By Matthew Waller
San Angelo Standard-Times
SAN ANGELO, Texas — About this time last year, the firefighters of the Wall Volunteer Fire Department had come o! the heels of the hottest fire season many of them had ever known.
They had spent 12-hour shifts, working sometimes late at night, making controlled burns to contain the vicious April Wildcat fire that eventually consumedabout 159,000acres, and in the day, they fought to save buildings fromthe flames.
“We were facing conditions we had never dealt with before,” Wall VFD Fire Chief Dean Dixon said.
Tuesday the county received an unexpected sum, about $50,000 in reimbursements for fires betweenApril and August 2011, excluding the Wildcat Fire. FEMA had originally given about 75 percent of the total expenses incurred fighting those fires, and the newfundswere 75 percent of the 25 percent that wasn’t reimbursed, Tom Green County Auditor Nathan Cradduck said. “It was not expected,” Cradduck said. “It was just some funding they had available and are sending to us.”
Jacqueline Chandler, a spokeswoman for FEMA, said, “Funding was sent to the county for what is called donated resources.”
T he donated resources took the form of help that volunteer fire departments provided.
The groups that received funding included the Dove Creek, East Concho, Christoval, and Wall volunteer fire departments; Tom Green County; and the Tom Green County Road and Bridge Departments.
Dixon heard the news the Wall crew would be receiving more than $4,800 and was exuberant.
“That’s wonderful!” he exclaimed.
The funding would help reimburse the department for money spent on water pumps on the trucks, and new tires that have already been purchased.
The Wall VFD didn’t just work in Tom Green County, either, but banded with others to put out blazes in Irion, Concho, Menard and Mitchell counties, Dixon said.
“We had so many fires and resources,” Dixon said. “We were stretched so thin.”
The Wildcat Fire moneys are pending, Cradduck said. They were dropped by FEMA to work on the fires in Colorado, but they’ve been picked up again.
“They are back on it this week,” Cradduck told county commissioners. “I’m hopeful that something will come soon, but I don’t have a specific time line.”
Project worksheets related to the Wildcat Fire should be completed next week by FEMA and sent back to Tom Green County for signatures, Chandler said.
The county became the point person for the reimbursement request, which is being handled as a Fire Management Assistance Grant.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Floyd cast his vote by saying “aye, reluctantly.”
He has been disappointed in FEMA taking about a year to bring funds, and because of a separate FEMA debacle where the emergency agency declared some areas of the county to be in a floodplain when other information indicates they are not, essentially requiring some people to purchase flood insurance unnecessarily, he said.
“I’m not going to return the money, but it feels we’re accepting money from an agency that hasn’t been receptive in certain levels to the needs of Tom Green County,” Floyd said.
Meanwhile, the Wall VFD continues to raise its own support. Dixon said the community is generous.
“We have a pancake supper we do during March,” Dixon said. And during the Wildcat Fire, “the people were great. They were wonderful. We would come back from fires and find stacks of bottled water and snacks and ChapSticks.”
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