Before there were fire trucks in Colbert, flames were fought in a much different manner.
“With hand buckets,” said John Waggoner, Colbert’s mayor since 1969.
Waggoner remembers those fighting-fire-by-hand days. If house went up in flames, a townsperson would ring a bell — or blow a car horn — to alert Colbert citizens to come armed with water.
“People would come, hopefully with buckets and water out of wells,” Waggoner said. “They’d do what they could, but hardly ever saved a house.”
But for the last 40 years, no one has had to run headlong to a flame lugging a pail of water at the toll of a bell. Since 1968, the community has relied on the Colbert Volunteer Fire Department to answer the call.
As a nod to their four decades of service to Colbert, the fire department will serve as grand marshals of this year’s Colbert Fourth of July parade.
“It’s a great privilege,” said Colbert fire chief Tim Wyatt.
Waggoner, a former firefighter and one of the charter members of Colbert’s fire department, said that the department has put out plenty of fires in its day and saved the community plenty of dollars over the years.
“It’s reduced the insurance rates quite a bit,” he said.
The Colbert that pre-dated fire service seldom rescued a house from flames. But in the early 50s, the city installed a water system, complete with 10 fire hydrants. Locals formed the fire department about a decade later.
The first fire department had 15 members, headed by fire chief Curtis James.
It was determined from the start that the city wasn’t to control the fire department. Forty years later, the Colbert Volunteer Fire is much still independent from city government.
“It’s a community thing really; it doesn’t stop at the city limits, Waggoner said. “I think people felt like it would be better if it was controlled by the people in the community.”
UNSUNG HEROS
They might not get paid, but being a volunteer fire fighter is much like full-time employment.
“People don’t realize there’s a lot more to it than just showing up when the pager goes off,” said Tim Wyatt, the current fire chief.
Waggoner said the life of a volunteer firefighter is “a no-thanks job.”
“Unless you’ve been on a volunteer fire department, you don’t realize what’s involved,” he said.
Like getting up at 3 a.m. in 15-degree weather or fighting a fire in the punishing summer heat.
“In the hot weather, it’s terrible,” Waggoner said.
But the department has been going for 40 years strong because the Colbert community has always had volunteers.
District 5 Commissioner Bruce Scogin, an 18-year veteran of the Colbert Fire Department, said he joined based on a harrowing experience in 1990.
Scogin remembers rushing out his front door to see smoke boiling out of the top his neighbor’s house. Luckily, the Colbert Volunteer Fire Department was on its way to the rescue.
But Scogin said he still remembers the terror in his neighbor’s voice that day.
“No one should have to go through that. (I thought) maybe I can help,” Scogin said.
Today, the Colbert Volunteer Fire Department has 25 members, three pumper trucks and a brush truck. The department answers around 80-100 calls a year.
“It’s still going,” Waggoner said. “The younger folks have filled right in there and picked up the challenge and have done a good job on it. Almost every night, there’s somebody over at the fire hall doing work of some kind.”
To honor the past, the Colbert Volunteer Fire Department will bring old Engine No. 11 out of retirement for the Fourth of July parade. It currently rests on display next to city hall. The Colbert Fire Department is also seeking to locate all former firefighters, especially those original members from 1968, so they can be honored at the event.
“We owe them a lot,” Scogin said.
