By WILLIS WEBB

FIREFIGHTERS are heroic figures in the eyes of most people. And well they should be.

Fire tops my list of scariest ways to die. An incident at age six initiated that ranking. Left to watch my toddler brother while our mother gathered garden vegetables for the day’s meals, the tyke dropped a celluloid rattle onto the fireplace hearth and I grabbed it just as it bounced within an inch of the fire. It immediately flamed up and melted over my left hand leaving a scarred thumb that’s noticeable 65 years later. The memory of that pain underscores my appreciation of firefighters.

Over the years, my admiration for these folks developed and grew despite some misconceptions and misinformation.

As a newsman, I never doubted their community necessity or their devotion to duty. Some skeptics poked fun at the volunteer firefighters for an attitude they perceived as discriminatory and elitist.

IN ROSENBERG in the early 1960s, those firefighters were very protective of membership in the department. They voted on all applications. The unappreciative skeptics (probably rejected applicants) labeled the department a “blue collar country club.” Part of that attitude, they said, stemmed from the fact that the fire station had substantial second-floor space devoted to rest and relaxation for the volunteer firefighters. There was a (gasp!) pool table and, it was rumored, a refrigerator filled with beer.

These self-anointed skeptics/critics also made fun of a competition in which volunteer fire departments of that day engaged — pumper team races.

No, they didn’t use the pumper trucks in drag races. It was a contest of speed and skill in hooking up to a fire hydrant while simultaneously stringing hose to a designated length, then getting a full-force stream of water.

THERE WERE separate competitions for men and women. Yeah, I know, but remember this was the early 1960s.

Teams would begin, standing on platforms around the back of the pumper truck. A starter pistol was fired and, as the team jumped into action, a stopwatch began. One team segment took a connector hose from the truck to the hydrant, while one team member took the front end of a regular hose and began running away from the rear of the truck. Yet another team member was connecting the hose to the outlet side of the pumper and, if all was perfectly on cue, as the racing member on the business end reached the full length of the hose, he/she stopped and pointed it just as the stream of water began.

If memory serves, the Rosenberg men’s team held the state and world record in that event for a long time, and the women’s team held the state record. The men were asked to go to Seattle to the World’s Fair and demonstrate the pumper team race.

Skeptics were wrong about the races and about the “attitude” of the VFD. The pumper races were great training for getting gear hooked and activated quickly to fight fires.

Through the years, my nomadic newsman path brought observation of many volunteer firefighting groups, but none outshone the Jasper VFD on the last stop before retirement. In the time there, we learned the Jasper group was recognized as the premier department in at least four counties. If a major fire or disaster occurred within 35-40 miles of Jasper, other departments requested that crack unit’s aid.

A 17,000-acre forest fire threatened a neighboring town for days. Jasper firefighters battled the blaze with other volunteers and forest fire professionals, finally stymieing the fire just as it reached the city limits of Newton.

ONE DREARY Tuesday morning, the department battled a giant blaze that destroyed the historic First Baptist Church in Jasper. Firefighters spent most of the day getting the fire out and their pained faces for such a loss said more about their state than did the obvious physical exhaustion.

Perhaps the Jasper department’s proudest moments came in the 2003 space shuttle crash in neighboring Sabine County. One photo capsulized the total and magnificent effort of the Jasper VFD. The picture shows scores of volunteers walking into the effort and out front were the yellow slickers of a contingent of Jasper firefighters. They did indeed lead that several-week effort and their knowledge and devotion were key to the success of the overall task.

Viva, volunteer firefighters! May their numbers and their legend grow.

Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher. He can be reached by email at wwebb@wildblue.net.