Answering the Call

By Becky Ruff

 

The volunteer fire department in Mt. Hope, Wisconsin stays versatile and creative in meeting the needs of the rural community

It was late December 1944 when members of the small community of Mt. Hope in Grant County, Wisconsin watched as a fire consumed the home of two families. The bystanders contained the fire the best they could with fire extinguishers until the Fennimore fire department was able to reach them.

Those who had witnessed the fire recognized the dire need for fire protection for the town. Taking the matter into their own hands, they called a meeting a few days later, determined not to be helpless and completely dependent on aid from other communities in the event of future fires. Out of those discussions, the Mt. Hope Volunteer Fire Department was founded.

That independent spirit and desire to help take care of the local community has carried forward over seventy years later, through generations of volunteer firefighters that have served the village of Mt. Hope. Like other volunteers, fire chief Rick French works a full-time job and dedicates himself to fire department responsibilities during his time off. He says, “It takes a lot of time, but I enjoy it.”

“You never know what you’re going to get called for – it could be anything and everything.”  – Rick French, Mt. Hope Fire Chief

 

Rick has been a firefighter for Mt. Hope since 1987, and except for one year, has served as its fire chief since 2003. “You never know what you’re going to get called for – it could be anything and everything,” says Rick.

As Rick details the duties and responsibilities that fall onto small rural fire departments, being prepared for “anything and everything” is an apt description. Rick estimates that the department sees around 20 calls per year for fires, but the members do far more than firefighting.

“We’ve been getting more involved in accidents and traffic [incidents] that we never had to do before.” He cites the overall increase in traffic accidents which require more personnel involvement compared to years past. Wisconsin state data shows that for the spans of years in parentheses, traffic crashes on Grant County public roads increased on average from 1126 (2011-2015) to 1280 (2015-2019), an average increase of 13%.

Sources: http://www.co.grant.wi.gov/docview.asp?docid=25917&locid=147
https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/about-wisdot/newsroom/statistics/final-county.aspx

“Anytime there’s a [traffic] accident, it’s mandatory for the fire department to get called out,” he states. If the incident is minor, the responding patrol officer may end up calling them off. Grant County is a large county, however, and the sheriff department officers are not always in the immediate area. Often, states Rick, “We’ll be there before they are.”

Whenever there is an emergency or other pressing need, the fire department responds: missing children, drownings, securing scenes for MedFlights, lift assists, assisting the rescue squad with transports, floods, storm watching, pumping basements, washing streets (after a flood) and downed trees. If lightning strikes a house, the fire department is responsible for assessing the entire house for potential wiring problems. Rick explains, “You can have smoldering in the walls and not know it, and the house can start on fire later.”

During a snowstorm one year, an ambulance got stuck, and the fire department was called to take the rescue squad members to the house. Rick states that due to situations like that, they keep the fire trucks stocked with barn lime and salt to help create traction in slippery conditions.

Ready for winter weather: In addition to the standard and specialized equipment, this Mt. Hope fire truck stores a supply of barn lime and salt for slippery Wisconsin winter roads

 

Many volunteers in the department are mechanically inclined and are also generous with their time and resources. Oftentimes, the volunteers take their own equipment – personal boats, 4-wheelers, and chainsaws – to name a few examples, when responding to a drowning, missing child, or grass fire. The expense of fuel and equipment for these situations isn’t reimbursed. “It’s all out of the goodness of their hearts,” explains Rick.

 

Challenges of staying viable

Mt. Hope’s fire department “is one of only a few Wisconsin fire departments that actually are self-owned,” Rick states. It shares a mutual aid agreement with the towns of Bloomington and Patch Grove. Larger departments are governed by their respective municipalities, and all decisions relative to those departments need to be approved by those governing bodies. In contrast, departments like Mt. Hope’s have greater autonomy in making their own decisions internally, as the department volunteer members finalize everything themselves.

“Every member has a say,” asserts Rick.

The independence of having the decision-making power is unique and appreciated, but it can be challenging for the small 22-member department to maintain itself, since it owns all its own equipment. Its viability also depends on raising funds internally in addition to the contributions from the villages and townships in its 128-square-mile territory.

