Grenola Cafe Fire

[W. Gray]

Thanks,

I was curious.

I have only seen the County make a run once--a couple years ago. The tanker driver was driving like a maniac. However, I am sure he thought he was doing his job trying to get to the fire as fast as he could.

I can remember the fire engine that is now in the Gragg museum being in the single garage across from the post office next to the alley. Even then it was a relic.

[Tobina+1]

Wow, Liz.  You are a weath of information when you log in.  Good thing you don't log in too often; not sure we could handle all your information at once!   

Well, even if they are not official volunteer firefighters, we have to remember all the farmers/ranchers that also help fight fires in rural areas.  I know that Perkins has a dedicated truck with a water tank on the back that is ready to go most of the year.  Chuck has gone and helped neighbors many times (and neighbors have helped him) with grass fires in the area.  I even stood guard outside Jim's house with a little water hose because he was out of town and a pasture fire was getting pretty close (not sure I could have done much with my little water hose, but I was going to try). 

That's some food for thought, too... we get the volunteer firefighters trained, but maybe there should be a short basic training for all the farmers/ranchers in the county, too.  I know a lot of them already know how to start fires and use backfires, but some general safety (and first-aid) might not be a bad idea. 

[Wilma]

What a good idea.  My husband knew a lot about burning pastures, etc. when he became a volunteer at Severy.  The training he received (mostly from more experienced fighters) covered things that farmers don't generally know.  If some classes could be arranged and the farmers can find the time to attend them, the whole county would benefit.

[Diane Amberg]

 Thanks, Liz, I just learned something also. We have no county fire departments here. We can call the state forestry folks if we need them, and many of our big industries have on site fire brigades to handle little fires or get started on the big ones until the local fire companies can get there. Our 911 dispatch system is through the county.

[Mom70x7]

Have they determined the cause of the fire?

Or a guess, if not an official cause?

[DanCookson]

SORRY FOR NOT GETTING BACK WITH INFO

I have been swamped at work and had not had time to give the forum any love!!!  Mom sent me an email and I logged in to see that Liz did a better job of answering the question than I would have!!!

The one thing we have that is official is a Mutual Aid agreement with the Moline Fire Dept.  What that consists of is when our pagers go off, they are immediately called out.  When they get called out, our pagers go off.  We have verbal aid agreements with the other departments in the county as well.  Basically if the fire is bad enough, we get paged out to help because of the manpower and the equipment that we have.