09/26/2026
When something goes wrong at three in the morning out in the county, the person who comes for you is probably not on the clock. 🚒
Most of the fire departments in this state are staffed by volunteers. Texas has well over a thousand departments, and the large majority of them are volunteer or close to it, which means the people who show up have day jobs. They weld, they teach, they farm, they run the parts counter. The pager goes off during supper, or during a birthday party, or at four in the morning in February, and they get up and drive to the station and go.
They pay for a good deal of it themselves too. The barbecue plate sale and the boot drive at the intersection are not quaint small town color, they are how a department buys turnout gear and keeps a brush truck running another season. In plenty of counties the nearest paid department is forty minutes away, so the volunteers are not a supplement to the system. They are the system. 🧯
If you live outside the city limits, somebody you nod to at the feed store has probably already been to your house on the worst day of your life.
