Fire | featured news

More than 200 firefighters have tackled a blaze described by London Fire Brigade as the biggest seen in the capital for several years. The brigade was called at about 13:15 BST when flames took hold at a recycling centre in Dagenham, east London.

A surprise surge in gasoline prices is taking some of the fun out of summer. The national average for a gallon of gas at the pump has climbed to $3.67, a rise of 34 cents since July 1. An increase in crude oil prices and problems with refineries and pipelines in the West Coast and Midwest, including a fire in California, are mostly to blame.

A massive fire that shut down Chevron Corp's large Richmond, California, refinery on Monday, was extinguished by the early hours of Tuesday, Chevron said, leaving residents and oil traders seeking answers to the hours-long blaze.

A fire struck the core of Chevron Corp's large Richmond, California, refinery on Monday evening, sending flames and a column of smoke into the air and prompting authorities to order nearby residents indoors.

Christopher Carlson sprang into action when smoke and embers ushered a fire that threatened to envelop his Noble, Oklahoma, home. After taking his 12-year-old stepson to safety, Carlson raced against time to assist neighbors and try to save his trailer from one of more than a dozen wildfires that, as of Saturday, had destroyed more than 120 structures.

A French man and one of his three children died after they jumped along with his wife off a 164-foot cliff into the sea to flee a raging wildfire that forced them out of their car just as they were about to cross the Spanish border into France at the end of their vacation, officials said Monday.

McCann, 19, was fleeing Colorado’s most destructive fire -- the Waldo Canyon fire -- when she lost control of her Subaru while trying to pass another vehicle on Interstate 84 between Boise and Mountain Home, Idaho. Her car went off the road and began burning -- starting another wildfire.

More than 100 people who rushed to scoop up fuel after a Nigerian petrol tanker tipped over Thursday were killed when the vehicle and pools of spilled oil caught fire. Children were among those killed, while dozens more were badly burned, despite a warning from troops who arrived at the crash site that a blaze could ignite at any moment.

Firefighters will spend the next two weeks setting homes ablaze on a small island in New York Harbor for one purpose: Saving lives. Eighteen abandoned townhouses on New York City's Governor's Island, formerly housing for members of the Coast Guard, have been turned into a setting for roaring fires in experiments aimed to develop new strategies firefighters can use to save lives.

A day after firefighters made great progress against the fire outside Colorado Springs, hotter and drier conditions on Saturday made for a major test.