Ring of Fire: Fire district got off to smoky start
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By ROD STETZER
rod.stetzer@chippewa.com
Monday, December 29, 2008 1:05 PM CST
(Editor’s Note: The Chippewa Fire District caused controversy when it considered buying a fire truck for over $517,000. In “Ring of Fire,” the Herald has looked at the truck’s proposed purchase. The three-part series concludes today with a look at the origin of the fire district.)
It was born prematurely, with fire trucks rushing to a trailer park fire in the town of Wheaton.
In 1977, several Chippewa County towns were tired of shelling out money to Chippewa Falls to provide fire service for what was called the Chippewa Falls Rural Fire Department.
A fire tanker and engine and two city firefighters would be dispatched from City Hall to rural fire calls, according to city Police Lt. John Liddell, a former volunteer for the rural district. Then volunteer firefighters would go the scene of the call to fight the blaze.
“For many years, the old rural fire department housed their trucks and fire fighting equipment at the Chippewa Falls station (at City Hall), paying for the garaging and the salaries of an increasing number of firefighters on the force here,” Herald-Telegram editor Holly Meier reported on Dec. 28, 1977.
“The cost had risen to nearly $70,000 this year and faced with expected increases in the years to come, the townships decided to build fire stations in their backyards, buy more firefighting equipment and go it alone.”
They would do it with up to a reported 155 volunteers and, eventually, fire stations in the towns of Eagle Point, Hallie, LaFayette, Tilden and Wheaton.
“This is one department with five fire stations,” proclaimed Ron Salter, the first fire chief of what would be called the Chippewa Fire Protection District. It was a nice boast, but when it was formed the department could only rely on new stations in Tilden and Wheaton, and a garage in LaFayette.
Salter would be the only salaried employee of the district for many years.
Interim Chippewa Falls Fire Chief Harold Martin gave the new department until noon Monday to clear out the old rural district’s equipment from city hall.
At least, that was the plan. But it turned out the volunteer department needed the equipment before then.
As the Jan. 3, 1978 Herald-Telegram reported:
“The Chippewa Fire Protection District assumed command of the former Chippewa Rural Fire Department trucks Sunday with wailing sirens and flashing red lights.
“According to District Chief Ron Salter: ‘If anyone saw us leave with those fire trucks, they must have thought we sure were an eager bunch.’
“Salter and other officials of the fire protection district were at the Chippewa Falls Fire Station preparing to take the trucks out to their new duty stations when a call came in from the C and D Trailer Court in the town of Wheaton.
“Although the transfer of equipment hadn’t been scheduled until 12 noon, the city firefighters turned the call over to the rural crew at 10:07 a.m. . .
“Although the fire run was about 12.5 miles from Chippewa Falls, about 32 rural firefighters showed up at the scene, Salter reported.”
Today, what’s now called the Chippewa Fire District is a mixture of volunteers and salaried employees. They have many more duties than volunteer firefighters, including having paramedics on staff.
The district has changed, too. Squabbles left the towns of Eagle Point and Tilden to form their own fire departments. The district now consists of the village of Lake Hallie and the towns of LaFayette, Howard, Hallie and Wheaton.
The district has had only two fire chiefs in 30 years, Salter and his successor, John Neihart.
And that $70,000 spent on salaries and housing the equipment for the rural department in 1977 doesn’t seem so bad. At least consider that 30 years after the fire department formed, its board of directors approved a bid of $517,327 to buy one truck, more than seven times the 1977 cost for the rural department.
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Reality Strikes wrote on Dec 29, 2008 2:54 PM: