Tornado-hit town gets firetruck
Posted on Saturday, February 16, 2008
Thirty years ago, the Center Grove Volunteer Fire Department in Grant County received a donated firetruck when its station burned down. Members were able to repay the favor this week.
The department gave one of its pumper trucks to the Highland Volunteer Fire Department, a start on replacing seven trucks either damaged or destroyed when a tornado blasted through the Sharp County town on Feb. 5.
Within the next two months, the Highland department also will receive four firetrucks from the Arkansas Forestry Commission, which assists rural fire departments with vehicles and equipment.
“Everything we had was gone,” said Highland Fire Chief Steve Davis.
Firefighters have moved into a rented building owned by a Highland auctioneer that was not damaged by the storm.
The twister, estimated at an EF 4, which produced winds of 166-200 mph, developed near Ola and cut a 120-mile path through central Arkansas, killing 13 people. The storm hit Atkins, Clinton, Gassville, Mountain View, Ash Flat and Highland before moving into Tennessee.
The Highland Fire Department was one of nearly 100 businesses and structures damaged or destroyed along part of U. S. 62 / 412.
The Center Grove truck, a 1975 Ford pumper with a 500-gallon reserve tank, was delivered to the town Thursday afternoon.
“We got a new truck [last summer ], and we were planning to sell this one in the spring,” said Center Grove Fire Chief Allen Casteel. “We figured the value of the truck was far greater for Highland than anything we would get moneywise.”
He said his department burned in 1978, and other rural volunteer departments chipped in to replace lost equipment.
“There’s a strong bond between fire departments,” Casteel said. “We’re all in it to help one another. This is our chance to return the favor.”
Trucks from the Coy Volunteer Fire Department in Lonoke County and Turtle Creek Volunteer Fire Department in Saline County are expected in Highland soon, said Gene Moore, director of the Sharp County Office of Emergency Management.
The department also will receive four refurbished trucks from the Arkansas Forestry Commission, said Bob Summerville, director of the commission’s rural fire protection program.
Highland had received four trucks on loan from the commission in the past; they were all rendered inoperable by last week’s storm, Summerville said.
Commission workers will transport the four damaged trucks to Little Rock, where they will be repaired.
“One truck looks like it was shot with gravel,” Summerville said. “The side is all bent in. It blew the wind out of it.”
Workers will remove the engine from the damaged truck and place it in another truck, he said.
“They may end up better with better equipment than they started with,” he said.
The commission’s program, which began in 1979, is geared more toward helping rural fire departments in communities of less than 10, 000 get started. But it also assists departments that lose equipment in disasters such as Feb. 5 ’s tornadoes, Summerville said.
The commission has equipment in about 700 of the state’s more than 1, 000 volunteer departments, he said.
“It’s a good program,” Summerville said.
Davis, the Highland chief, said he was overwhelmed by the Center Grove donation and the assistance offered by the Forestry Commission.
“Words can’t express how we feel,” he said. “It’s slow getting back, but we’re making headway.”
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