Flooding from Hurricane Helene dropped over two feet of rain in some places across the south. In some locations, like Butler, Tennessee, raging rapids washed away an entire firehouse along with its tanker, cbsnews.com reported.

The Elk Mills Poga Volunteer Fire Department in Butler, Tennessee, posted on its Facebook page Sept. 28: “Our station is completely gone. Our little community needs your prayers.”

Two days later, on Sept. 30, the volunteer fire department posted the following:

“Our community has been devastated. The amount of damage and destruction is catastrophic and truly hard to fathom. Unfortunately, our fire department building is sitting somewhere in the Watauga lake, along with our tanker but we aren’t just a building, we’re people. We’re people who believe in our community and have been called to serve those in it.

“So many of us have been out from sun up to well after sundown finding out what people need and making sure they’re OK. This is not a quick fix situation, and our community will forever be changed by this event. We are forever grateful for the support and assistance of the Carter County Rescue Squad, the National Guard, Red Cross, Nashville Fire, and Mayor Woodby, all of whom have hand delivered supplies.

“We are also grateful to all of you who have reached out and brought supplies in. In the coming days we will be making specific posts for people who have lost everything and are looking for donations, and we’re going to need you then more than ever. We’re also going to be posting for specific resources for those in need. Please check in on your neighbors, even if you’re not in this community. So many people are gonna need a hand up after this.”

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The Fairview (Buncombe County) Volunteer Fire Department made the following Facebook post Tuesday, Oct. 1:

It is with the deepest regret and sorrow that the Fairview Fire Department announces that a Fairview firefighter was killed in the line of duty on Friday, September 27, 2024 while conducting rescue operations in the Hurricane Helene response.

The record-breaking flooding from Hurricane Helene has destroyed many communities in our area and forever changed lives and the landscape. Many people in the community have lost everything they own. Our thoughts and prayers are also with the many people who have lost their lives in this disaster. Chief Scott Jones expresses his sincere thanks to everyone who has reached out in support of the department. We ask that everyone to pray for our firefighters family.

The name is being withheld pending notification of all of the next of kin. A special thank you goes to all of the hundreds of emergency responders and support people who have traveled to support.

We will continue to update the community on the situation.

This situation is still an active emergency response. We ask that everyone please stay off the roadways. —Chief Scott Jones

One of the things that the Fire Truck Training Conference fosters is real-time, live communication between vendors and technicians where those responsible for keeping fire apparatus and ambulances in service—not the ones spec’ing them, necessarily—can engage with the people designing and engineering the components that make our rigs run vs. engaging with those you would buy the component from. In any class covering components, students are sharing their challenges when it comes to servicing the components, installing the components, or replacing one part of an overall system. It give the instructors a chance to recommend solutions but also gives them a chance to go “back to the lab” and potentially reengineer the product so it will work better on a fire truck. Firefighters can be rough on the rigs, and simply changing a connector to something more robust to resist the rigors of fire department use could be all that’s necessary. It also reinforces the idea that when assembling your apparatus purchasing committee, inviting a representative from the shop is critical. As we design rigs from the operational side, we often design them to help us be more efficient at our jobs, more ergonomic, easier to get in and out of, easier to operate. But what we may not remember is that how we design these rigs might be impacting how we service them, which will affect how long they are out of service.

Fire Truck Training Conference History

Speaking of out-of-service time and communication, I was part of a conversation at breakfast with a tech who was describing the size of his fire department fleet. He is at the conference to test for a new level of certification. He has an aerial that has been out of service for a week, and the shop is starting to get an earful from the chief to get it back in service. The problem? The rig came to shop for one reason, but once the techs went over the rig, they came up with a list of several items that needed to be addressed that has kept it out of service longer—items that could have been taken care of earlier had the shop been notified about them. For the shop to be efficient, we need to let them know the minute we think something isn’t right with the rigs. It reminded me of an occurrence many years ago where I was bringing one of our pumpers up for fuel. After I turned off the ramp, I was heading up the road, and the truck felt like it was hesitating a little bit. But, I didn’t think it was a huge deal, so I kept going. I got it into the township yard, but before I could get it to the fuel pump, it cut out, and I could not restart it. It ended up we had to have it towed. I mentioned to the Chief Engineer how it felt like it was hesitating when I left, and he said, “Do me a favor: the next time that happens, turn it around and bring it back!”