The Texas summer features both wildfire season and the Fourth of July to go along with the hot and dry conditions. Kendall County firefighters are doing their job to stay both mentally and physically prepared to fight fires.
Kendall County is home to seven fire departments and over 140 volunteers, according to Texas A&M Forest Service Fire Connect data. Boerne Fire Department serves as a combination or part-paid department as they also have 22 paid members.
Sisterdale VFD Chief Brian Reilly said the summer is something that they're preparing for year-round. Improvement is not exclusive to a certain time of the year but is just part of the culture.
'There’s no seasonality to continuous improvement for us, we’re trying to do it all the time,” Reilly said. “It’s not about raising the ceiling, it’s more about raising the floor so that we make sure that everybody is comfortable with what they’re doing.”
Departments also may change protocols as the summer season arrives. Boerne Fire Department Chief Manuel Casarez said an EMS unit always accompanies their firefighters on calls.
'The premise behind that is that we have a place for our firefighters to rehab in and also if something happens to our firefighters that unit is there specifically for them,” Casarez said. “Putting somebody in there that can hold us accountable is huge.”
Casarez said they also use ice bath devices to mitigate heat stroke when the firefighters on the scene begin to show signs. They continue to implement new strategies, so they are more proactive for themselves.
Cardiac-related events have accounted for 43% of the on-duty duty fatalities over the past 10 years, according to a National Fire Protection Association report. In the general population in the U.S., about one in five people die from heart disease.
The city of Boerne provides Boerne FD with annual medical testing for its paid firefighters. This wellness exam includes bloodwork, vision/hearing tests, stress tests and ultrasounds to provide individuals with an idea of where they are physically. The volunteers have funding resources they can use, so they can use the service too, according to Casarez.
'We’re trying to take advantage of a federal grant that will allow us to fully fund that for any of our volunteer members,” Casarez said. “We can also make it available if the individual wants to provide the same for their spouse.”
One of the biggest differences between volunteer and paid departments is the people that fill those departments. There is some crossover but for the most part, volunteer departments get a much greater variety of people compared to graduates of a fire academy.
“We just have to be cognizant of making sure that we have the right people in the right roles,” the Sisterdale chief said.
Sisterdale VFD is unique in that it is owned by the community. Reilly said they have many non-firefighter members from the community that come to meetings, contribute to discussions and vote on things the department does.
“There’s an opportunity for engagement in Sisterdale as a non-firefighter that just doesn’t exist in most communities,” Reilly said. “It’s something that we really try to emphasize because it allows us to be safer and more effective.”
Among the 254 counties in Texas, 106 have only volunteer fire departments, according to Texas Community Health News. One thing that most, if not all, have in common is a low level of funding which can limit the lengths a department can go to keep their members safe.
Departments rely on donations, grants and fundraisers to keep afloat and provide improvements and renovations to their station and equipment. Some departments require a yearly membership fee while others rely on one or two big fundraisers that they hold yearly.
For more about local fire departments, visit https:// www.co.kendall.tx.us/page/ FireMarshal.
Colton Gibson is a journalism major at Texas State University and a contributor to Texas Community Health News, a collaboration between the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the university's Translational Health Research Center He hopes to work as a sportswriter and broadcaster.
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