Fall greetings to everyone on the mountain!  Gee, where did the summer go?

Aside from normal training, training and more training (Have I mentioned that we train every week?), we have been busy this fall with many other activities. October is Fire Prevention month, and we did not skip a beat in promoting fire safety in the area.

In September, we were the host department for the distribution of Little Debbies for other Hamilton County emergency service organizations. McKee Foods delivered boxes and boxes of the treats, and we lined them up in the bay for drive-through pickup. In the course of a couple of hours, other departments sent their staff to Station One to retrieve their items. This is all part of Fire Prevention Month. Departments take these treats to schools, daycares and other locations to promote fire safe practices for children all over the county.
Once they were all delivered, we also took our Little Debbies over to the Educare Daycare and Learning Center for a show-and-tell with the kids to teach them about fire safety. Aside from the usual stop, drop and roll and other basic practices, we will typically let them see a firetruck, sit in the engine and other fun stuff that the kids enjoy. We also put on a full set of turnout gear with masks and breathing apparatus to show kids what a firefighter looks like when in full working gear.

We do this to prevent fear should something occur in their homes. Imagine you are 6 or 7 years old and you are trapped in a smoky room during a fire when, out of the smoke, this “monster” appears in a heavy coat and pants, face mask and helmet and is breathing loudly through a breathing apparatus. If this ever occurs, we want children to understand that this is a person who is there to save them and not a monster coming through the smoke to hurt them. Hopefully, through everyone’s fire prevention efforts, we won’t ever have to do that but it is always good to be prepared.

We are entering that time of year when we “fall back” and change our clocks. As you change the time on your clocks, this is also a good time to test the batteries in your smoke detectors. Smoke detectors do save lives but only if the batteries are in good working order. Please remember to check your batteries twice a year, and the spring and fall time change is a good reminder to go ahead and check. If you are unable to perform this yourself in your home for some reason, please give us a call at Station One and leave a request that you would like some help, and we will schedule someone to pay you a visit and check/change your batteries for you.

This is also the time of year you should consider having your fireplace or wood stove checked and cleaned as we prepare for winter. One of the leading causes of house fires we experience on the mountain is the chimney fire. A chimney fire can belch sparks onto your roof and cause a fire from above. Actually, we have seen chimney fires get so hot the house framing around the flue actually catches on fire and starts a fire inside a wall. These hidden fires in the wall can be very dangerous. Also, if you use smaller heaters in your home, please remember to keep them a safe distance from furniture, drapery and other items that could catch on fire.

As always, if you are going to be burning brush this fall, please obtain a burn permit and give us a courtesy call at (423) 886-5974 and leave a message of the address where you will be burning. We do get 911 dispatches from people who see smoke or fire in the distance and call for an emergency.

If you would like to keep up with WRES, please like our Facebook page, where you can also message us directly with any comments, questions or requests. However, if you have an emergency, or even think you may be having an emergency, always, always call 911 for immediate assistance and the fastest response.

by Jay Heavilon

Fall greetings to everyone on the mountain. Glad to have some cooler temperatures and looking forward to the fall colors. With the recent surge of the delta variant of COVID-19, we are being very careful but still running calls as usual. October, in case you did not know, is National Fire Prevention Month and the start of open burning in Hamilton County, so we have some tips, suggestions and requests.

With the cooler temperatures, it is time to think about fire prevention for this winter. If you have a word burning stove or fireplace, you may want to consider cleaning the flue and the firebox of any built-up soot. Most of the residential fire calls we get during the winter are for chimney fires. If the soot build-up in your chimney does catch fire, it can spill out onto the roof and catch the entire house on fire. This can be easily prevented.

As of October 1, open burning is now allowed in the county. However, there are required conditions as to what you are allowed to burn, how much and at what times of day. Contact the Air Pollution Control Board to obtain your burn permit and find and find all the details. A county burn permit is only $10. We also request that should you plan to burn, please give us a courtesy call and let us know.   

We often times will get calls from motorists who see flames or smoke and call in an unknown fire, which we appreciate. However, if we show up and you have a burn permit and are burning allowed materials during the day, then all is well. But that is the case only as long as it is an allowed burn day and you are monitoring your fire at all times. If we know ahead of time, when we get a suspected fire emergency and know you are already burning in the area, it greatly helps us with our response.

