An active 2025 for Red Oak FD and Emergency management

The Red Oak Fire Department and the Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency had another active year last year.
Red Oak Fire Chief John Bruce said among the calls the department was paged to in 2025, emergency medical service calls were the highest volume
“Those numbers are due in part because the Red Oak Fire Department and EMS are still covering a large area of the county, while financing from out of response area jurisdictions to help pay for the costs. Everybody’s well aware now, it’s no secret, that funding for essential services is by far lacking. The capability to catch up and fulfill that gap is an extremely challenging effort. That’s where we’re at as we start 2026, and where that’s going to go, nobody has any idea. We’ve also had to deal, across the state, with departments that have dried up, and there are others that are probably on the fringe. Some communities gets hundreds of calls a year, which is a real struggle for volunteer departments,” Bruce explained.
Some of the shuttering of smaller departments, Bruce said, comes down to the difficulty in qualifying to serve as a volunteer.
“Volunteers have to complete Fire 1 training. That used to involve initial schooling, plus travel to that schooling. In order to assist with getting more volunteers trained, that has changed drastically within the state to where now they have an online version of Fire 1., instead of the traditional instructor-student classroom setting. That’s just to try to get the numbers out there, but if that tells you how much they’ve diminished over time, that that’s what the state has had to enact to just get these classes done. There’s fewer people signing up and fewer instructors available to lead the training,” commented Bruce.
Thankfully, there are still various training sites located within the state for those that do want to volunteer, and Red Oak is one of the sites where they can come and do their skills training. Bruce added that the three call paging system, which has been implemented for a few years, continues to be a great benefit.
“All the chiefs here in Montgomery County talk to each other all the time anyway, but it’s still a saving grace to know that you have somebody on the road to answer that call and that you have that automatic aid coming so you don’t have to wait for somebody to get to the station, get the truck on scene, assess the scene, then get the mutual aid called. Some of the places we’re called out to require a little bit of a travel time distance, and this paging system allows us to close that gap attempt to prevent loss. If we were to ever, God forbid, have an entrapment or something where we need to get into a rescue mode, you need those resources there right now and going to work. It works out great, and there has been zero conversation from anyone about eliminating it. I think it’s just the way of the future,” advised Bruce.
In 2024, fire and EMS battled situations where they had to deal with heavy snow. EMS coordinator Brian Hamman said 2025 was much more forgiving with only a few snow events. Also, unlike 2024, they didn’t have to deal with the aftermath of a tornado.
“Two years ago was a challenging year due to the tornadoes, flash flooding, things that we’re still dealing with even today. There’s still recovery going on from the tornadoes. We still have a road closed because of flash flooding. A lot of that comes down to funding. County governments only have so much funding, and when something happens like that, they’ve got to follow all the rules from procurement all the way through bidding, and everything takes time, especially with the road that’s closed,” Hamman said. “The flash flooding on the 21 of May 2024, that’s all tied in with FEMA. So you have to follow their process, and their process takes a lot of time. The communications tower and Hacklebarney Park that was heavily damaged, It was more than a year before we saw any reimbursements of those funds. We’re thankful that we got them. Hopefully, in the near future, the county will be awarded funds and they can go out and get that road back open.”
After spending so much time prepping the new communications towers, and losing one in the 2024 tornado, Hamman said it was a relief to have it back to operational last year.
“To lose a tower, especially within the first five years of it being constructed, was very disheartening, but we take the punches as they come. From the day of the event to the day that it went back live it took just shy of one year. After the initial event, the officials were were up front and said it’ll be 12 to 18 months, so to be on the low end of that range, to me, is a pretty astonishing factor, and it has a lot to do with our insurance carrier. They were great to work with, gave us the resources that we needed, didn’t hold us back at all, and we were able to replace it relatively quick,” advised Hamman.
While recovery also continued at Hacklebarney Woods last year, Hamman said some things are difficult to replace,
“It’s back open and improvements have been made. All the shelter sites, the covered picnic areas, and things like that have been replaced or repaired, but anytime we’re talking about a park or even in town when we have storms, the biggest issue is trees. The loss of tree cover within the park was substantial, and you’re never going to be able to get back to where it was 100%. The remnants of that storm will last a lifetime,” Hamman commented.
When it came to 2025 fire events, there was one day that stood out to both Bruce and Hamman.
“The biggest one that stands out in my mind was on Feb. 28. We had six field fires in one day. That was a unique time, our spring fire season started basically in December of 2024.It was very warm, and it was very dry leading up to that day.  We had two winter storms back to back that dropped 12 to 14 inches of snow, and within a week, because of a rapid increase of temperatures in excess of 50 to 70 degrees and high winds, everything melted off, dried up, and we had fires. The fires didn’t stop. I can only think of one other time many, many years ago when we had a day like that, but the Feb. 28 was pretty nuts,” Hamman stated.
While the day was a challenge, Bruce said the experience and the operations of all the departments, working with each other over all the years, actually simplified the response.
“Brian and I usually separate. He’d hit an incident and I’d go hit another incident because we were getting these compounded on each other. But the flow of operations was actually pretty smooth. Even our partners in the agricultural area, the farmers that deployed, were just a godsend. We have done this for a number of years now. Everybody kind of knows what they need to do and knows to just go to work, and it just works out great. At one point, we were three working fires in three different areas of Montgomery County at the same time, so it’s great to have these working relationships with the other departments. We know their apparatus and their numbers and we know their staff,” Bruce explained.
