OVFD fights large grass fires off State Hwys 79, 114

Young County’s volunteer fire departments were back fighting smaller fires in the blazing hot week after the massive Campbell fire consumed more than 8,000 acres near Olney as local officials examined ways to better support and fund their fire fighting work.

Firefighting aircraft were spotted shortly after a small grass fire broke out near Loving on Aug. 21, dumping retardant on the blaze as firefighting efforts got underway in the tinder-dry pastures along State Highway 114. Olney Volunteer Fire Department Chief Clint Pulliam said the County’s response to each fire is different because of constantly changing conditions and the availability of resources at the time the fire breaks out.

“I’ve been doing this for 36 years and every fire is different,” Chief Pulliam said. “Really there is not anything to predict. You’re dealing with winds changing directions six or seven times in a matter of hours.”

The County Commissioners approved a new budget for the fiscal year on Aug. 21 which contains a bump in funding for local fire departments but denied the Graham Fire Department’s request for a new fire truck using about $700,000 in federal funds remaining from the American Rescue Plan Act.

Commissioner Stacy Creswell and Jimmy Wiley discussed offering more training for county employees who ferried water trucks to and from the fires after working hours and over the weekend when the Campbell fire tore through pastureland on the border between Young and Archer counties.

Mr. Creswell spent much of the weekend of Aug. 11 cutting fire lines around the fast-moving Campbell fire with the County’s new bulldozer but soon had to call in county hands with heavy equipment training to relieve him as the fire rapidly spread.

The two commissioners also pushed for overtime pay for county employees who are called to fight fires outside working hours.

“When you call them and say, ‘They need support out there, go load a water truck and take it, whether you want to call it volunteering or not, [those] guys were lying in bed,” Mr. Creswell said. “They need to be compensated. … It just needs to get done.”

“It’s beyond the scope of their normal duties,” Mr. Wiley said.

He and Mr. Wiley advocated training county hands to pitch in to cut fire lines with the County’s bulldozer.

But Precinct 3 Commissioner Stacey Roger disagreed with the County expanding its role in firefighting.

“We have contracts with Graham City Fire Department and Olney Volunteer Fire Department to fight fires in the County so we do not need a Young County Fire Department,” he said. “When you go buying a $300,000 bulldozer and a trailer and a truck and you want to go to every fire, and you’re taking your road and bridge assets to a fire and paying them you may not want to open that can of worms. I’m not for that.”

Chief Pulliam said Commissioners have “been good … in the last few years about supporting and helping us.”

The fire chief told the Olney City Council at its Aug. 14 meeting that a recent discussion about offsetting firefighting costs by filing claims against citizens’ insurance policies could cause people to stop supporting the OVFD.

“Some people look at that headline [in the Olney Enterprise] … so I started getting phone calls, ‘Are you telling me you’re going to bill me when you go and put out a grass fire on my property?’ You’ll be surprised at how many people - if that does happen – how many people quit donating and helping us,” Chief Pulliam said. “I want to be able to tell them, ‘Hey this is not what’s happening - this is part of the general discussion.’ I see what you’re after and I understand it. But I read it as all calls – grass fires, structure fires. If you do that to somebody it’s a slap in the face in a small town. …We want to be on the same page.”

Mayor Rue Rogers assured the OVFD chief that “it’s just something that got brought up because it’s budget season.” The City was considering billing auto insurance policies for claims involving motorist negligence. The City recouped $18,000 from a motorist who drove over a fire hydrant last year, Olney Police Sgt. Dustin Hudson said.

“There’s a cost every time that you guys get called out and we want to make sure we have adequate revenue and money, then, to support the fire department to make sure that you guys have the equipment and things that you need to do your job so well,” Mayor Rogers said. “The community can’t thank you enough for what you do.”

Johnny Moore, State Farm agent and Olney Economic Development board member, told the Council that “in Texas, the only way you are going to have participation [from insurance companies] is if there’s negligence on the part of the policyholder.”

It would be “a stretch” to file claims against a homeowners’ policy for a house fire that destroyed their home, Mr. Moore said. “It can take a long time and I’m not finding a way for getting to the insurance companies to be a viable action.”

“You have our support,” Councilman Brad Simmons told Chief Pulliam.