The Dairyette ice cream parlor went up in flames just before it was to open this summer in the downtown of this historic Ohio River village in far southeastern Illinois.
Volunteer Fire Chief Charles D. ”Bozo” Vaughn and his crew of dedicated but underappreciated firefighters couldn`t do much for the Dairyette, though they did succeed in saving the neighboring Old Opry House from going with it. Still, after the smoke cleared, there were the usual taunts from townspeople.
”It used to be a running gag that we`ve never lost a foundation or a chimney, but we`ve gotten better than that,” lamented volunteer firefighter Tim Stanley. ”I`m tired of the comments. I like to got in a fight the other day over it.”
Respect is hard to come by for the Cave-in-Rock Volunteer Fire Department, which has 15 volunteer firefighters and only two pairs of firefighter pants, according to Chief Vaughn, whose childhood nickname probably doesn`t ease matters much.
Vaughn, a burly prison work camp guard, said he spent five grueling hours at a house fire a few weeks ago-on his day off from his regular job-only to lose the house and take more guff.
”You`re out there trying to help people, and some turn around and disrespect you,” he said. ”I don`t get mad, but it is aggravating. We try.” Lost in all of the hype and heat generated by this summer`s blockburner movie, ”Backdraft,” which showcases the skill and bravery of the Chicago Fire Department, is that a great many firefighters in Illinois and around the country are just as dedicated to protecting their communities, but they do the job with a lot less.
Less money, less training, less equipment, less glory.
”Volunteer fire departments are often the bastard sons of small communities because they don`t bring any money in and they cost a lot,” said Mike Knox, who rates the effectiveness of fire departments throughout central and southern Illinois for the Insurance Services Organization.
It costs as much as $2,000 a firefighter to properly outfit them in fireproof ”bunker gear,” Knox said. A low-end ”plain Jane” fire engine has a sticker price of about $75,000, he said.
Yet all-volunteer fire departments such as that of Cave-in-Rock actually outnumber the full-time and pay-per-call fire departments in Illinois, according to the state fire marshal`s office in Springfield.
There are 70 paid fire departments in the state, 194 fire departments that pay their firefighters on a per-call basis, and 425 that are strictly volunteer.
Those all-volunteer departments run the gamut from highly trained and well-equipped outfits in affluent communities such as west suburban Glen Ellyn, where more than 50 volunteers staff two stations with a yearly budget of $199,750-all of it donated-to those like Cave-in-Rock that gamely do the best they can with what they have, or what they can scavenge and bolt together.
While many volunteer departments lack financial resources and often must deal with outdated city water systems, a department with strong community support and a gung-ho group of volunteers can rival the big city full-timers in professionalism, Knox said.
Aggressive volunteer departments pay their own way with fish fries, car washes, bake sales and fire department competitions, and they use ingenuity to equip themselves for the job, he said.
”I`ve seen small volunteer departments take an old dairy truck and turn it into a portable pumper, and they`re as proud of it as any $200,000 piece of new equipment,” Knox said.
”The only difference there should be between a volunteer and a paid fire department is that one of them has someone sleeping at the station and the other one doesn`t,” he said.
Backing into trouble
Chicago and its movie star fire department, featuring 4,896 uniformed and 322 civilian employees, 100 fire engines, 98 fire stations and an annual budget of more than $245 million, lies at the opposite end of the firefighting spectrum-and, geographically, the opposite end of Halsted Street-from pants-poor Cave-in-Rock, population 417.
Halsted Street drops out of the South Side of Chicago and, under the name Illinois Highway 1, follows a meandering southern path for more than 250 miles until it dead-ends into the Ohio River in downtown Cave-in-Rock, one block from the doors of the village`s volunteer fire department.
Those doors, by the way, are the bane of Lt. Duane Beavers, a volunteer firefighter for 11 of his 27 years, who is proud of his level if partly shaved head but not so prone to boast of his skills as navigator of the department`s 1973 FMC fire engine.
While backing the fire engine, Beavers has exhibited a tendency to miss the station doors, and hit the station instead.
”Well, they said they wanted the doors wider; I was just trying to help out,” is his sheepish explanation.
The town of Cave-in-Rock takes its name from an 80-foot-wide cave in the river bluffs that rise behind it. The cave, which is 200 feet deep, first sheltered prehistoric men, then American Indian tribesmen and, in the 1800s, assorted bands of river pirates and cutthroats who preyed upon settlers using the river as their passageway.
The pioneer pirates operated ”Wilson`s Liquor Vault and House of Entertainment” inside the cave, and its infamous history has lured Hollywood to Cave-in-Rock. The bluff`s cavern served as a backdrop for Hollywood in
”How the West Was Won,” and in television portrayals of both Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.
Now home to a blufftop state park with lodging that offers one of the grandest views in the Midwest, the town of Cave-in-Rock doesn`t get the tourist traffic it deserves, and its history is far richer than its treasury. The village fire department, for example, has this worrisome pants problem.
”We`ve only got two pair. We had three, but the last fire chief got fired from his job at the funeral home and he left town and took his pants with him,” Vaughn said.
The volunteers in Cave-in-Rock are alerted to fires by calls to the fire department`s emergency number, which rings in the homes of all the volunteers as well as many former volunteers and, inexplicably, never-were volunteers, including one or two who`ve put answering machines on the line.
