VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS DESERVE THANKS, PRAISE

How would you like to be called out at 2 o'clock in the morning on a cold, winter night, spend the next three or four hours fighting a raging fire sometimes under life-or-death situations, and arrive back home just in time to clean up and go to your real job for eight hours?

Such is the life of volunteer firefighters, a dedicated group of individuals who make up 85 percent of the firefighting forces across the United States. Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois depend largely on volunteer fire departments.

Not only are these firefighters unpaid, most spend hundreds and some even thousands of dollars of their own money to carry out their firefighting duties.

Equipment like a blue light and siren for their personal vehicles in which they get to and from fires or the firehouse can cost $500, and a mobile radio system runs between $1,200 and $1,500.

In addition there is the cost of firefighter training, both in terms of time and expense. Missouri has minimal standards: Twenty-four hours of training with an air tank and efficient handling of hazardous materials. But most fire departments have their own standards, and most exceed the state's requirements. Firefighters in Oran, for instance, must complete 176 hour of classroom training within their first two years. Along with homework and field training, that amounts to more than 300 hours, and firefighters bear most if not all of those costs.

Most volunteer departments operate on a minimum of revenue and depend on used vehicles. To find those vehicles, firefighters sometimes must travel halfway across the country. Again, that is at their expense.

And there is the time they spend fighting fires -- all types of fires in all types of weather. The work is dirty and dangerous. Firefighters are injured and sometimes killed.

Cape Girardeau County is fortunate to have a system of rural fire departments staffed by dozens of such volunteers. Like their counterparts all across this country, they are dedicated to the task of spending their time and money to protect the property and lives of others, and they deserve special recognition.