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Struggle between tradition, necessity

By ASJYLYN LODER
Published December 11, 2006

HIGH POINT - The Stars and Stripes hang at half-staff outside the High Point Fire Department, in honor of a former chief and one of the founders of the 31-year-old volunteer force.

Jim Black died Dec. 1, 2006, at age 94. Well into his 80s and "stone deaf," Black still turned out for fires, his former comrades said.

Black, and others like him, hailed from the department's early days, when pragmatism and self-sufficiency meant more than the meddlesome welter of state and federal regulations.

For most of its three decades, aging volunteers ran their clubby department with little outside oversight, their firefighting strategy summed up in one matter-of-fact motto: "Put the wet on the red and go to bed."

That changed Labor Day weekend 2005. There's two sides to what happened that day, as 30-foot flames destroyed one of High Point's mobile homes. But in the aftermath, High Point abruptly faced nosy county officials and demanding state regulators, and the community found itself forced to professionalize a department that had long operated like an insular social club.

"In the last year and a half, we've come a long way from the old-timers that ran it before," said Rob Paul, 65, a tall, white-haired captain who joined the department the month after the controversial fire.

* * *

Volunteers built the High Point fire station in the summer of 1975, after losing two residents to fires, Assistant Chief Jim Pilipchuk said. Back then, the closest fire station was Brooksville, miles to the east.

The old firefighters from "up east" remained defensive and jealous of their turf as Hernando County's professional departments expanded around them, said Pilipchuk, 67, a stocky retiree from the Chicago suburbs with a white flattop and photochromic aviator glasses. His pronouncements carried a clipped, martial bluntness.

The old-timers brushed off the trained advice of newer members like Pilipchuk, preferring to fight fires the way they'd always done, with grandfatherly practicality and a casual regard for the rules.

The department had modern equipment - a 3,000-gallon tanker, electric heat sensors, a defibrillator. But before that 2005 fire, the department didn't have written rules for basic safety measures, like opening the station bay doors before starting the fire trucks to keep from overwhelming firefighters with exhaust.

Chief Wilfred Grenier, 71, stands about 5 feet 5 inches. His worried voice catches on a bit of a tremor. He joined the department in 2001 and has served as chief for the past two years.

"They say we're getting too old," Grenier said. "But if you're in good health, and you're doing what you want to do."

He shrugged.

"I could carry you."

* * *

On Saturday morning, a couple of dozen members of the department gathered in the chilly firehouse to go over the newly written rules.

In the corner of the firehouse stands a dusty, thickly lettered sign, written in all caps: "Stop Hernando County from taking over High Point's Fire Department."

Ladies Auxiliary "Fire Belles" filled the coffeepots, sliced a triple-layer chocolate bundt cake and laid out vanilla creme cookies.

"When did the Fire Department come up with 'Fasten your seat belts'?" asked a trainee sporting a white, tummy-length beard.

"You should always fasten your seat belts," answered the instructor, Lt. Guy Peeters. "Sometimes you get in these things, and it's hard to find the seat belts because they don't get used often."

Peeters, "of the Wisconsin Peeters," weathered the morning chill in a department T-shirt. He's one of 10 volunteers who have certification to enter the "hot zone."

A recent audit by the state Bureau of Fire Safety and Training lauded the new rules but also noted problems, including a need for more training - and more rules.

"We're way, way better than we were and probably better than other volunteer fire departments in the state," Peeters said. "But it's just that we're under the spotlight."

* * *

Pilipchuk tells his side of the holiday weekend fire like this: He radioed Hernando County Fire Rescue for help, but county firefighters had the radio channels tied up.

County firefighters tell a different story: They said the call for help never came. One angry county firefighter publicly told the volunteers to get a new hobby.

The firefighters found the owner of the mobile home dead. She had set the fire before shooting herself in the head.

After the fire, the Hernando County Commission asked the clerk of Circuit Court to review the High Point department's training records, asked the State Attorney's Office to look into accusations of mismanagement, and had state fire officials in town to inspect. The volunteers have resisted calls for a takeover, pointing to a resident survey that favored them 11 to 1 and claiming that they can respond in half of the time that it takes the county.

Despite the modernizing, the department still runs like a social club. Alongside their waist-high coils of fire hose, the firehouse stores dozens of stacking chairs, folding tables and a Christmas tree. The members wear their department windbreakers with the pride of varsity lettermen. Passing drivers slow down and wave; neighbors on their morning walks call out greetings. The department receives regular letters of thanks.

The Belles arranged a Christmas show by the Sweethearts of Branson. They recently held a fundraiser in which they gave the men a $10,000 donation. Every Christmas, the department decks fire trucks with lights and parades through the community.

For the time being, Hernando County Fire Rescue remains in charge of High Point's fires. The retirement community's residents might soon have to pay for that service. They pay a voluntary $45 annual fee to their volunteers now but so far have remained exempt from the county's annual $156 assessment.

"We couldn't survive," Grenier said, shaking his head, "because if the people are going to pay the county, they're not going to pay us."

Grenier is worried that if residents have to pay the county, High Point will go the way of volunteer departments before them, squeezed out by encroaching sprawl and the increasing pressure to modernize.

Asjylyn Loder can be reached at 352 754-6127 or aloder@sptimes.com.

[Last modified December 10, 2006, 23:16:07]