911

I made my first-ever call to 911 today. And I have to say even in our dinky little town in our dinky little county, the guy who answered the phone was professional, asked all the right questions and we had someone to our place within probably ten minutes – maybe less.

I should back up.

I spent most of the day cutting firewood. My wife and oldest daughter were out with our mowers trying to knock down what is left of our pasture. Today was breezy, early-spring-like. Did I say anything about the wind blowing?

My wife decided to see if she could burn off some of the remaining stands of Johnson grass in our hay pasture. I didn’t know this until I saw some smoke on the far side of our pasture. She’s done this before so I wasn’t too worried. Except; have I mentioned it was a little on the windy side today?

After a few minutes it was obvious that the fire had grown a bit bigger than my wife had intended. So we broke out all our buckets, connected all our hoses and headed off to squelch the growing grass fire.

After about an hour of hauling buckets and trying to stamp it out it was obvious the fire was moving faster than we could put it out. It was never very big but spread out over a couple of hundred feet and moving east toward the woods and our neighbors beyond that.

So I break out my cell phone and call 911. Yep, we even have 911 way out here.

Two guys showed up with a pick-up that had a large tank in the back. For a minute it didn’t sound like their motor for their pump was going to start. But it did.

I had told the operator that I hoped this call wasn’t a false alarm and I was partly right. By the time the volunteer guys arrived, it was pretty well under control and only a few spots were flaring up.

They made couple of passes around the blackened area and sprayed water all around.

They chatted with my wife for a bit and were on their way. But they did ask her if we had paid our dues.

See, in rural areas most fire departments are volunteers. You typically pay a small yearly fee (I think ours went up to $50 this year.) I don’t know what happens if you don’t pay – I guess they charge a fee or send a bill or something.

The moral of course is to not burn when conditions are dry or windy. We are/were probably lucky. I doubt my wife will be so eager to burn off pasture anymore.

The second moral is to pay your Rural Fire Dues or whatever they call them. And next time they stop you at an intersection with a boot collecting change for whatever – toss in what you have.