This is also a good time to check the batteries on your smoke detectors. It is recommended that you change your smoke detector batteries twice a year. National statistics from the National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA) are quite surprising. For instance, less than 50 percent of U.S. homeowners have an escape plan if there is a fire in their home, 60 percent do not check their smoke detectors monthly, and the No. 1 national cause of home fires is unattended cooking.

We know that most of these are preventable. We also know that there are those of you on the mountain who may have trouble testing your smoke detectors or changing your batteries. If you need assistance with this, please call WRES at Station One and let us know you need some help.

We still look forward to showing off our Station One when the time is appropriate. Until that time, feel free to contact WRES by leaving a message at Station One by calling (423) 886-5974. Or you can go to our Facebook page at Waldens Ridge Emergency Service and message us directly.  However, if you have an emergency, or even think you may be having an emergency, always, always call 911 for immediate assistance and the fastest response.
​
by Jay Heavilon

Welcome to September on the mountain! Hope everyone survived the dog days of summer. For WRES, we have had the challenge of staying hydrated while running calls. Oh, yes, and keeping the new landscape watered at Station One! These are some of the joys of having a new station and getting used to new maintenance processes for this facility.

We have had a long, slow transition into the new station as the world is still weird, and nothing is normal. However, as with much of life, the only constant seems to be change, and at WRES, we are no exception. We continue to just work with what we have and keep the big wheels rolling on the trucks as we get emergency calls.

New for us is that we now have apartments housing full time residents at Station One. While exciting, this also creates the need for defined procedures and protocols, as well as an opportunity to better serve the community. However, these are still volunteers who work full time jobs elsewhere so they are not always instantly available. And we have had to deal with certain growing pains such as  “who ate my salad I had saved in the refrigerator?”    

We are also in the process of reorganizing our command structure. This means that we have some new officers who are filling the positions of those who have been filling that demand for a long time.

In this regard, we would like to give a big thank you and a tip of the hat to long time officers Gary Sivley and Jeff Nix. Gary and Jeff represent almost 40 years of combined service and have filled officer positions for a number of years. We greatly acknowledge their long-term contributions and commitment to WRES and thank them sincerely for all the dedication and hard work over the years.

We now have the opportunity to congratulate new officers who will step up and fill these shoes.   Jimmy Hillis remains our chief and Jim Gault remains our deputy chief. These two spend countless hours leading the organization, and we sincerely appreciate their experience and dedication, especially regarding getting the new station built and working with Hamilton County, the architect, builders and contractors.

Filling out the newly organized officer roles are Randall Hawkins, assistant chief; Jody Clift, captain responsible for training; David Atkinson, lieutenant; Sherman Ford, captain of Station 1; Jason Lockery, captain of Station 2; Sam Guin, lieutenant of Station 1; and Robert Clark, lieutenant of Station 1. Congratulations to all these volunteers on their assignments.  If you know any of these folks, be sure and tell them you appreciate their efforts in donating their time.

We are still looking forward to an open house and being able to invite everyone to drop by and see the new place. There was a tentative plan to do this in October, but with the recent events regarding COVID-19, we are reconsidering that date. It is killing us that we are not able to share this new place with the general public, but we will make it happen, sooner or later! In the meantime, if you have questions or would like to be added to our group of volunteers (we can always use some help), feel free to message us on Facebook or call Station One at (423) 886-5974 and leave a message, and we will certainly be in touch. BUT, as always, if you are having an emergency, or even think you may be having an emergency, always call 9 1 1 for the fastest response.

by Jay Heavilon

We at WRES are settling into our new Station One on Taft Highway and are so grateful to Hamilton County for this facility. Designed to last for 50 years, our operations and safety have been greatly enhanced. Can you remember when we only had five bays for six vehicles? We now effectively have eight bays and can work on truck maintenance inside the facility. With social distancing protocols easing up, plans are now in the works for a fall open house, and we very much look forward to inviting everyone on the mountain to come and tour this fine facility.

