Meggan Monday: Volunteer Firefighters getting the job done in their communities

This week on Meggan Monday, Meggan talks to South Central Fire District Chief Thomas Muffler of Stone County to talk about the contributions of volunteer firefighters in our local communities.

This week, we want to tell you about the people who are making huge contributions to their communities as volunteer firefighters across the Coast and one man in particular. Let’s meet South Central Fire District Chief Thomas Muffler of Stone County, who is a founding member of the McHenry Volunteer Fire Department and has served over 35 years. “I guess you can tell it back to my upbringing. My dad always said, you know, if somebody needs help you help them regardless.”

“Along with family, fire department, and MDOT I stay pretty busy. You’re in the middle of a birthday party in somebody’s house catches on fire. You know, my family kind of has learned to understand that, you know, if I leave out at the birthday party, I’m going to do something very important.”

“That, you know, I can’t do this by myself. I have to rely on other team members to help. This is a team effort. It’s a family. You know, we just recently lost one of our members around Christmas and it kind of reaffirmed the brotherhood sisterhood that we have.”

“It’s hard all-over United States. It’s not just here. It’s everywhere. They’re hurting for volunteers. Most days most husband and wife have to both have a job to make ends meet to support the family. So, it makes it harder for somebody to give up that time to volunteer.”

“Aspect of volunteer versus having a career department where when you call 911, somebody’s going to show up with the volunteer aspect of it. It all depends on the time of day, the time a week, whether people are at work. We don’t sit at the station. We either have a radio or pager that we carry. We also have an app on our phone. Once you get on scene, you don’t really know how many coming until everybody gets there. You know, it looks like he’s going to be short on manpower, then we have to do another tone and get another department to come in and help us. ”

“Structure fires, especially around holidays, we’ve had a couple here recently just around the holidays that you get out there and you’re looking at this family just lost everything including their Christmas presents, and they have nothing to go to. It makes you feel good that you were able to be there to give them some comfort.”

“So, we try to help educate in reach out to the community as much as we can to involve them. There are driving trucks, there’s pump into trucks. There’s actual firefighting. There’s the medical side of it, helping there’s you know, working wrecks, helping with traffic. Then there’s on the fundraising side of it. There’s a job for anybody and everybody.”

Being a volunteer fire fighter is not easy, but their services are important to the safety of the communities they serve.