Everything at the Fire Department is ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
Garage and car doors stay open, gear stands at the ready and firefighters keep radios on. When a call does come in, they’re ready to roll in seconds.
Assistant Fire Chief Chris Hull jokes his office is an “organized chaos.” The same could be said about the Fire Department as a whole. Equipment is scattered everywhere, but it’s all sorted and ready to serve the vast array of purposes when the department is asked to help.
Need to respond to any type of medical emergency? Plenty of color-coded bags will help with that.
Need to lift someone up who’s stuck? There are special straps to help with that.
Accidentally hit a gas pipe? Firefighters can help with that, too.
“You never know what you’re gonna be called to,” Fire Chief Justin Lee said.
The Eudora Times spent Tuesday with the Fire Department to share with the community what their job looks like.
Coffee and cleaning
The day starts early for the Fire Department. The part-time employee working today, Zach Tyrl, gets in around 7 a.m. to start cleaning and get the department up and running for the day.
He’s joined by Lee and Hull in the department’s “day room,” for a cup of coffee to start the morning.
“One thing we go through a lot of at the fire station is coffee,” Hull said.
The station is designed to be lived in. It has bunk rooms, a bathroom with showers, a laundry room and a gym, alongside the day room, which Hull said was a bit of a misnomer because most of the time during the day is spent out doing tasks.
Part-time firefighters spend 12-hour shifts at the station, and sometimes stay even longer. Tyrl, who has been with the Fire Department for nearly 10 years, has just started a 24-hour shift to be on call due to forecasted storms.
In the day room is a large wooden dinner table, which Hull said was one of the most important parts of the fire station. It’s where lots of interaction happens between different department members, young and old. It’s where people can talk through good and bad calls and learn from others.
“Seniority and rank doesn’t apply at the kitchen table,” Tyrl said.
Truck checks
The next task is to check all of the vehicles and equipment to make sure it’s ready to go. Tyrl and one of the department’s new recruits, Irwin Gutierrez, walk through each vehicle and ensure everything is working.
The main fire engine holds 1,000 gallons of water and a plethora of tools neatly tucked throughout different compartments of the vehicle.
The primary engine can hold five people and everything is set up for speed. Uniforms stand ready to be put on quickly, and doors stay open to save fractions of a second as firefighters load the engine.
If a structure fire were to occur, the part-time staff at the station would hop into the main engine and take it to the scene. A second engine stands ready for other volunteer firefighters who are called in to help.
There are a couple of smaller vehicles at the station as well: SUVs for the chiefs, a medical response vehicle, a truck for grass fires and an ambulance from Lawrence.
The Lawrence ambulance is a huge help, Tyrl said, because most of the calls the department gets are medical, and the ambulance ensures people can be transported to a hospital quickly if needed.
Partnerships like that are common among area fire stations, which regularly cross city borders to assist with big emergencies.
“We definitely work as a team, you know, we coordinate, we do some training together,” Lee said.
One new system on display in the garage is a series of vent hoses attached to the exhausts of the vehicles. That helps prevent vehicle fumes from filling up the garages. The hoses automatically detach as the vehicle starts to depart.
The goal is to help prevent cancer, which has been a rising problem among firefighters.
Community engagement
After the truck checks are done, Tyrl and the chiefs settle into some more mundane work. With the new recruits coming aboard, there is some administrative work needed to provide them all access to the department’s computer systems.
These systems are visible throughout the department.
In one room of the station, a couple of monitors on the wall showcase core information, like the day’s fire index, past calls and the location of vehicles.
One screen shows a list of the day’s necessary tasks, including checking to ensure equipment is up to date.
The walls of the station are adorned with trinkets, many of which were made by the community and given to the department. The decor includes an American flag made from wood, toy fire trucks, old department photos and a photoshopped image of a firefighter’s head on Rocky Balboa’s body.
“The community is really invested in helping us out, which is something we really appreciate,” Hull said.
That goodwill between the department and community is something that staff work hard to cultivate.
“Once you lose it, it’s impossible to get back,” Lee said.
The department regularly holds community events aimed at education and fire prevention.