As we have said in the past, communications are key to any emergency operation. Not only between our agency and the 911 communications center, but it is also important for Hamilton County in general. As we all have mutual aid agreements, we often assist each other for larger calls or specialty calls. This is true for all of the volunteer agencies in the county, as well as Hamilton County Emergency Services and many paid departments. For instance, it is not uncommon for WRES to operate in unison with the Town of Signal Mountain’s fire department and the City of Red Bank’s fire department.

Hamilton County has upgraded the entire county emergency communication system, and everyone in the county benefits from this upgrade. We changed over to the new system earlier in July. For the emergency service, this involves the radio in every vehicle we operate, including the handheld radios that are issued to every operations member and also the pagers that some carry to receive notifications from the 911 center. As we are all volunteers, and since we work different jobs and have different family lives, this can be a large task. We basically have to change out every radio on the same day! Rest assured, we are updated and ready for whatever comes our way.

Overall, the emergency communication in Hamilton County works very well. With that said, because we are on a mountain, we do have areas of radio silence due to the hills and trees that interfere with radio signals; we have actually resorted to making a cell phone call to the 911 communications center, which also works. Hopefully this new system will minimize that issue.

Just know that your one 911 call results in a flurry of activity on your behalf. We know that once you make this call, a wait of five minutes can seem like an eternity, and you may have the feeling that nothing is happening. However, know that once you do make this call, the 911 communications center and WRES are in constant contact until the incident is considered complete.    

We are still accepting applications for new members at WRES. So, as always, if you have questions or would like any general information, please call our Station One at (423) 886-5974 and leave us a message. You may also find us on Facebook and send us a direct message there. However, if you have an emergency, or even think you may need some assistance, always call 911 for immediate assistance.

by Jay Heavilon

Those of you who read this report every month are likely well versed in reading about the training and the hall duties and the need for donations and all the other the other meanderings that we report on a monthly basis. In this report, let’s wander down the path of being a volunteer and what that really means. Let’s start with the demographics of the department.
​
The WRES volunteers are a group of 45 active, random citizens who live on Signal Mountain. We come together from all walks of life. We are men and women who range in ages from 18 years old to over 70 years old. And while we all spend a fair amount of time every month on various activities associated with the emergency service, we all have real jobs in order to pay our bills and feed our families and so forth.

Now that you have a general idea of the membership, let’s take a look at what a random month of calls looks like for all involved. Each of us has a pager or an app on our phones that can go off at any moment - day or night - and we have no idea when that might happen or what the incident may involve yet, everyone is generally ready.

Here is what the month of May looks like from a member’s point of view.

May 02, 5:40 p.m. We receive notification of a fall victim incident. This can mean anything from a fall off a ladder while cleaning gutters to a fall off the bluff at Edward’s Point that would require us to slog off through Prentice Cooper State Forest with a team and equipment. In the latter case, there is no street address associated with the call - only GPS coordinates so, this is probably going to be something more difficult.
May 03, 3:39 a.m.  We receive notification of a motorcycle accident on Taft Highway. As this is a single male and only one vehicle (the motorcycle) involved, we know it is likely a medical incident with a small fuel spill. The 911dispatch center confirms fire response is needed so up and out and off we go to see what needs to be done.

May 04, 7:20 p.m. A call goes out about a tree near Boston Branch that has fallen across the road and has power lines entangled in the tree. You may be at home wondering why is the power out.   We get a crew and a truck on the road ready with chain saws to meet the EPB crew on the road.  Once they insure the power is out on the downed lines, we can proceed to cut the tree and clear the road so they can then restore the power.  It does not matter that it is pouring rain and we are just sitting down to dinner - someone responds.

May 09, 2:53 p.m. It has been quiet for five days when we receive notice that a hiker has been separated from his or her group in Prentice Cooper State Forest and is now lost. Oh, by the way, this is an 8-year-old diabetic with a black jacket and red Adidas. Now, Prentice Cooper is a large area, and we have to go find a small child somewhere in the woods on one of the many trails that crisscross the area. Many of our volunteers leave work and head for the woods.

