Tallahatchie County is better able to fight fire dangers today than we were just a decade ago.
Every fire department in the county is volunteer; that is, there are no full-time paid firefighters sitting around a fire station in shifts waiting for an alarm to sound. That said, our volunteer firefighters are dedicated and ready to answer the call when pressed into service.
So, just why do we say fire protection is improved?
For starters, radio communications are better. When a 911 call comes in about a fire, a dispatcher at the sheriff’s office must relay an alert to the appropriate fire department. This process is more fluid than it used to be, thanks to technological advances in equipment and enhanced policies and procedures.
Secondly, it may take a firefighter just as long to get to the firehouse, but once there, he is more likely than not to be climbing into the cab of a fairly modern fire truck, thanks to the faithfulness of local municipal and county government leaders and firefighters in pursuing available state and federal funds for the purchase of pumper trucks and other apparatuses. There was a time when some fire departments in our county could not rely on their aging, breakdown-prone equipment to get them to a fire, or to work properly if they did.
When firefighters arrive at the scene of a blaze, they are more likely to know how to assess and address the situation than they were years ago, thanks in large part to state-sponsored training classes that are held periodically right here in Tallahatchie County. Training for volunteer firefighters is nothing new, but the science and the tactics have evolved so that today’s firefighters are much better equipped simply from a knowledge standpoint to handle what they might face in the field.
If there is one thing a firefighter needs to fight fires, it is a dependable source of water. Some rural water associations have been able to install fire hydrants on their systems. This would have been unimaginable a few decades ago. The only water source then was what could be delivered to the scene of a fire in a pumper truck, or that which could be shuttled from an area pond or lake via a fire department’s tanker truck. Shuttling water remains a necessity, but the advent of fire hydrants in some rural areas has helped.
Better communications, newer equipment, enhanced training and more dependable water sources come with a price tag, but the investment has paid off with improved fire insurance ratings from the state, which mean lower property insurance premiums for residents.
Not every burning home or business can be saved, in Tallahatchie County or anywhere else, but our county is better prepared to handle the ever-present challenge thanks to the courageous men and women who volunteer to serve as firefighters and to the many strides made in equipping and preparing them for service.
