Brief History of the Millersville Rural Fire Protection District

Our first formational meeting was held January 4, 1977 in the Millersville Elementary School Gymnasium. The years have seen many changes. In the beginning, many said it could not be done without a city or town government to help fund rural fire fighting. Yet, it was done. Through the years we have worked at building three stations, raising funds through donations and projects, acquiring eight fire trucks, incorporation, elections, annexations, and purchasing the extra equipment for fire protection. Through all of this, three things have remained constant. We have striven to improve training for the District Volunteer Fire Fighters, striven to shorten our response times on fire calls, and have continued to enjoy the support of a generous community. The people of this district and the volunteers created a fire department, and its many years of service are a tribute to themselves and a model to others. From this example five other communities have created fire department in Cape Girardeau County until the entire county has fire protection today.

The Beginning

Cape Girardeau County Civil Defense closed its doors and ended rural fire service in the county. After a county wide tax support rural fire service failed, and fires in the area that neighbors fought without proper equipment several people began to talk about starting a fire department. In late December of 1976, the Millersville Elementary School was rented for a meeting and telephone calls were made to neighbors for a meeting to discuss starting a fire department.

The January 4, 1977 meeting at which more than forty concerned citizens attended and decided to form the Millersville Volunteer Fire Department. A temporary board of directors was elected. The were: Milton Mouser, Chairman; Gene Wills, Secretary; Gene Peterman, Treasure; Ronald Koehler, David Crites, Clair Engle, Russell Nelson and Lynn Hopkins. The speaker at this meeting was Charles Skelton, Fire Chief of Gordonville. Chief Skelton provided much needed information because Gordonville offered rural fire service for a fee. After a discussion and questions period, it was decided to hold a second public meeting on February 1, 1977.

The February meeting filled the Millersville Elementary School Gymnasium. They heard Dr. William Westhoff, Coordinator for Public School Safety and Firemen Training for the University of Missouri, speak on rural fire departments and rural fire districts. After a question-and-answer period, names and locations of people to be served were collected as were names of volunteer firemen. Also, names of people within a five-mile radius that would be willing to provide labor and/ or material for building a fire station were collected. The response was fantastic for 62 men volunteered to be firemen, 86 volunteered to work on the station construction, and 14 volunteered materials or supplies for the new fire station. It was decided at a meeting by a majority vote that the district would be financed by donations. The donations requested were $25.00 per family, and more if possible the first year. The people at the meeting also donated $3,865.00 to start the Millersville Rural Fire Protection District move toward reality. We were the first rural fire district in Cape Girardeau County and the first completely rural fire district in Cape Girardeau County for we did not have a single incorporated city or town in the proposed district. The temporary board of directors was elected to the Millersville Rural Fire District Board.

In the spring of 1977 was an extremely busy time of growth and learning. The board traveled to several fire districts that had rural fire service so that they might learn. Many things were to be done: build a station on land donated by Maple and Dorothy Miller, survey the district for family location in case of fire, organize a fire-fighting company of volunteers, purchase tucks and equipment, and raise funds. But these things were done, and the newly created Millersville Rural District based on volunteers and donations went into service. Since that date we have averaged about 25 fire calls a year that has increased to 60+ over time. We became a Rural Fire District incorporated under Missouri Statues by an election of the people of the district. This incorporation gave us the power of tax, but operated on donations. In 1994, we asked and received form the people the power to tax at a 30 (Thirty) cents per one hundred dollar assessed valuation.

Achievements

Our Fire District led the struggle to get improved dispatching from the county after a missed fire call. With the help of North County Fire District that responded to our missed call: this led to the Cape Girardeau County Sheriffs dispatching fire calls to rural fire districts via a pager radio system. This event and struggle to get an air van led to the formation of the County Fire Chiefs Association, which today is the Cape Girardeau County Fire Fighters Association. The Chief Association made the air van possible with a donated truck from Southwestern Bell and work being done by Millersville Volunteers. Later through the Chief Association we led the movement for a Cape County Library for improved fire training.

In the fall of 1977, Millersville Fire District and Jackson Police Department co-sponsored the first Regional Fire School at Jackson. This regional fire school had grown to be the largest regional fire school in the state and annually had from 200 to 300 area firemen in attendance.

In 1977, Millersville led the movement to lower insurance rates for residents in their fire district by being the first to pass and ISO rating of 9 in the spring of 1980. Today most county departments have achieved a class 8 rating or better.

Growth

Our Fire Department has approximately 20 - 30 volunteer fire fighters. They are very well trained; many have more than 10 or 15 classes in fire-fighting from the University of Missouri or other accredidated institutions and have 5 to 10 years of service. We have three fire stations and eight trucks. We presently have three (3) Pumpers, three (3) Tankers, two (2) Brush Trucks, a Cam Am for brush fires, a Medical Response Truck and a Chiefs Truck. In rural fire fighting, we use portable tanks filled with water dumped from tankers for water to fight fires. Today, we have the capability of delivering 8750 gallons of water to the fire scene, dump the 2000 gallon tankers and refill if needed

As of 1996, we started a first responder program to expand our services to our community and assist Cape Girardeau Private Ambulance Company in caring for our patients.