May 11, 2:06 p.m. A residential fire alarm goes off with a report of carbon monoxide build-up in the home. Off we go with a rescue truck, oxygen and a gas meter. We use the gas meter to read the content of the air in the house, and it will tell us if the breathable air in the house is dangerous or if it is safe to enter the house. Well, we discover that the alarm sensor is faulty and there is nothing wrong in the house; the homeowners simply need to get their alarm system fixed. Yes, this gets reported as a false alarm, but we do not know that until after we arrive.

May 11, 7:07 p.m. There is a motor vehicle accident with injuries on the W Road. We are notified en route that a car has flipped over near the top of the road.  In this case, we have to send a full fire truck as there may be gas or fluids leaking that could catch on fire, as well as a rescue truck that is loaded with special equipment used to stabilize an unstable vehicle and to possibly remove people from a vehicle in order to get them into an ambulance for medical care.  And yeah, the responders are just sitting down to dinner … again.
We only provided details on six of the 65 calls that were reported to WRES for the month of May.    In looking through the rest of the calls, the pattern continues with a kitchen smoke detector going off, a truck rolled over on the W Road, an elderly person who fell in the house and just needs help getting up, a medical emergency with difficulty breathing, and so on.

This may sound like a lot to the average person, but to the average volunteer at WRES, this is just a typical month. As a volunteer, the worst thing that can happen to you is that you are with your family at Hamilton Place Mall and you get a notice of an emergency and know that you are well over 30 minutes away and likely are not able to help! To avoid this, we keep in touch regularly and try to notify each other when we will be off the mountain. We also strive to always have a crew on the mountain ready to go should anything happen.   

Given the type and amount of training it takes to always have volunteers at the ready, it is very important that we get new volunteers on a regular basis. Does every volunteer run every call every day of every month? Absolutely not. One cannot have a life and be available at every moment to assist, but with enough trained volunteers, we can always have someone at the ready when the call goes out for help.   

If any of you reading this column would be interested in becoming a part of this exclusive club of trained volunteers, we need you. Please contact us or drop by Station One on Thursday night, meet the team and submit your application. There are times when we can just use volunteers to hand out bottles of water on a working fire scene, work with us to submit reports monthly or just open up the fire hall and be a greeter for some community meeting that is being held at the Station. There are plenty of monthly tasks that can be done by any resident of the mountain, regardless of age or ability.  We can always find something that needs to be done!

Feel free to reach out to us through our Facebook page or call Station One directly at (423) 886-5974 and leave a message. But if you are having an emergency - or even think you may be having an emergency - always call 911 for immediate assistance.

by Jay Heavilon

Yes, we are all about our new Station One on Taft Highway and are glad to serve as a voting site and host the local high school prom, but we are still an emergency service. We are also still running and receiving all manner of calls. Here is the rundown of the type of calls we have run recently:
​
May 03 - We get a call for chest pains on Suck Creek Road. Yes, Suck Creek Road and all the area along the river is our primary response district. As this is not part of any incorporated city, we are the closest county agency and cover all this area.

May 04 - We receive a call about a general alarm on Key-Hulse Road. The Signal Mountain Christian School had a general alarm go out to the 911 Center. In these cases, we always have to respond until we find out exactly what the emergency might be. It could be a carbon monoxide alarm, a fire or anything else that would set off an emergency alarm. We receive many emergency calls to unattended buildings with alarm systems, and we immediately respond to all of them while the 911 Center tries to contact a person named on the alarm contract. Sometimes we are cancelled en route, and other times no reporting party can be contacted, and we have to arrive on site ready to handle anything we encounter.

May 04 - Later that same day, we get a call about wires down on East Brow Road, which means there is a hot electric wire on or near the ground. Apparently, a wire was hanging low and the reporting party stated he saw a bus hit the wire and the wire hit the road. Aside from the obvious danger to anyone walking or driving on the road, many times we have seen a hot wire start a fire.   We have to respond to secure the area but also have an engine and firefighters ready in the event that the grass or a tree of a fence catches fire because of the downed wire.

May 04 - Later that same day, we get a report of a tree blocking a road. On Ivory Avenue, a person reports seeing a tree fall and states that it is blocking the entire road. Yes, this is an emergency that we also take seriously. Keeping the roads open for emergency services is very much a priority for our district. Mostly due to the medical emergencies we encounter, we need to keep the roads open for any ambulance traffic that may be required in our district. Since medical calls tend to be about one half of the calls we receive, getting a truck and a crew and a chainsaw to the scene to clear the road are part of our job as emergency responders.

