Grandin Volunteer Fire Department quits after disputes with city

GRANDIN — The city of Grandin finds itself in a bit of turmoil as its entire volunteer fire department quit earlier this week.

All 14 volunteers of the Grandin City Volunteer Fire Department quit on Tuesday. The mass resignations were reportedly because of several factors. One of those factors included the city saying it was no longer able to insure the fire trucks, according to officials with the department. Messages to city officials in Grandin had not been returned by press time.

“(The city said) they don’t have money for insurance on the trucks anymore, so they were going to only let us run one truck out of the building where they have three,” said Grandin Rural Fire Chief Joseph Gates.

Another factor in the mass resignations was the city reportedly deciding in May it would no longer provide mutual aid to other departments, wanting to concentrate only on fires in Grandin itself.

“You have to give to receive,” Gates said. “We’re a volunteer community. If you’re not giving mutual aid to Ellsinore, Van Buren and the other departments that you’re going to call upon, when you need help, they’re not going to be willing to give you help.”

The latter decision was one of the reasons Gates and other members of the city fire department decided to create the Grandin Rural Fire Department.

All 14 of the former city firefighters now work for Grandin Rural. Gates said the new department has two fire engines and a tanker truck.

However, there might still be more problems between the city and the new department.

The rural fire department responded to a fully engulfed residence on Highway O near Grandin on Wednesday. Grandin Rural called for and received mutual aid from departments as far away as Ellsinore, Oxly and Doniphan.

However, Gates said firefighters clashed with city officials about getting water to put out the fire.

“One of the (Grandin) city council members (Jim Tucker) had come out to the hydrants and (told firefighters), ‘You can’t fill up here — you don’t have a water agreement with us. You can’t fill up,’” Gates said. “Then he was talking about shutting the water tower down and told us we were trespassing when we were trying to fill up at the hydrants.”

The topic of firefighting in Grandin is expected to come up at the next Grandin city council meeting at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 11.