Our Department

Our fire department has over twenty active firefighters. There are ten stations, but only five of them attend the trainings and respond to the majority of fires. The other five are what we call rural stations. Those consist mostly of farmers and they only want to do grass fires. That protects their farms, their only interests. Which is okay, because they are 'way out in the boonies' and if they can get to their stations quickly, those firefighters can get a jump on the grass fire and keep it small.

There is another department in the city. They are the paid firefighters. Their response time is lower due to living in the fire stations, and their district is the city limits. But they will come out into the county and assist us when we have structure fires, or grass fires threatening structures. And we help them when they have big grass fires in the city. So it all works out.

Once upon a time, the volunteers looked up to the city boys as role models. And well they should, because they had better training, and equipment. Over the years, the Chief has trained the volunteers firefighters until we are a professional team. He has also worked very hard to get us excellent equipment. So now, the city boys look up to us!

We dont stay at the stations twenty four hours. The county issues out pagers and radios and we can stay at home, or go into town, whatever and wait for a page out. It takes a few minutes to get to the station, and Gunney, a fire fighter that lives closer to the station cant figure out how I get there faster than he does!

Sometimes, I get this 'still' feeling. I just want to sit down and do nothing. Housework waits. Laundry stays in the dryer. Dinner doesnt get cooked. Phone calls dont get made. After a little while, we get a page out. My husband, the Chief, gets those same 'still' feelings. They are strange, and sometimes, nothing comes of them. But more often than not, it happens.

There are a lot of family gatherings, parties and other social situations that have been missed because of fire calls. That is one of the negative things about being in the fire service. And it is hard for non-fire family members to understand. Hey! I've been there! I know!

I try to call my daughter in law when we are on a long fire, so that she doesnt fret about her husband. My son is a Battalion Chief in the department and is doing very well. But he often forgets to call her and let her know he is alright. What did we ever do before cell phones, I wonder?

Our fire department trains twice a month, sometimes more. We are also on a certification program of which I am the coordinator. That is a very frustrating position! Its hard to keep up with all the firefighters when we have new ones coming in all the time, and old ones leaving. Some new ones leaving. Our roster is rather fluid and is sometimes kind of tidal. Some seasons we have alot of members, some seasons we have barely any. There is a 'core group' that has been with the department for over ten years. Our Chief has over twenty years right now.

We do lots of different kinds of trainings. Water rescue, haz-mat, live burns, structural collapse, wildland, to name a few. We have classroom trainings, too. We have a scuba team, but I am not on that. I will stay on the shore and help out there, thank you. In the past few years, we have done several body recoveries from the area lakes.

As can be seen, we are an active department!