Hunting means area fire departments strained

TOWN OF BUCHANAN - Fire crews say battling a fire is never easy, especially when it's hard to assemble enough firefighters at the scene.

"You know it's always difficult to know who is going to be around when we get an alarm,” said Chief Kevin Kloehn, Town of Harrison Fire Department.

Crews from the Town of Buchanan, Town of Harrison and villages of Combined Locks and Kimberly battled a house fire on Snowberry Drive in the Town of Buchanan Tuesday night. But it's something fire chiefs of volunteer departments say they plan for.

"The fire chiefs here in the heart of the valley all talk to each other on a regular basis and we all know the situation that we face with deer hunting and limited staffing, so this is all put into place before deer hunting starts for the entire week,” said Chief Rick Schroeder, Town of Buchanan Fire Department.

The Town of Harrison responded to the call with about 20 firefighters when normally they would send about 30. And soon after they arrived some of them were sent to a car crash.

In this instance enough firefighters responded to quickly contain the fire and rescue a driver who crashed into an electrical pole. It is part of the reason volunteer departments have mutual aid agreements to help cover each other in time of need.

"We do have automatic aid with the Town of Buchanan, so if we get something big or we don't think we'll have enough staff, they'll be coming immediately,” said Kloehn.

And just like this fire, so will many others.    

The cause of that house fire is still under investigation.
    
Firefighters say no one was in the home when they arrived and no one was hurt.