Right now, the department is concentrating on remedying a problem pointed out by Knox. Unlike most cities, this one does not have its fire emergency number printed on the cover of its telephone directory.
The Cave-in-Rock Volunteer Fire Department was given a low-level ranking after a recent visit by Knox`s rating service, but that was more a reflection of the village`s lack of resources than any lack of effort by its volunteers, the inspector said.
Knox waxed diplomatic: ”There are no `worst` departments in our eyes, only better and best.”
Burned on payment
Being a volunteer firefighter demands time, as well as fireproof pants, hats, coats and boots. To keep sharp, firefighters should be involved in at least 12 hours of training each year, according to Knox, who conceded that even that is difficult for volunteers with full-time jobs and families.
The firefighters from Cave-in-Rock agreed. ”Lately, we haven`t done that much training because everybody`s pretty darn busy,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn`s assistant, Tim Stanley, and his wife, Julie, have been volunteer firefighters for about six years, but they often have to bring their children, Sissy, 4, and Bubby, 1, to department meetings, they said.
”It`s hard to keep up with this,” said Tim, a wiry mine drill operator. ”I work 40 hours a week, play in a band and try to keep up with these rug-rat kids along with volunteering here.”
Like many, but certainly not all small-town volunteer fire departments, the Cave-in-Rock firefighters suffer from a lack of support from the nearly 1,200 area residents they are dedicated to protecting, they said.
Because they do not receive tax money, or much in the way of city funding, the volunteers charge set fees for answering fire calls: $450 for a structure fire, and $100 an hour.
The money is usually paid by insurance companies to the property owners who`ve had the fire, so it isn`t money out of the fire victims` pockets, the firefighters said. Still, the Cave-in-Rock volunteers rarely see any of what is owed them, they reported.
Last year the volunteers went out on only six structural fires, and they`re still trying to collect $1,700 in unpaid fees.
”We put a begging article in the local paper asking people to pay up, but nobody responded to it,” Stanley said. ”It`s the same with fundraisers. We hold chili suppers and nobody comes.”
A shotgun raffle held to benefit the fire department brought in only $40, according to Vaughn.
”That`s not much of a return for all that time selling tickets,” the volunteer chief said. ”There`s not a whole lot of people around here, and you have to drive around a lot to get to them and it`s time consuming.”
Little wonder that the fire department has only one fully operative vehicle. A second, a 1950 GMC fire truck, ”runs tighter than the bark on a tree, but it`s just strictly old and used only for parades,” Beavers said.
Firefighter Stanley, who is a spark plug for the department, recently suggested that out of desperation they finance the purchase of a new utility truck with a fire sale of sorts.
He said firefighters might solicit funds from local businesses with the promise that ”we`d waive charges on the first fire they have.”
Being a volunteer firefighter in an apathetic community can be discouraging, but not enough to override the desire to help people in need, Vaughn said.
”If we had some kids trapped in a house on fire, I`d go in to get them even if I didn`t have the proper equipment,” he said, ”but I`d like to have the equipment to be really safe about it.”
Fired up
Cave-in-Rock is poorer than most volunteer fire departments when it comes to community support. About 40 miles northwest of it lies a town that is similar in size but much different in its relationship to its fire volunteers. Stonefort, population 316, ”takes what little it has and uses it to the best advantage,” said Knox of the Insurance Services Organization.
”I don`t like to brag,” said the town`s fire chief, Monty Dunn, ”but I`m impressed myself with what we`ve done.”
Named for one of five Spanish forts that once stood in the surrounding Shawnee National Forest, Stonefort rests on a hillside along U.S. Highway 45 southwest of Harrisburg.
Reed`s Grocery and coffee shop is the town`s social center and sole retail outlet, and the 22-member volunteer fire department is Stonefort`s major source of pride.
”You can`t find anybody in this town who`ll say anything bad about our fire department,” said Dunn, 35, who works full time as a ”powder monkey,” an explosives expert on a mining crew.
Stonefort volunteers like to say that their well-equipped, 1-year-old fire station was built with hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue and soda pop. The department`s main source of funding is the Stonefort Old Sailors and Soldiers Reunion held each August. The festival draws thousands to the town and has added as much as $6,000 to the fire department`s coffers.
Although Stonefort`s firefighters respond to only about 15 calls a year, most of them grass fires, they stay sharp through regular training sessions, usually twice a month, and by busying themselves around the fire station.
”We had one brand new guy who decided to put up a flag pole one day, and then another day I found him climbing up it to fix the pulley,” Dunn said.
The payoff for volunteer firefighters comes in pride in their community, they said.
”I think a small-town department can serve a community better because we know the people here,” said volunteer Gordon Mitchell. ”A big-city firefighter serves strangers. It makes a big difference.”
Mayor George Jackson, a forest ranger by profession, said that knowing your neighbors doesn`t necessarily mean loving all of them, but it does mean helping them in times of trouble, and that`s why Stonefort supports its volunteer firefighters so strongly.
”In a town like this, the first guy who talks about you, who badmouths you, will be the first guy in your driveway to help you when you need it,”
the mayor said.
”If you don`t care about your town,” he volunteered, ”it won`t exist.”