May 05 -  At 8 a.m. we get a call about a medical emergency on East Brow Road.  In the case of serious medical calls, we are notified the same time as the Hamilton County ambulance service.   Typically, we are able to arrive first, as we are in the immediate area, and can provide immediate basic life support. When an ambulance arrives, we can then notify EMS personnel of the signs and symptoms and assist with the patient and getting him or her into the ambulance for transport.

The above calls are just a few of the many calls we get every month. Now, don’t get the impression that we run this many calls in a short period of days. Our role as emergency service providers is not this predictable. While we do average over 300 calls a year, the calls tend to come at us at different times on different days. Mostly feast or famine, we typically get a lot of calls in a few days and then go for quite a few days without any calls. We just never know, but we are always ready for whatever comes our way because that is just what we do.

As always, if you have questions or comments, or would like to become a member of WRES, we encourage you to contact us at any time. Call us at (423) 886-5974 and leave a message or send us a message on our Facebook page and we will get back to you. However, if you have an emergency or even think you may need some assistance, always call 911 for immediate assistance.

by Jay Heavilon

We have now been in our new Station One on Taft Highway for one year and still are unable to host an open house! This is very disconcerting to the members of WRES, as we are very proud of our facility and want to thank the county and the community for your support. So, while we are still in this pandemic, we thought it might be interesting to share details of the station until we can proudly walk the community through the entire station in person.
​
Not only is this a fire station for WRES, but the building is also designed as a community center. Before we were locked down, we hosted the Signal Mountain Lions Club and served as a polling place for voting in recent elections. The front of the station is designed to have a public entrance that allows for public access to a large meeting room and bathrooms. This entrance and area of the station is completely separate from the operations area of the station. We look forward to the community being able to use this space for public meetings.

Another interesting area of the station is the decontamination area. When we return from a call, if we have encountered hazardous substances or a highly infectious area, we can decontaminate without spreading the substance throughout the entire station and spreading contamination everywhere. There is a completely separate entrance into the “decon” room, where members can remove clothing and place it directly into washers for cleaning. There also are sinks and showers for cleaning ourselves. This can all be done before entering the rest of the building so that only “clean” people and items enter the station.

But what about the heat and air conditioning circulating any contamination? This was also planned in advanced by station design. The decon room has a positive pressure system that prevents any air from the decon room from being spread to the rest of the station. When the outside door is opened to the decon room, positive pressure forces the air out the door and not into the rest of the station. The same is true when you open the interior door from the decon room into the hallway.  Positive pressure inside the station forces the air into the decon room, not allowing it to escape into the hallway and potentially contaminate the rest of the building. All in all, pretty advanced stuff!

Yes, we are still excited about the new station as we are starting to hit our stride here. But what we are not excited about is all the reporting that has to be done. Like any other task in life, nothing is completed until the paperwork is done. While running an emergency call can be exciting, having to complete the report after the incident is never anyone’s favorite task. It is necessary and important, however, and actually assists us in obtaining grants and other outside funding to keep our operations going.

For example, according to our recent reporting, in January we ran a total of 32 calls. Yes, these are actual 911 calls that are dispatched to WRES from the 911 center in Hamilton County. To give you an idea of the diversity of calls we get, know that of the 32 calls received, there are 17 separate incident types. Yes, 17 separate types of emergencies in just one month!

The incidents range from house fires and grass fires to false alarms. In between, there are motor vehicle accidents, emergency medical calls independent of fires or car crashes and some general service calls for a person in distress or in need of public service assistance. There are also mutual aid calls, which may be as simple as being on standby to cover another district while it is busy with another call. We get this a lot and very much appreciate our association with the Town of Signal Mountain Fire department. If they are called to an emergency and everyone is busy, then we get notified to be on standby so that if they happen to get another emergency call and no one is available, then WRES stands ready to answer the call.  This works for WRES also, as Signal Mountain Fire Department will be on standby and ready to respond in our district should we be dispatched to a call and have most everyone tied up somewhere else on the mountain. 
 
