September 2024
This month Red Lick VFD had 14 calls. That included two fully involved structure fires, several vehicle accidents (sadly including one fatality), one animal rescue, and several brush fires. With the hurricane there was a a lot of utility lines and trees down.
Most months the Red Lick VFD has about 7 calls. That does not sound like a lot until you look at the gear and vehicle maintenance, training and business meetings that are all required. To pay for it all we take part in fundraising events. There is a lot of work that goes into keeping this little fire department running.
Sometimes the calls bunch up on us. We were called away from the traffic accident with a fatality after handing the patient off to Madison County EMS. Our next call was a full involved structure fire that kept us on scene for 6 hours. Thankfully the wife of one of the firefighters brought us pizza and drinks at the fire. That was a long day, and maybe it was a good thing that we did not have time to think much about the first call of the day.
Some of the calls were much easier. One call was a small brush fire on the side of a road. It looked like someone threw a cigarette out the window and it caught the brush beside the road on fire. A group of us responded with the engine and brush truck, not knowing how big a fire was. Once we got there and saw the size of the fire, we relaxed and enjoyed the work.
Our small department could not do all that needs to be done without the help of Madison County Fire Department, BGAD Fire Department, Berea Fire Department, Madison County EMS, Waco VFD, and others.
If you are curious about our calls, we keep a count of them at https://rlvfd.com/calls/.