Daily Briefing

Water, not fire, is the confirmed hazard today — active NWS flood warnings in Florida and Colorado, dozens of rescues reported on the Georgia-Tennessee line

By The FirstResponders Desk

Good morning. NWS Melbourne FL has issued Severe Flood Warnings for Seminole, Brevard, Lake and Volusia counties in Florida; NWS Pueblo CO has issued one for Bent County, Colorado. The Guardian reports that heavy rain and flash flooding hit communities along the Georgia-Tennessee border late Wednesday into Thursday morning and forced dozens of rescues, with the National Weather Service warning: "Seek higher ground now!" For your shift: the warnings are live. Expect swiftwater call volume and welfare checks where water has cut roads. Treat the quoted warning as the standing instruction it is.

On the rescue side, Fox News reports a helicopter hoist of a hiker who fell hundreds of feet on Utah's Mount Timpanogos and was lifted from a narrow ledge. CBS News reports that a 6-year-old boy missing two days in the eastern Kentucky woods was found Wednesday, and that searchers described the conditions of the search.

Fire items are all unconfirmed. An unconfirmed report describes a fatal house fire in Brooklyn, New York, with more than 200 firefighters said to have responded — no agency has confirmed the incident or any casualty count, so do not carry a figure. Satellite fire detections are reported over Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee; these are unconfirmed heat signatures, not agency-confirmed fires. An unconfirmed report describes returning Santa Ana winds with wildfire and surf warnings in Southern California. Wildfire Today reports the term "firewave" narrowly missed Word of the Year recognition. Firefighter Close Calls marks the 1938 line-of-duty death of an FDNY firefighter of Ladder 35 who fell down a dumbwaiter shaft during overhaul at a Manhattan tenement fire.

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