After months of trying to decide what to do with an antique fire truck, Crocker City Council members have voted to donate it to a small rural fire department that can’t afford to buy a fire engine.
The Daily Guide withheld the story by request of city and fire district officials who wanted their donation of the fire truck, approved at the May 13 city council meeting, to be a surprise for Raymondville firefighters.
Most of Crocker’s fire trucks are owned by the Crocker Rural Fire Protection District, but the 1962 fire truck is city-owned because it predates the creation of the fire district. Fire Chief Kenny Gardner and Fire Capt. Robert Ishmael, who also serves as the city’s police chief, told the aldermen at their May 13 meeting that city leaders could do what they wanted with the truck but asked them to consider the needs of a struggling fire district.
While Crocker firefighters once struggled as well — old-timers remember when they had to park fire trucks on hills and knock blocks out from the front of the tires so the truck engines would start — those days are long past. Purchased new, the 1962 model fire truck marked the beginning of a turnaround for Crocker firefighters.
“We do have one of the better fire protection districts,” said Crocker Mayor Jim Morgan. “They’ve been able to keep up with new equipment, and we’ve been able to get our ISO rating as low as possible.”
Ratings by the International Standards Organization measure how effectively firefighters can respond to fires. Insurance rates are lower in areas with strong fire protection since it’s less likely a home or business will suffer catastrophic fire damage if firefighters can respond quickly to put out a blaze before it spreads. With an ISO rating of 4 inside the Crocker city limits, Crocker’s volunteer fire department has the best fire protection rating in Pulaski County — even better than the full-time St. Robert Fire Department or Waynesville Rural Fire Protection District.
St. Robert’s ISO rating is 5 and the Waynesville rating within the city limits is 6, though those departments plan to seek a review that should lower their insurance ratings.
That insurance review is very intensive and is based on the number of people on the department, their training, the equipment, records, and its water system, Gardner said.
“You wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork it takes,” Gardner said. “It looks like a Sears and Roebuck catalog when you get it done.”
That’s a very different situation from what’s faced by Raymondville firefighters, Gardner said. Equipment in the small Raymondville department east of Houston in Texas County has deteriorated to the point that a brush truck — basically a pickup truck with a small amount of tools and a small water tank to fight a fire in undergrowth — is the only vehicle able to respond to fires until an engine arrives from a neighboring department.
One of the chiefs of the all-volunteer Raymondville fire district is a full-time firefighter at Fort Leonard Wood, and members of the Fort Leonard Wood Fire Department brought Raymondville’s needs to the attention of the Pulaski County Fire Chiefs Association last fall.
That prompted self-examination by Crocker firefighters, who had kept the 1962 fire truck for ceremonial occasions such as firefighter funerals. Firefighters and city officials had considered selling it to an antique dealer.
“We thought we would turn the equipment over and give it to another fire department that doesn’t have anything,” Gardner said. “There are some small little departments around here that aren’t financed, while we, luckily, in the last several years have been able to receive a federal grant every year and we’ve doubled or tripled our assets.”
Morgan agreed with that recommendation.
“We had talked about putting this out for bid, but after talking (to Crocker firefighters) I think it would be to our advantage to donate the truck as a symbol of our commitment to a community that does not have the resources that we have,” Morgan said.
Ishmael said the Raymondville department is a dues-based rather than tax-based organization, a system abandoned years ago by most fire departments.
“They have to have bake sales and raffles and everything else, just to operate and buy fuel,” Ishmael said. “We’ve had other cities help us when we didn’t have the financing, giving us things, and if the city sees it in their hearts to repay that favor to a small town, what’s the price of one life?”
Morgan reminded aldermen that it wasn’t many years ago that St. Robert donated a used police car to Crocker because the city needed a police car.
“It’s not oftentimes that we have the ability to do something like this,” Morgan said.
Aldermen agreed with that reasoning and voted unanimously to donate the truck. A formal transfer of the fire truck will wait for minor repairs on the vehicle, which Crocker firefighters say is in good condition.