My name is Roy Haskins and I've been chief of Company 3 since 1994 and a member since 1976. This page is here for three reasons. One, so people in the township know what we do and what we have. Two, so you'll come to the pancake breakfast on October 17 (see below). Three, because we need volunteers, and I'd rather tell you what that means honestly than have you find out after you sign up.

We're a rural volunteer department. That means when your barn is on fire or your car is in the ditch at two in the morning, the people who come are your neighbors, who got out of bed and drove to the hall and put on their gear and came. Nobody is paid. The county gives us a little, the township gives us a little, and the rest comes from the breakfast, the raffle, and people who send a check after we've been out to their place. We cover about 110 square miles, most of it fields, with a few hundred houses, the elevator, the school, and a stretch of the state highway.

Our average response time from the page to the first truck rolling is a little under six minutes, day or night. We'd like it to be better. More members would make it better.

We have three. The scanner is broken so there are no pictures yet; one of our members is going to shoot a roll of film at the breakfast.

Also at the hall: a portable generator, scene lights, a rescue boat we hardly ever use, and the coffee pot.

If you'd like to help cook, serve, or wash dishes, we'll take you. We start at 5 a.m. Bring an apron.

October is Fire Prevention Month and Fire Prevention Week is October 3 through 9 this year. We'll be at the school that week with the engine. Here is the short version of what we tell the kids, for the grown-ups.

Smoke detectors. One on every level of the house and one outside every sleeping area, at least. Inside the bedrooms too, if you can. Test them once a month by pushing the button. Change the batteries when you change your clocks. Daylight time ends Sunday, October 31 this year. When you set the clocks back, put new batteries in every detector. It takes ten minutes and we can't say it enough: most of the house fires we go to where somebody got hurt, the detector had a dead battery or none at all. If your detectors are more than ten years old, replace them.

Have a plan and practice it. Two ways out of every room. A meeting place outside, like the mailbox or a certain tree, so you know everybody's out. Practice it with the kids once in the fall and once in the spring. Once you're out, stay out. Nothing in the house is worth going back in for.

Heating season is coming. Have the chimney cleaned and looked at before you light the first fire of the year; chimney fires are a regular fall call for us (see the call log). Keep anything that can burn at least three feet from space heaters, the wood stove, and the furnace. Don't use the oven to heat the kitchen. Don't run a kerosene heater without a window cracked.

In the kitchen. Don't leave the stove while something's frying. If a pan catches fire, put a lid on it and turn off the burner; don't carry it, and don't throw water on grease. Keep a small extinguisher where you can reach it, not over the stove.

Candles, cigarettes, extension cords. Blow candles out when you leave the room. Don't smoke in bed. Don't run an extension cord under a rug or plug a space heater into one.

Burn barrels and field burning. Call the county for a burn permit, don't burn on a windy day, keep water and a rake right there, and stay with it until it's out. A lot of our spring and fall grass fires start as a burn barrel somebody walked away from "for a minute."

Get an address sign. If we can't find you, we can't help you. We sell green reflective address number signs for $10 that go on a post at the end of your driveway and can be read from the road at night. We'll have them at the breakfast, or ask any member. If you already have one, make sure the weeds aren't covering it.

We ran 47 calls in all of 1998. As of today we're at 41 for 1999, and fall is our busy season. Since the middle of August:

• A combine fire in a bean field along the county road. The farmer got it stopped and got clear, the field caught, and by the time we got there about four acres of stubble were going. Brush truck on the fire line, engine and tanker on the road, the neighboring company's brush truck in from the south side. Contained in about an hour. The combine was a loss. Nobody hurt. This is the call we train for all summer.
• Two car accidents on the state highway, both in the same week, both with people trapped. We used the jaws on one. Both drivers went by ambulance and, last we heard, are all right. Slow down out there. Harvest trucks are on the roads and they don't stop fast.
• A grass fire from a burn barrel. About half an acre, out in 20 minutes. See the safety section.
• A chimney fire, the first of the season, on the first cold night. Out with a dry chemical extinguisher and the chimney chains. The family had not had it cleaned since 1996. Nobody hurt, no damage past the chimney. Please, have it cleaned.
• Mutual aid to the next township for a machine shed fire. We sent the tanker and four members for the water shuttle. Shed was a loss.
• A carbon monoxide alarm at a house; turned out to be a furnace problem. This is a real call, not a false one; the family was right to call us and to go outside.
• Two false alarms, one from a detector in a house with a lot of burnt toast and one from the school's system during a test. We'd rather come for nothing than not be called.
• A cat in a tree. No, really. It came down on its own once the truck showed up. They usually do.

We don't put names or addresses here, and we won't.

We have 24 members on the roster and about 15 who can reliably get to a daytime call, because the rest work out of the township. We need people, and especially we need people who are around during the day: farmers, folks who work from home, retired folks, shift workers. We are also very glad to have women on the department; we have three now and want more.

What it takes:

• Be at least 18, live or work in the fire district, have a valid driver's license, and pass a physical from your own doctor.
• Make the training. New members take the state's basic firefighter course, which runs evenings and Saturdays over most of a winter, plus a first aid and CPR class. It's a lot of hours. We'll tell you exactly how many when you come in. Everybody who's on the trucks has done it.
• Show up for drills. We drill the first and third Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. at the hall: trucks, hose, pump operation, the water shuttle, the tools. Miss too many and you're off the active list. That's not to be mean; it's because the person next to you on a hose line needs to know you know what you're doing.
• A year on probation before you're a full member and go inside a burning building. In that year you'll do plenty: brush fires, traffic, tanker fills, cleanup, and the breakfast.
• Be able to get up at 2 a.m. and be civil about it.

What you get: your gear and a pager, a small per-call stipend from the township that will not cover your gas, a state pension credit after enough years, the best breakfast in the county once a year, and the thing that keeps most of us here, which is hard to explain and which you'll understand the first time you're the one who came.

Not ready for the trucks? We also have an auxiliary that does the breakfast, rehab at fire scenes (coffee and water for the crews on a long call), and fundraising. Ages 16 and 17 can join as junior members with parents' permission; they train and help at the hall but don't go to calls.

To join, stop by the hall on a drill night, or e-mail me and I'll get you an application. Come to a couple of drills first and see if it's for you. It's not for everybody, and that's fine.

For a fire or an emergency, dial 911. Do not e-mail. Do not use this page. We are not sitting at the computer; the pager goes off when 911 sends it.

For everything else, including joining, the breakfast, address signs, having the engine at a school or church event, or a question about burn permits:

Chief Roy Haskins, [email protected]

The fire hall is on Township Road at the four-way stop, across from the elevator. Drill nights are the first and third Tuesday, 7 p.m. Coffee's on.