By Steve Wicker Douglas County Mail Editor
The Independence Day holiday last week celebrated the 227th anniversary of the founding of the nation. During a respectable percentage of that time ~ 100 years~ the Myrtle Creek Volunteer Fire Department has been looking out for the welfare of local citizens. The Department will take formal notice of its centennial year at the annual Fireman's Picnic to be held later in the month. "They didn't have a regular fire hall at first," said fire chief Bill Leming of the department's early days. "They had a big bell in front of the old city hall building that they would ring for alarms, and they had a hose cart Identical to the one we have here now, and would use it to answer alarms. The hose cart was kept underneath the old Grange Hall." Leming searched high and low for the original hose cart, he said, but had to settle for one that was identical to it, which volunteers have restored to pristine condition and often pull in local parades. The wheels on the hose cart had to be made by an Amish blacksmith in southern Pennsylvania. "It cost us more to ship it back there than he charged us to put those iron tires on," said Leming. "And you won't believe how true those tires are; they're almost perfect." The first fire hall, a two-bay station equipment housed at the fire hall was built in 1948 on Second Street, and is attached to the current City Hall build It was added on to three times before the department's current headquarters on Riverside Drive was financed by a $1.5 million levy in 1997 The facility was named after Leming, who has The been with the department for more than 30 years, 21 years as chief The first records of the departmentshow that it was organized at a public meeting held in the Johnson Hotel, located at Second and Oak Streets, on Oct.3, 1903. Ed Nagle was chosen as chairman, and H.P Rice was secretaryB.A. Linasker was elected chief engineer. organization's original name wasMyrtle Creek Volunteer Fire Brigade. Thirty-five members signed up, paying a five-cent dues fee. Membership at that time was a sort of Who's Who of Myrtle Creek history,"said the late fire department member and mayor Frank Starr, who compiled a department history in 1989. Original members included Charles Rice of the Myrtle Creek Mail, and local business leaders George Dyer, Thomas H. Ireland, and H.M. Shirtcliff. The fire department underwent several reorganizations during the first four decades of the 20th century, until the current organization began in the spring of 1946, with chief Frank Chapin and 25 members, many of 'whom were new to the Myrtle Creek area. The department expanded in July 1960 to include the recently organized Myrtle Creek Rural Fire District. Although the rural district serves the Clarks Branch, Bilger Creek, and North and South Myrtle areas and is separate legally and financially, it stores some equipment in the new fire hall, and both departments have signed a mutual-assistance agreement in times of need. Documents stored in City Hall show that the original department was organized on a shoestring. The annual budget, as late as the mid-l920s, ran less than $20. A new siren, for example, was ordered from a Chicago company and arrived post-paid for about $9. Even though the current department's budget is far more than those early figures, local citizens are getting a bargain,.Leming insists. "Our share of the tax rate is about $1 per thousand;" he said. "If we had to have a full-time, permanent staff, that rate would go up to about $5." The department has experienced its share of hair-raising fire stories over the decades, said Leming. "I suppose that the two worst were with the forest fires in September 1987, and when the old mill burned in 1970." The forest fires had department personnel on call for a week straight, with the 10,000-acre blaze getting extremely close to town. "I still don't think we realize how bad that might have been," Leming said. The October 1970 mill fire, which destroyed the buildings left when Fir Manufacturing Co. abandoned its plant, had volunteers on the hoses for 11 straight hours, Leming recalled. "We had one hose just on our crew in the space that is now Volunteer Way? between the mill and the downtown buildings, keeping the crew wet down. And when we finally came off the line, we were dry as a bone; it was that hot in there." A fortunate shift in the wind was what kept downtown buildings from catching fire, Leming said. "In the morning, the fire was blowing directly toward downtown, but it shifted toward the river in the afternoon, like it usually does, and that's what really kept the fire from spreading."Another disaster was averted on Aug. 31, 1963, when a gasoline tanker truck fire occurred at the comer of Madrona St. and North Myrtle Road. "That truck had 600 gallons of gas on it," said Leming. "If that had exploded, it would have burned a lot of buildings." The original department had listed no qualifications for volunteers, except their ability to pay a nickel for every time they went to a fire. Today, a volunteer has to Today, a volunteer has to signup for about 100 hours of training a year, Leming said. "The guys who have an EMT or rescue certification have to take about 200 hours." The state is constantly increasing the amount of training necessary for the department to retain its high state fire marshal's rating. It's that rating that keeps Myrtle Greek residents' fire insurance relatively low, Leming said. Costs are going up all the time as well, Leming said. "A set of turnouts (fire-fighting coat, pants, boots, gloves, and helmet) cost about $2,000. Add to that the cost of a SCBA (air tanks), and that's another $2,200." And that equipment has to be tested from time- to time, making sure it works properly." Almost all of the regulations are safety issues," Leming said. The cost of trucks and larger equipment is astronomical. A new pumper truck will run around $175,000. That's why the department has hustled to get donated vehicles and cut costs. The new equipment truck, for example, is a converted soft drink truck. More important that getting equipment, though, says the chief, is getting an adequate number of volunteers. "This job demands a lot of time," he admitted, "what with training, and fire calls, and all the organizational and fundraising activities we do all the time. And if a lot of your people are doing shift work, it's had to keep a full schedule of firefighters." The department had a majority of the town's businessmen as its members for years, Leming recalls. "We had over 20 of the downto,wn businessmen at one time," he said. "It's easier for them to leave the store for a call than for a shift worker. Now we have fewer than 10 businessmen." Still, volunteerism is a catching thing. Myrtle Creek has been lucky to have the malady spread from generation to generation. "We have many of our volunteers who are from second and third-generation fire volunteer families," wrote Starr in his department history. That's one thing that Leming hopes to continue as the department enters its second century of sevice.

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