Local fire chief issues important message ahead of windy weekend
OAK HILL, WV (WVNS) – It is all hands on deck for many fire departments in the region, as they prepare for strong wind gusts.
Tim Richardson is the fire chief at the City of Oak Hill Fire Department.
He said conditions for burning is super risky. Since it is spring fire season, people can only burn from 5 p.m. until 7 a.m. Fires must be attended to at all times.
Four West Virginia counties impacted by flooding may be eligible for SNAP assistance
The City of Oak Hill F.D. recently purchased a side-by-side ATV that has special uses valuable for patient transport and brush firefighting.
'[The side-by-side] carries a lower amount of water, but we can put that unit transport into locations that gives us access quicker ability to create a fire line and hopefully drive down the threat of fires. Like I say, in relation to livestock, homes, barns, personal value items and individuals that might be on the trails,' said Fire Chief Richardson.
Fire Chief Richardson told 59News a lot of trouble can be spared if you report your controlled fire to the non-emergency 911 number ahead of time. This will save time for firefighters and the individual who is burning, in the case of a pedestrian accidentally reporting the fire as an emergency.
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 This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.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
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
Four adults, one child stuck on an island along American River
( — The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire Department responded to five people stuck on an island along the American River on Saturday afternoon. According to Metro Fire, the incident happened on 1291 ARP in Carmichael at around 4:30 p.m. Five people were stranded after one of their rafts got snagged on a tree and popped. Strong gun laws in California yield lowest gun deaths rates, Newsom says There are four adults and one child involved, Metro Fire said. The age is unknown at this time. No injuries were reported after crews made contact with the rafters, and they were all assisted back to shore. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
May 2025: A look back at last month's weather
Your StormTracker 59 team goes back into the weather files to highlight some of the most impactful weather of the month for May 2025: Warmest High Temperature: 81 degrees (May 1st) Coolest High Temperature: 54 degrees (May 26th) Coolest Low Temperature: 36 degrees (May 10th) Warmest Low Temperature: 61 degrees (May 16th) Overall, for the month of May, we were BELOW average. That's not so surprising considering how cold Memorial Day was! Our average May temperature is 61.3 degrees, and we ended up at 59.6 degrees for the month, which is 1.7 degrees below normal. May began on a warm note. The warmest temperature of the month occurred on May 1st at 81 degrees! However, eventually the colder weather set in. Outside of May 29th, the last ten days featured temperatures that were a good bit below normal and that was enough to sway the month to the below normal side. Of particular interest was the stretch from Friday, May 25th to Tuesday, May 27th, where three out of five days failed to see highs reach 60 degrees! In fact, we did not reach 70 degrees for a week straight from the 22nd to the 28th. Wettest Day: 0.73″ (May 13th) Number of Days with Measurable Rainfall: 18 out of 31 days May provided beneficial rains to many parts of the region that were flirting with drought at the beginning of spring. Most towns in May experienced above average rainfall, with Beckley coming in at about a half inch above normal at just over five inches. A lot of this rain came down quickly, however, which was not as beneficial to the water table. However, overall conditions related to drought did improve during the month of May. Memorial Day was one of the coolest holidays in recent memory! High temperatures were stuck in the 50s for most of the region. Beckley only reached 54 degrees officially! We should be in the low to mid 70s. The clouds, occasional sprinkles and overall gloom did not make for good boating or swimming weather to say the least. Launched in 2022, #WeatherTogether is a dedicated community photo album hosted by 59News and StormTracker 59 to allow viewers to submit weather photos directly to us that we can share on all our platforms on-air or online. These photos are also showcased in our web-based photo album on our site for all to see and enjoy! Any photo of interesting weather, storm damage, snowfall, pets playing in puddles or snow and the likes are all welcomed! We hope to use this to showcase the beauty of the two Virginias through the eyes of our viewers and the vastly dynamic weather we see because we think there is no place more beautiful than here. See for yourself the collection of photos already submitted or submit a few of your own, 2025 Monthly Review May 2024 Monthly ReviewCopyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Miami Herald
Are Trump's appointees joking or just ignorant?
So, the new chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Richardson, said he was not aware that the United States has a hurricane season — and craziness ensued. The remark was reported by Reuters, which heard about it from 'baffled' staffers who attended the meeting with Richardson. 'It was not clear to staff whether he meant it literally, as a joke, or in some other context,' Reuters reported. Democrats in Congress quickly pounced. 'I'm unaware of why he hasn't been fired yet,' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted on X. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, reacted indignantly, insisting it was a joke. 'Despite meanspirited attempts to falsely frame a joke as policy, there is no uncertainty about what FEMA will be doing this Hurricane Season. FEMA is laser focused on disaster response, and protecting the American people,' a DHS spokesperson responded. This raises questions: 1. Can PR people please stop using the term 'laser focused'? 2. If FEMA were truly 'laser focused' on protecting the American people, why did it cancel a grant program that would have provided millions of dollars to help communities prepare for hurricane season? It also would have provided funding for earthquake readiness, flood control and fire prevention. I am going to give the FEMA chief the benefit of the doubt and assume he was joking about hurricane season, though it's easy to see why staff members may have been perplexed. We're talking, after all, about a guy with zero experience in disaster response. Also, he was just appointed to his position in early May to replace Cameron Hamilton, who got on Trump's bad side after testifying that FEMA should not be eliminated. The new chief, on the other hand, is all in on carrying out the president's wishes. 'All I need is the authority from the president to put me in here ... and I will make sure that his intent gets completed,' Richardson said following his appointment. That's another red flag, considering that the Trump administration has never inspired much confidence — or compassion — when it comes to responding to disasters. Remember when Trump suggesting 'raking' the forest floor to prevent fires? Or, more recently, when he ordered the Army Corps of engineers to release water from the Central Valley under the mistaken belief that would help fight wildfires in Southern California? It's not a huge stretch to believe that Trump might appoint someone who is totally clueless about hurricanes, especially since plenty of his other appointees have made equally suspect statements that point to their jaw-dropping obliviousness to what it is they are supposed to be managing. A few examples: Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said tariffs are a 'tax hike on foreign countries that have been ripping us off.' Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins looked for the silver lining in the bird flu epidemic: 'People are sort of looking around and thinking, 'Wow, maybe I could get a chicken in my backyard and it's awesome.'' Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told a Senate hearing that 'habeas corpus' means the president has a constitutional right 'to be able to remove people from this country.'Secretary of State Marco Rubio said reports of deaths linked to cuts in foreign aid were 'a lie' — even as photos of victims were displayed. Speaking before a Senate committee, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum claimed: 'We got several thousand people working in IT and I don't know what they do.' There are fewer than 450 IT and HR positions in the entire agency. For the record, none of these top-ranking officials was joking. Just in case the FEMA guy wasn't joking either, I'll leave him with a friendly reminder: According to the National Hurricane Center, the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 — meaning it really is time to get laser-focused.