Lunch
The group decides to head to Gambino’s for their lunch buffet. The trip across town looks a little bit different from the inside of a fire engine. Everyone in the truck wears a headset with a microphone attached so they can communicate despite the noise.
Tyrl said driving the engine is quite different from a normal car. Not only is it bigger, but it’s much heavier due to the amount of tools and water it carries.
Hull, Tyrl and Gutierrez take a table at the back corner of Gambino’s. They say it’s become the Fire Department’s table.
New gear
On the way home from lunch, Hull spots a demo fire truck at Casey’s and asks the salesman to bring it down to the station so the firefighters can take a look at it.
The fire engine is from one of a shrinking number of manufacturers. As the market has consolidated, prices have risen. When the department bought its most recent truck, in 2018, it cost under $450,000. The truck they were looking at today costs $810,000.
Firefighting equipment is expensive. Gear can cost thousands of dollars in addition to the big-ticket items like vehicles. The increasing costs create a balance, Lee said, where departments want to have the best equipment possible to keep people safe, but also be prudent with expenditures.
“We buy what we need, not what we want,” Lee said. “You don’t put all the bells and whistles on it unless you need it. You really have to look at what you need.”
The city is considering directing more money toward public safety expenses.
A 0.5% sales tax that has been used the last 20 years to pay off debt from building the Community Center and pool expires this year as the debt from the project is paid off. The city is considering continuing the tax, but shifting it to support public safety. It would require a citywide vote to swap the expiring tax for the new one.
Training
After lunch, Patrick Bradley arrives to help lead some training for Gutierrez, the new recruit.
They practice throwing ladders, breaking into doors and memorizing where all the equipment is located on the truck.
Gutierrez is an 18-year-old from Kansas City, Kansas. After graduating high school, he decided he wanted to help people and enrolled in the Johnson County Community College fire academy.
He’s in his first week with the department.
“They have a good camaraderie,” Gutierrez said. “It’s like a family.”
That’s something Lee said drew him here when the fire chief position opened in 2024.
“Our culture here is so positive,” Lee said. “It’s a positive place to be, right? And you can’t buy that. You can’t go to Home Depot and buy a box of positivity, right? But it’s ingrained in our culture here. People support each other.”
The department is also looking forward to the opening of a new training area. Currently, most training happens at the station, but the new training area located by the wastewater plant will give the department a more expansive place to train.
In this year’s city budget discussions, a major priority outlined so far is providing more funds for Fire Department staffing.
Eudora uses a mostly-volunteer model, with only two full-time employees: the chief and assistant chief. But other surrounding departments have more robust full-time staff. Lee has said Eudora wants to remain a volunteer department, but could use more full-time employees. The department has 21 volunteers and seven part-time staff, alongside the two chiefs.
Having more full-time and part-time staff means more people who are familiar with Eudora’s specific equipment.
More staff also means more people able to help with specialized roles. Certain medical tasks, like starting an IV, require a paramedic. But one isn’t always available with the volunteer model.
Medical call
In the afternoon, the first call comes into the station: someone reporting breathing problems.
Bradley, Tyrl and Gutierrez load up the truck and make it to the apartment in minutes. The Lawrence ambulance housed at the station also makes the trip. They load the patient into the ambulance and take him to the hospital.
It was a pretty simple call for the firefighters, as they aren’t the primary medical help on this call due to the ambulance.
Still, when they return to the station, Tyrl fills out a report on the incident.
While many assume firefighters spend most of their time putting out structure fires, that’s actually a small volume of their calls. Most of them look more like this medical call.
“Our name is the Fire Department, but really, we’re an all-hazard organization,” Lee said.
On call
The rest of the day looks similar.
More small tasks around the department need to be completed. And the staff will remain on call for whatever emergency may arise overnight.
There are other tasks the Fire Department is asked to help with, too. For example, one conference room has building plans sprawled across a table. The Fire Department is asked to look over plans to ensure they align with fire code.
Being on call is a core part of the firefighters job, and while it can be exhausting at times, Lee said it’s something you get used to.
“It’s a lot of work,” Lee said. “But it’s rewarding.”
Reach reporter Cuyler Dunn at [email protected]
