Walker Rural Fire Dept. response time

Dear Editor,

To all Walker Rural Fire Dept. patrons and concerned citizens

It has been rumored that at a recent fire in the Dederick area it took the Walker Rural Fire Department an hour to get to a house fire and consequently it burned down.

This is untrue. The fire call came in to the Vernon County Sheriff's office from Cedar County and then the Walker Rural Fire Department was toned out at 8:01 p.m. Our first firetruck (not the first firefighter as they were already there) but the first firetruck was on the scene at 8:09 p.m. We had three firetrucks and 10 firefighters on scene for six hours fighting this fire. This is all documented through the Vernon County Sheriff's dispatcher. We left the scene and were back in the barn at 1:14 a.m. The trucks still had to be refueled, cleaned and items readied for the next fire.

Ron Peckman, Vernon County Sheriff stated that the direct number into the Vernon County Sheriff's Office is (417)667-6042. There are three phone lines for business. These lines are shared between the entire office. There are two dedicated phone lines for all calls. These lines are to receive only. In the county if you call 911, your phone carrier has that call directed to the Sheriff's office. If you use a cell phone, these calls will come into the Sheriff's Office or Nevada Police Department. In the case of a busy line, the call will be directed to the nearest law enforcement office or 911 center, and this could be anywhere. It is still best to call 911. That way the caller should be able to talk to an emergency dispatcher somewhere. Currently Vernon County and the city of Nevada are working on a joint communication center. This way there will be two dispatchers on duty at all times. Once all the mapping and addresses are completed the communication center will know exactly where that call is coming from, except from cell phones and that will be coming next.

It has also been stated that we are fighting over memberships. The rural fire departments do not fight over which fire department you should belong to, we just want you to belong to one. We all have mutual aid and support each other, even across the county line. There are some members that belong to two departments to help support the departments, because without members we would cease to exist. Most insurance companies also require membership in a fire department and usually it is the closest to your residence.

The Walker Rural Fire Department's next board meeting is scheduled for Jan. 7 at the Fire Barn in Walker at 7:30 p.m. If you feel you would like to attend, it is open to the public and anyone is welcome. We encourage any and all to come, but it is not open for a gripe session to discourage and intimidate our firefighters, as they have been through enough with the fires they have encountered with the loss of property and lives. They have a lot to deal with and some are having problems with this, so please chose your words kindly and think about this.

We do have two openings on our board coming up in March and welcome any of our paid members to run for the board.

Alberta Hays

Walker Rural Fire Department Secretary