Illinois suburbs ranked for safety
A new study ranks an Illinois suburb as one of the most dangerous in the country.
The personal finance website SmartAsset analyzed multiple safety-related metrics to determine the rankings. Granite City in the Metro East is the sixth lowest-ranking suburb in the nation.
Some Illinois communities received a favorable ranking. Naperville was ranked as the 15th safest suburb in the nation. Other Illinois suburbs in the top 50 include Elmhurst at No. 20, Deerfield at 28, and Highland Park at 39.
Solar panel inverter caused grass fire
Firefighters in central Illinois found an unusual source of a grass fire near Farmington. The Farmington Community Fire Protection District said on its Facebook page that an inverter panel in a solar panel field was burning, setting the nearby grass on fire.
Crews didn’t use water to put out the blaze. They used a dry chemical extinguisher. The solar panels had to be de-energized. The dollar estimate of the damage was unavailable.
World War II soldier identified
The U.S. Department of Defense has announced they found the remains of a central Illinois soldier who was 22 years old when he was killed in World War II. Air Force Technical Sgt.
Lawrence Reitz of Hoopeston was among those fighting in Romania in 1943 in one of the largest bombing missions against the refineries north of Bucharest. Reitz’s plane was shot down during the raid. His remains were positively identified following a renewed identification effort that began in 2017.
