The Mapaville Fire Protection District is getting ready to hire its first paid firefighters, ending its status as an all-volunteer district for the past 65 years.
District residents voted in April 2016 to approve a 50-cent tax increase so the district could hire its first employees. Mapaville Fire Chief Darryl Reed said he will interview candidates in the week beginning March 6 and plans to hire three full-time employees.
“Once they get in, they will be on days for a while; then, I’ll split them into shifts and use part time people to fill in,” Reed said.
The hiring means that eventually the district will have paid firefighters on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he said.
The hire of the firefighters will be the latest change in the district, which has come along way since its first days as a volunteer fire association.
The area known as Mapaville has roots back to the 19th century, but neighbors did not organize a fire department until the spring of 1952, according to a history of the Mapaville Fire Protection District.
“Prior to May 19, 1952, the residents of Mapaville had no organized fire protection, and only after a large brush fire that apparently shook the neighborhood, did 15 concerned citizens collectively form the framework for the Mapaville Fire Association,” according to the history.
That spring the Association bought its first firetruck, a 1944 Ford open-cab pumper.
The following year, on March 23, 1953, the fire association got its official Missouri charter. Construction on the first fire station on 3 acres off Old Hwy. A began a couple of months later, on June 6, 1953.
Funding for the association came from residents who purchased fire tags and from the fire board of directors, who organized endless bingo socials, Reed said.
The support helped to prepare the fire association for emergencies. Some of the most serious calls came in the mid-1980s, when a tire storage facility and dump caught fire four times, according to the history.
“The fires were in an area not serviced directly with fire hydrants. Each fire burned for several weeks at a time and required the help of the association’s volunteers and numerous mutual aid fire companies. Each fire required upwards of 25 pieces of fire apparatus and over 100 firefighters to battle the blazes,” the history said.
In 1985, Chief Walter Wolk, who had served the Mapaville Fire Association for 19 years, passed his hat to Darryl Reed, who had been serving as a volunteer for a couple of years.
Funding was tight and the association was lacking equipment, Reed said.
“We had six pair of boots, eight or nine raincoats, five or six helmets, no gloves, no flashlights and two breathing apparatus,” he said.
In those days, volunteer firefighters had a Plectron radio plugged in at their homes that would go off to alert them to a call. One was set to turn the siren on at the station to alert volunteers within earshot, Reed said.
Back then, the volunteers probably had 50 calls a year. Now the district runs about 250 calls annually, he said.
Over the years, the community of Mapaville grew, as did its needs for fire and emergency services, and an effort to trade tags and bingo for a tax-supported district began. In 2000, voters approved the measure on the Aug. 8 ballot, and the Mapaville Fire Protection District was established.
In 2002, voters supported the district’s need for new trucks and equipment by approving a tax increase. Then, in 2008, the public finally faced the limitations of the district’s 56-year-old fire station and approved a 15-cent tax increase that was phased in over three years for a new station.
A cooperative agreement was reached with the Joachim-Plattin Ambulance District to share the building along with its cost and maintenance, and a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant for more than $900,000 was awarded to the Mapaville Fire District to help fund the construction.
The station, on a 3-acre site at 3687 Plass Road, cost $1.6 million and was completed in 2011.
Now, 17 years after becoming a tax-supported entity, the station will have paid firefighters on duty at the station.
Volunteers will continue to serve the district, but it will help to have paid firefighters since finding volunteers is getting difficult, Reed said.
“Finding and keeping the volunteers is the challenge, especially these days,” he said. “Both parents work and the kids are going in all different directions.”
He said Mapaville has been fortunate to have good people.
One of those good people, however, will hang up his helmet this year. Reed said he will retire sometime this year, although he doesn't know exactly when that will be.
“Sometime this year, but I want to get this hiring process over with first,” he said.
Reed, 69, has served the district as chief for 32 years. A Vietnam veteran, Reed is originally from south St. Louis and worked as a supervisor in the environmental department of the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District until 2010, when he retired. Since his retirement from MSD, being the administrator for Mapaville Fire has kept him busy, but he said the progress at the district has been a group effort.
“It takes the group – good firefighters, good board members,” he said.
Reed said district volunteers are like a family and weekly training for firefighters and regular board meetings often come with meals attached.
The district serves 22 square miles in central Jefferson County, including parts of the Pevely, Hillsboro and Festus ZIP codes.