Bruce added that one piece of equipment that works great for fire suppression but is worth many more times its value is the drone use by Hamman.
He can put that up and we can have video. As an incident commander, the drone allows you to know where the head of your fire’s at, what you have for exposures, suppression operations. If you see a fire’s encroaching on a fence line and there’s a grass truck that’s going to put themselves between the two, we immediately can radio them to turn around, get back, get them out of there, cut that fence, go, whatever. In the past, we would have never had that and the truck had to operate on its own. Brian’s drone operations have a million times paid for itself not only by preventing someone from being injured or worse, but it giving us the ability to see a fire situation more clearly even if there’s wind and visibility issues to the naked eye,” commented Bruce.
As we get into the spring season, Hamman reminded everyone that if they plan on having a burn, to make sure you monitor it.
“It’s important to monitor it for days because we’ve had rekindles happen as late as a month later. No one’s been near it and all of a sudden the wind kicks up. Those piles stay warm. We always encourage people that if they’re going to burn, to do so and then cover it with soil when you’re done because it’s 100% more effective. The risk is there. It’s always going to be there. Even outside of winter, in the spring and in the fall, things are drying faster. Weather dynamics are changing, but fires are growing faster, and they’re growing larger. It doesn’t matter what day it is. It seems like the wind is always blowing,” explained Hamman.
Fleet wise, Bruce said the department was finally able to get a newer grass truck last year, which is a great enhancement to the fleet.
“We were at a mud condition to get into a field in response to a call, and it took two enhanced grass trucks to get in there. Fleets around the county appear to be pretty healthy at this point so we’ve been fortunate to have minimal downtime with equipment. Of course, we usually try to utilize the wintertime for our maintenance and repairs for our rural response fleet but now it seems like the wildland fire threat is a year-round threat now. Every year a continuous evaluation of equipment and what we’re responding to and how do we best equip those trucks so when they go out the door we’re giving the best service that we can at the time,” Bruce said. “The new grass truck allows us to respond to a structure fire if the weather conditions for some reason are delaying the main engine. We can do a rescue if needed and traverse in the various ground types and conditions. We recently put the battery powered extrication on it, so we can drive extrication equipment into a non-road setting. It can also be taken into a factory if necessary, or taken off of the truck if we can’t drive the truck in.”
Hamman said EMA also added a new vehicle to its own fleet thanks to grants, donations, and foundations.
“We replaced our firefighting UTV with an upgraded model, and it’s not just me that can take it to a fire scene. If I’m not around or it’s one of those days where I’m in surrounding counties, with the working relationship that we have next door with the fire department, they know if I’m not here and they need it, it’s hooked up and ready to go at a moment’s notice, just like the trucks next door. It’s a valuable piece of equipment, especially when we get in the rural agriculture land setting. Our UTVs are perfect for use out there, and at the end of the day, it’s cheaper to repair and replace than it is a $300,000 grass truck or a $1 million fire truck,” advised Hamman.
As for staff, Bruce was pleased to say that there was no turnover in 2025, and that the department is pretty fortunate that it keeps the folks that it has.
“Since we’re the career department for the county, you’ve got to have the good ones in those trucks. That equipment doesn’t mean much if you don’t have a massive talent in it to operate it, so we’re very fortunate. Our volunteerism is still good. Everybody around us is struggling to try to get people through the door and get them through the training that’s required, so we do what we can to fight the good fight and keep the doors open and the calls answered,” stated Bruce.
As we move further into 2026, Bruce said he is really looking forward to completing the build on the new fire engine for delivery later in the year,
“It’s replacing a 37 year old truck that will leave hints as to where you had it parked at. It’s still rolling out as a reserve engine, but it’s very worn, so getting the new engine in is going to be very nice and allow us to know that we’ve got two very good dependable trucks to head out. Recruitment, retention, that’s an always issue to tackle as well as response dynamics, and maintaining the working relationships with all the area departments, because it really does take all of us anymore,” commented Bruce. “There’s other departments out there that will tell you that back in the day, mutual aid was very rarely ever used, and we have progressed to now it being a standing paging option to get folks going. We sit in a boat with our other neighbors, and we all face the same challenges. Pager goes off, answer the call, somebody needs you, so that’s what we do.”
As for the EMA office, Hamman said his focus in 2026 is continuing to assist the departments and agencies in need, and ensuring that everyone is prepared.
“We’re not immune to large-scale disasters, severe weather, fires, or flooding. We hope that it doesn’t happen, but at the end of the day, we’re prepared as best as we can. Social media helps us out quite a bit, so if folks are following the fire department page or the Montgomery County Emergency Management page, we try to get info out there on related things and we’re partnered with our press agencies to help get the word out on stuff,” Hamman explained.
Also in 2026, the Red Oak Fire Department will celebrate a major milestone, 150 years of operation in Red Oak.
“We hope to have some more information out later in the year. Celebrating the department’s 150th anniversary is a huge accomplishment for those that have served in the past, those that serve today, and even those that are going to serve in the future. We’re hoping to do some fun things towards the end of the year. A lot is going to depend on timing of the new fire truck arrival, but we’ve started those talks amongst members of the department. We really want to celebrate with the community some of our accomplishments and things we’ve been able to do, and how we’ve grown as a department over the years, from horses to fire engines and a fire station. Look for more information later throughout the year,” Hamman said.