In a tradition that dates back to the horse-drawn fire engines of the 19th century, firefighters active and retired gathered at Chatham's brand new station Saturday to push the 1926 Morris engine backward into the big bays that will soon be home to its modern counterparts.

Since, in the past, horses were unable to back engines into the stations, the vehicles were pushed into the bays by firefighters.With that, the new $10.6 million fire station is now ready to be seen, with an open house scheduled for today at 1 p.m. and the building fully occupied and operational by Monday, depending on when the emergency 911 line can be installed.

Here’s what it’s like to respond to a fire in the town’s brand new $10.6 million fire station:You’re on duty for 24 hour shifts, but at some point you grab some shuteye in a double-bunk room. Before hitting the hay, you hit a red or blue button on the wall that marks you as firefighter or emergency medical responder.

When you’re due to be back on duty, the lights in the room come up gradually, like a sunrise. If an emergency response is triggered, LED lights flash and speakers sound. Running lights along the walls illuminate the hallway, which is extra wide to accommodate men and women in a hurry, carrying gear. In the crew’s quarters, every hallway is designed to run straight to the bays, where rescue and fire vehicles are kept. Along the way, flat-screen monitors tell you the nature of the call and a map of the route to the location.

Chief Bob Schafer said the new station will allow the volunteer firefighters to have a quicker response time in the area. The department will continue to operate its main fire station in Pleasant Plains.“Our district isn’t growing in size, but our population is shifting,” Schafer said. “Originally, when the fire department was started in Pleasant Plains, the major population was in Pleasant Plans. We’ve gotten a lot of influx from Springfield, people moving out closer to Plains, and our population has shifted. We need to take care of our people in this area. We don’t want to leave them out.

”On Sunday, an open house was held to give people a look at the new station. Schafer said the new station is open, and they are ready to start running calls from the facility.

The new station was built at a cost of about $200,000 and has four vehicle bays. Initially, it will house three vehicles: an engine, a rescue truck and a brush truck. The engine, also called a pumper because it pumps water, was purchased used for $70,000 and the rescue truck was purchased used for $50,000.


Schafer said the new station was built without a tax increase.

However, for more than two dozen firefighters, they’re preparing for the worst case scenario.

"In a structure, the fire starts out small and leads to a big event, where ARFF or aircraft starts out big. Your main climax of the event is right when it happens. You can have a lot of people in a small amount of area, and there's just certain things you have to do right away that are different. You have to train on every area once every 12 months,” Kearney volunteer firefighter Seth Lunbery said.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires fire stations near airports to go through the training and recertification every year, and for the last few years, the department has used instructors from the University of Missouri.

"The department of transportation for Missouri - MODOT - said, 'Hey, we'll buy this mobile airplane for the central region - Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri - so they can get hands-on training and be able to use their own vehicles, their own hoses and people and mutual aide departments,” UM Aircraft Rescue Firefighting Specialist Mark Lee said.

The training offers a classroom setting, but the real fun lies within the hands on activities.

"I think the community expect us to be prepared for an event, and when they come and get out on the planes out here and fly to Denver and back, they want to know that if something does happen that they're going to be safe landing and we'll tend to that emergency the best that we can,” Kearney Volunteer Fire Department fire administrator Jason Whalen said.

The university brings along with them a mock airplane, which ignites in several different locations as well as gives firefighters the ability to extricate mannequin victims from the inside.