If you have questions or comments, or would like to become a member of WRES, we encourage you to contact us at any time. To contact WRES, stop by Station One on Taft Highway next to Ace Hardware any Thursday night at 7 p.m. when we conduct our weekly training or call the station at (423) 886-5974 and leave us a message. We are also social media active on Facebook and you can like our page and message us on Facebook – look for Waldens Ridge Emergency Service. However, if you have an emergency - or even think you may need some assistance -  always call 911 for the fastest response.

by Jay Heavilon

As we embark on 2021, we are genuinely enthused to be the volunteers of WRES! We are very glad to have 2020 behind us and look forward to a much better year for all.

Once a year, our board of directors holds a banquet in December, and we recognize our volunteers for their best efforts for the year. As stated in our last column, we were not able to hold our banquet but were finally able to give out awards in January.   

While all of our volunteers are important and valuable, there are certain efforts on calls and around the station that merit a special call-out by the officers. In 2018, we lost one of our best leaders at WRES and created an award in his honor - the Sib Evans Leadership Award. Sib Evans’ presence can still be felt around the new station, and when you pass by on Taft Highway, notice a small granite bench next to the flag pole that is dedicated to Sib. The Sib Evan’s Leadership Award for 2020 recipient is Robert Clark.

The Rock of Gibraltar Award is given to the member you can always call at any time and know he or she is never too tired to too busy to help. Our Rock of Gibraltar for 2020 is Patrick Halstead. The Chief’s Award is for the member who stands out to the chief and deputy chief as having made an over-and-above contribution to the team at WRES. For 2020, Jaykob Hawkins is the recipient of the Chief’s Award. When we get new volunteers, there always seems to be one new member who quickly rises to the top and demonstrates value, promising a great future in the department. Our Rookie of the Year for 2020 is Omar Morales.

However, the most prestigious award we give is not one that is decided by the leadership at WRES.  Every member has an opportunity to vote on who they think is the Volunteer of the Year. To be recognized by your fellow brothers and sisters in the department as the Volunteer of the Year is the highest recognition one can receive as a member of the emergency service. Our 2020 Volunteer of the Year award goes to Patrick Stoker. If you know of any of these mountain residents, please congratulate them on their awards and thank them for their service and dedication to the community.

The year 2020 ended with a bang for WRES. The upper part of Roberts Mill Road is in our district, and the lower part of Roberts Mill is the responsibility of Dallas Bay Volunteer Fire Department. On the evening of December 31, we were called to the scene of an accident on Roberts Mill Road by Dallas Bay. A dump truck left the road and fell down the side of the embankment, and a ropes team was needed to help rescuers reach the vehicle. We were on the scene, along with Mowbray Volunteer Fire Department and Hamilton County EMS. This type of mutual aid call is very common to WRES, and just as much as we appreciate our neighboring departments and the assistance they provide to us, we are also very glad to answer a call for help and assist them as needed.

While the weather is bouncing around between warm and sunny and cold and dreary, we are seeing lots of people out in Prentiss Cooper State Forest enjoying the park. Please remember to take a fully charged phone with you when you go out into the woods and have some snacks and water with you, also. The phone will help us locate you if you get lost and a small snack and some water will keep you hydrated as you enjoy the outdoors.

COVID-19 is still an issue for us, and we look forward to this virus disappearing. Many of our members, as first responders, were offered the first round of vaccines in December, and many have received their follow-up shot. This is good, since, despite all of our efforts to keep ourselves safe during emergency calls, it is not always practical. Numerous WRES members have had to quarantine after an exposure, and we are glad to say we have not lost any members to the illness. But we still have to recognize COVID-19 is an additional threat to the safety of our volunteers as they respond to any emergency that comes our way on the mountain.

If you would like to consider being a volunteer at WRES, please reach out to us. There are more ways you can help besides running into a burning building with a firehose. You can always contact us at our Station One phone number at (423) 886-5974 and leave a message, or direct message us on our Facebook page at Waldens Ridge Emergency Service. However, if you have an emergency - or even think you may need some help - do not hesitate to call 911 for immediate assistance and the fastest response.  Have a safe and happy 2021.

by Jay Heavilon