40 years celebrated for rural Callaway County fire districts

From left are Chuck Sibert, of the Central Fire Protection District, and Joe Houf and Charles Akers, of the South Callaway Fire Protection District. They are some of the original volunteer firefighters from the rural fire protection districts.
From left are Chuck Sibert, of the Central Fire Protection District, and Joe Houf and Charles Akers, of the South Callaway Fire Protection District. They are some of the original volunteer firefighters from the rural fire protection districts.

Callaway County's rural fire protection districts celebrated their 40th anniversary Saturday morning.

The celebration took place at Callaway Electric Cooperative with the county's six rural fire protection districts in attendance. The districts included North Callaway, South Callaway, Central, Millersburg, Holts Summit and New Bloomfield.

"Usually there's two to three departments working on a fire; we all work together very well. It used to be if there was a fire in someone else's district, we probably wouldn't even know about it," said Greg Luebbert, chief of the Central Fire Protection District.

At the celebration, there were trucks from each department on display, a children's obstacle course where they could earn the title "junior firefighter," extrication demonstrations and teaching people how to use fire extinguishers.

"We also wanted to use this as an opportunity to get a lot of the original members to come out because a lot of those folks aren't around anymore. We wanted to make it so the people that were there originally can come out and see what we've gone from," Luebbert said.

Prior to 1979, Callaway County's fire departments lacked unity and a variety of the resources necessary to fight fires. If there was a fire in the county, the city of Fulton would send one truck with two firefighters.

The fire departments also used to operate on a "tagged" system in which residents would pay annually for a tag that would guarantee them fire protection. Luebbert said the tagged system was an inconsistent source of income as people would elect not to buy one because they felt they didn't need one.

"Most of the early departments relied on that revenue because a lot of (the firefighters) were paying out of pocket to put gas in their trucks and change tires. That's why it was so important to get tax district," he said.

Additionally, if a resident did not have a tag on the front of their house, sometimes fire departments would let their house burn, Luebbert said. However, he said a lot of the time the departments would still fight the fire but then send the resident or their insurance company a substantial bill.

According to Millersburg Fire Protection District Chief Larry Curtis, Millersburg became the first district in the county to be tax supported in 1986. Many of the other local districts began to transition into tax districts following 1986.

Curtis, who has been with his department since 1981, said there has been "considerable change" with the local fire districts.

"There was an article from about 75 years ago where Fulton bought a new fire truck that cost $11,000, and they said that it was an 'expensive truck.' Now, a new pumper truck costs about half a million dollars," Curtis said.

Luebbert said when he started as a firefighter in 1985, departments would do all of the mechanical work on their trucks, install radios and even build their own fire trucks. Curtis said the Millersburg Fire Department once converted a garbage truck into a fire engine after it was donated to them by their local Lions Club.

With these fire protection districts operating on mostly volunteer basis, having available firefighters is a big issue. Curtis said the two largest issues plaguing the districts are a lack of a consistent water supply and not having necessary volunteer numbers or having volunteers available.

"We all have other jobs, might be doing something with our families, but we just never know who is available to go to a call," Luebbert said.

Lana Karhoff, North Callaway Fire Protection District chief, said her district responded to 63 calls in 1980, and so far in 2019, through the end of September, they have responded to 552 calls. As the workload has increased, the number of volunteers in the districts has remained stagnant over the years.

"A long time ago in a small town or a small community, if a fire alarm would go off, everybody would get up and slam their doors and go. That's not the case anymore," Luebbert said.