Recent fires in Loudon County have kept local departments, including the Tellico Village Volunteer Fire Department, on their toes.
“Certainly, like normal, we’re going to be over 500 calls this year again, which we’ve done every year for the past six years,” Don Skalecki, Tellico Village VFD fire chief, said. “Fire calls have picked up. Also, auto accidents have picked up in the number.
“Fortunately, auto accidents we’ve had nobody die in any of the accidents,” he added. “They’ve all been minor injuries, some not even taken to the hospital. Fire calls are picking up in number. False alarms for smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors seem to be on the rise, and now wildland or brush fires.”
The department responded to three fire calls Nov. 28, including a large fire off Highway 72 in Loudon.
“We’ve got a 15,000-gallon tank on our fire engine and we went through three tanks of water just in the process of extinguishing it,” Skalecki said. “That’s not including what all the other county trucks did also.
“We were on standby for calls up to the Gatlinburg area, but fortunately we in this department didn’t have to send anyone,” he added. “The county did — with the other five fire departments — send 14 people up there to respond.”
The department also responded to two Tellico Village brush fires in recent weeks, Rick Papke, deputy chief, said.
With recent rain helping combat some of the fire hazard caused by drought conditions, Skalecki said it’s important to remain cautious, noting that Loudon County is still under a burn ban.
“We recommend to people if they have a structured fire pit or a fireplace or anything of that nature outside, make sure that someone is always watching it,” he said. “Make sure before going that it’s extinguished because those burning embers will stay for several hours after people think that the fire is out. We recommend that it be in a contained unit. … That’s the thing people don’t realize when they dig a pit in the ground and throw a bunch of logs on it and stuff — all those burning embers that fly off can go a mile or two sometimes even in high winds and start a fire quite a distance away.”
As the first day of winter draws near, it’s also important to be mindful of seasonal hazards, he said.
While many winter home fires revolve around Christmas decorations — specifically candles and fresh cut Christmas trees — Skalecki said that hasn’t been a big factor in Tellico Village.
“Most of the people here in the Village either have the fake trees or many of them don’t put them up at all,” he said. “They’re going down to Florida or back home to visit relatives and friends. So we haven’t had any of those fortunately. In the ... Village many of the homes, or, in fact, all of them have smoke detectors. That will be the saving grace for people.”
Winter conditions still bring plenty of hazards that can increase call volume for the department. With snow and icy conditions likely on the way in the coming months, Skalecki said it’s important to stay inside during inclement weather when possible.
“We tell the people to stay inside and make sure, because several years ago we had a snow and ice, and we had five calls one right after another because people started going out to get their newspaper out of the box,” he said. “… So we had broken legs, broken hips and arms, things of that nature. So we advise the people to stay inside if you are not mobile enough to get around.”
During more severe winter storms, the department will stay active, responding when needed to service road conditions in assistance of the Tennessee Department of Transportation, as well as fire and medical calls.
“Two years ago, of course, when we had that freak ice storm that came through, we got a call from the 911 center and they asked us to go out and there were a few trees out on the roadway on (Highway) 444,” Skalecki said. “Well, we cut those up and I thought it was going to be a simple 20-minute to half-an-hour job. We were out there from 7:30 until 12:30 that night cutting trees down ... in case there was an emergency that we could get an ambulance in here or if we needed assistance from mutual aid from Loudon County or Lenoir City from a fire engine that they could get down here safely and get in here.”
Welfare checks are also among the duties of the department during lengthy storms, with churches helping provide information on those who are stuck at home with limited mobility.
“All they have to do is dial 911 and we’ll dispatch people there to help assist them,” Skalecki said. “Sometimes it’s been that the power has been off in their house and they don’t have any way to cook or heat their home. So we have brought some people down to the fire station because we’ve got a generator here. So we’ve got coverage for ourselves with power in case things go out. So we’ve got heat and light here for them. Anything we need.
“Some of the cases where people are on nasal cannulas for breathers, we also will provide them assistance in bringing them down here and getting them some electricity so their apparatus can function correction,” he added. “We’ve on occasion loaned out oxygen bottles to them for short-term durations.”
The department is made up of 32 volunteer firefighters, all with at least emergency medical responder training.
“About 90 percent of the people who have come to the department have never done fire or (emergency medical services) skills in their lifetime,” Skalecki said. “They’ve had all different types of careers but they want to now give back to the community because they didn’t have time when they were working.”
Each volunteer is provided with a medical bag to keep medical response time around four minutes, which is about eight minutes below the national average, Papke said, and about 80-85 percent of the calls the Village department receives are medical calls.
Priority Ambulance also responds to each call, but Papke said the time between the arrival of Tellico Village responders and the ambulance can make a big impact.
“With heart attacks, time means muscle,” Papke said. “The longer time that occurs when we don’t take action to more muscle damage in the heart. And time means brain cells with strokes. The more time the more brain cells lost due to lack of oxygen. So the quicker we can get there the more lives we can save.”
Each member of the department is on call at all times, including holidays.
“We ask everybody to be on standby because again, a lot of our members leave to go on vacation, traveling, things of that nature,” Skalecki said. “So we ask them to please pay attention when the tones go off. Respond to calls so we know we have sufficient number of people, whether it be a medical call. Our protocol indicates whether it’s a fire call or an auto accident everybody within the Village that’s in the fire department needs to respond because you never know what you’re going to run into.”
