergency managers and lagging months behind schedule in preparing for hurricane season. Trump and Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, have both openly mulled dismantling Fema and its new acting administrator has struck a belligerent tone. 'I, and I alone in Fema, speak for Fema. I'm here to carry out the president's intent for Fema,' David Richardson, a former marine with no emergency management experience, told staff in May. 'I will run right over you,' he warned staff. 'Don't get in my way … I know all the tricks.' 'It's a chaotic time at Fema, the constant departure of employees and the lack of leadership has distracted the agency from its mission,' said Michael Coen, who was chief of staff to the Fema administrator during the Biden administration. 'There's a lot of confusion among states over what level of support they will get from the federal government. My concern is that if Fema has to respond to concurrent events, two hurricanes or a flood and a storm, it won't have the capacity to provide the proper level of support.' Such warnings have rattled some lawmakers amid a federal budget negotiation process that will probably conclude at some point during hurricane season, which stretches until November. Under a budget proposal outlined by Trump's White House, Noaa's $6bn budget would be shrunk by around a quarter, effectively eliminating its climate and weather research. 'Republicans and Democrats are concerned about this because they know a tornado doesn't care if you live in a red state or a blue state,' said Fahy. 'Members of Congress are concerned, I've had several phone calls asking if we have enough people. The National Weather Service's budget is the cost of a cup of coffee for every person across the United States. I think people would say that's pretty good value.' A Fema spokesperson said that the Trump administration is 'committed to ensuring Americans affected by emergencies will get the help they need in a quick and efficient manner'. 'All operational and readiness requirements will continue to be managed without interruption in close coordination with local and state officials ahead of the 2025 hurricane season,' the spokesperson added.

Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Flying blind': Florida weatherman tells viewers Trump cuts will harm forecasts
A leading TV weatherman in Florida has warned viewers on air that he may not be able to properly inform them of incoming hurricanes because of cuts by the Trump administration to federal weather forecasting. John Morales, a veteran meteorologist at NBC 6 South Florida, told viewers on Monday night that Donald Trump's cuts to climate and weather agencies mean that forecasters will be 'flying blind' into what is expected to be an active hurricane season. Recalling Hurricane Dorian, which devastated the Bahamas in 2019 and appeared to be heading straight for Florida, Morales said he was confidently able to assure worried viewers it would turn away from the state. Related: Key US weather monitoring offices understaffed as hurricane season starts 'I am here to tell you I'm not sure I can do that this year,' he said. 'Because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general.' Morales said that the attacks by the Trump administration on science would have a 'multigenerational impact on science in this country' and will specifically hamper his job due to the slashing of hundreds of jobs at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). 'Did you know central and south Florida National Weather Service offices are currently 20% to 40% understaffed, from Tampa to Key West?' Morales said, referencing the widespread staff shortages in weather service offices along the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico coast and Puerto Rico. 'This type of staffing shortage is having impacts across the nation because there has been a 20% reduction in weather balloon releases, launches. What we are starting to see is the quality of the forecast is becoming degraded.' TV forecasters such as Morales, as well as private weather forecasting services and apps, rely upon federal scientists for data gleaned from sources such as satellites, weather balloon launches and aircraft surveys. Morales warned viewers that Noaa 'hurricane hunter' aircraft may not be able to fly this year and 'with less reconnaissance we may be flying blind and we may not exactly know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline'. On Thursday, Morales told the Guardian that he stood by his statements and that the 'message was clear' to viewers. Asked if he was worried about retaliation from an administration that has sought to defund and disparage scientists, Morales said: 'No, not at all. Science is science.' Noaa has predicted that the US's hurricane season, which officially started on Sunday, will be more active than usual, with as many as five major hurricanes with winds of 111mph (179km/h) or more. This has heightened concerns over the consequences of funding cuts by Trump as part of the president's attempts to shrink the federal workforce. After losing 600 staff to layoffs and early retirements, causing it to admit to 'degraded operations' with fewer staff to handle forecasts, the National Weather Service was this week given special permission to hire 100 forecasters, radar technicians and others despite a government-wide hiring freeze. The Trump administration has insisted the American public will be properly informed of hurricane risks despite the cuts. But experts have said that much more will need to be done to ensure the weather service is not overstretched and for the US to become better prepared for extreme weather impacts that are escalating due to global heating. Trump has regularly dismissed the established science of climate change, calling it a 'giant hoax' and 'bullshit'. On air on Monday, Morales said viewers should rally to protect the National Weather Service. 'What you need to do is call your representatives and make sure these cuts are stopped,' he said.