Of the 4 Different Fire Departments in Sherman Co.,the Rural Fire Dept.has the largest area in mileage to cover. Other than within the City Limits of Goodland the Rural FD covers from Road 10 to Road 30 and from the Sherman/Cheyenne Co. line to the Sherman/Wallace Co. line.

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The Firemen belonging to Rural Fire are all volunteers. The Fire Chief recieves some pay from the County for all the extra work involved with being the Chief. The Chief must keep track of all the other volunteers who respond to a call plus make reports about the firecall they respond to. If he didn't do that the firefighters wouldn't get paid for a call out. The Chief also must keep track of Burn Permits for the county residents in his area. Anyway other than the Chief none of the volunteers draw any pay except when they are called out to a fire. To be a Rural Firefighter you must take training in all the different types of fires. You never know what time of day or night you may be called to a fire.

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This was one of the RFD Training Sessions....burning an old house in Edson gave the firefighters a chance to practice going into a burning house with packs on etc. I don't have the date of this event but I'm sure all that were there remember the lessons learned. It takes practical training like this to train everyone on what to do when it is a real home that is burning. I don't know this as fact but I bet the RFD appreciate whoever donated this house to be used for training, plus I'm sure it helped the owner get rid of a structure they no longer wanted in a safe and quick manner. Besides the home fires to consider the firefighters do other training to learn how to save lives and property. Also vehicle fires, grain bin fires, natural gas fires, and any type of fire you can think of that may occur in their area. Plus whenever needed they volunteer to help the neighboring fire departments in this and other area counties.

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As mentioned earlier the rural residents must have a burn permit before they can do any burning. There is no charge for this permit and it is good for the year it is given. The firechief issues these permits and then calls it in to Central Dispatch. The reason for the permits is to keep track on what is a controlled burn and what could be another fire that needs the RFD to respond to. Now when someone may be burning off a field or burning something else and dispatch receives a about a fire, it can be determined if this is a controlled burn. Before anyone can burn they call must call Central Dispatch to give the burn location, type of burn, their name, permit number, and how long they expect to burn to last.

THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF ALL THE VOLUNTEER RFD MEMBERS

• Kenny Griffith........................................Fire Chief
• Alan David................................................Assist Chief
• William McKnight...................................Firefighter
• Cary Amos.................................................Firefighter
• Rich Miller................................................Firefighter
• Chris Bauman...........................................Firefighter
• Justin Bentzinger..................................Firefighter
• Leslie Knitig.............................................Firefighter
• Jason Showalter....................................Firefighter
• Loren Sheldon.........................................Firefighter

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