Rick states, “We try to keep the budget increase at two percent each year.” The townships of Millville, Woodman, and Mt. Hope, along with the villages of Mt. Hope and Woodman, and portions of the townships of Little Grant and Patch Grove contribute a percentage of the department’s annual budget.

From there, the department relies on their annual fundraiser, held each July, to help generate funds to put aside for future purchases and maintenance.

“We try to put $10,000 each year away in a trust to update equipment,” Rick says.

One of the pumper trucks owned by the Mt. Hope volunteer fire department. For insurance reasons, the department is required to own two pumper trucks.

 

 

 

 

Explaining their operating expenses, Rick says, “We bill out for fires at $150 an hour, which ends up being around $400-$500 per call. We run on a $25,000 to $26,000 annual budget, which is sometimes hardly enough to run on for the whole year.”

An example he gives is a recent barn fire, where the fuel bill was $140 per truck, and there were four of their trucks on the scene that day. “The maximum insurance will pay is $500 – if you get paid, and some never pay you,” he points out.

The costs of specialized equipment can be daunting. He explains that their firetrucks are supposed to be updated every 20 years, which had recently been allowed to be stretched to 25 years. A truck that used to cost $50,000 is now between $300,000 to $400,000. One of their pumper trucks was purchased at $225,000, and if it was bought new today, that cost would be $500,000. “And we have to have two pumpers for insurance reasons,” shares Rick.

“Our insurance company now also requires us to get new tires every ten years, regardless of the mileage on them,” he states. For two of their trucks, that cost was between six and seven thousand dollars. The insurance for the department alone costs $8000 to $9000 per year.

“It gets tougher every year,” Rick says. Recently he wrote a grant for a cascade system, which is used for bulk storage of high-pressure breathing air that refills breathing apparatus bottles (cylinders) during firefighting. The system previously cost around $10,000 to $12,000 but had jumped to $18,000.

The cascade system (in the compartment on the right) is used to store breathing air and refill breathing apparatus cylinders or “bottles” (on left) when fighting fires

 

 

Some costs that appear to be associated with the department have caused some confusion for local residents. For example, the state of Wisconsin now requires a fire hydrant fee of $28,000 for the village of Mt. Hope, the cost of which is passed on to the residents of the village. Rick’s wife, Cindy French, who is a First Responder in Mt. Hope and works with the West Grant Rescue Squad, states that water bills increased by around $50-$75 per household.

She herself has fielded questions from people wondering what the fire department was doing with the ‘extra money.’ “It was hard for people to understand,” she says, “that the fee was imposed by the state, and the fire department doesn’t see any of that money.”

 

A tight-knit and determined group

The list of Mt. Hope fire chiefs who have served since its inception looks a bit like a family tree – many of them are related in some way to the late Carl Laufenberg, a former chief and 60-year veteran of the department. There was a time when the fire department had little difficulty recruiting members. Like their founders, residents in the area have recognized the need for the service and the need to contribute. As Cindy explains, for most local men, being on the fire department was simply the “thing to do.”

“A friend talked to me about it, and I got involved from there,” Rick says, stating that the sense of commitment to the community and volunteerism have been important to him. He adds, “Both my boys (Jasen and Nathan French) are also involved in it.”

As with many organizations, however, retaining enough volunteer help is becoming more challenging. Population of the rural areas is decreasing, families are smaller, and it has been hard to recruit individuals willing to give the time commitment. “It’s getting difficult to find people,” he states.

Looking ahead, Rick remains determined and hopeful. “We may need to raise the budget and we’ll keep the fundraisers going. We also have some very generous community members.”

That determination extends to the department’s commitment to keeping itself out of debt. Cindy adds, “They never take out a loan – they don’t pay for something until they have the money to pay for it and try to make do with what they have.”

Footnote: Some of the historical information was obtained from “Mount Hope Memories,” a booklet of Mt. Hope history compiled by the Mt. Hope Historical Society

 

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