RED BAY | Bud Strickland has reached a milestone with the Red Bay Fire Department – and he’s driving right on past it, not content to stop here.
Strickland this month marked 30 years as Red Bay’s Fire Chief, with roughly 40 years as a firefighter here overall. It was during a Red Bay City Council meeting in the middle of February 1994 that council members selected Strickland to replace outgoing chief Mutt Harrison – the man Strickland credits with getting him interested in firefighting.
Strickland had worked in the department and risen to the position of assistant fire chief at the time, and so he tossed his name in for consideration of the promotion.
“I just said, ‘I think I’m ready; I’ll give it a shot,’” Strickland said. “So, I applied for it.”
As it turns out Strickland was ready and has built and managed the department of 15 volunteers for three decades. As with most small departments, one of the biggest changes Strickland has seen with the station has been in training.
“It’s changed a lot because there’s stuff in houses now that we didn’t have back then, and you never know what you’re going into,” Strickland said. “Back then you didn’t have to worry about people making meth or anything like that in a house. And the foam in these couches and stuff like that – it’s just they’re not good for you. So, you’ve got to have training for these things now.”
Strickland said his department tries to train monthly through video sessions. Departments are recommended to have 30 hours of training a year. He praises his department members and their dedication and efforts and said the level of experience in his department is a real asset to the city. He cited members such as assistant chief Chris Ginn, Randy Creekmore, Andy Deaton, David Leathers – each with more than 20 years of experience. He didn’t list them all, but he spoke highly of his team.
“I’ve got good group of guys,” Strickland said.
While video training is helpful, there are lessons that can only be learned through experience and Strickland said he was fortunate to learn early on from the best – Harrison and, the man who served as chief prior to Harrison, Seaman Strickland.
“Seaman was just a firefighter when I got on,” Strickland said. “He didn’t stay in long because he was on the city council, but I learned a lot. And Mutt taught me a lot. He taught me how to take care of things, how to attack the fire, stuff like that. I learned a lot from both. Mutt was a good fire chief. He was an all-around good guy.”
Strickland has seen the department make upgrades in equipment through the years, updating fire trucks and gear. He said he appreciated the city’s support of the department through the years, doing what it took to get the department and firefighters the equipment they needed.
Strickland said save for an accident where an unmanned fire truck rolled down the street and into a building now occupied by Community Spirit Bank (and thus necessitating the purchase of a new fire truck), he and the department been tremendously blessed through the years to not have any major injuries or catastrophes while fighting fires – this even in the face of fighting several major structural fires in the city.
He and his firefighters battled a series of blazes that destroyed downtown buildings in the mid 2000s, including the City Hall blaze and fires that consumed the former Nabers building on Fifth Avenue and the Clay Cup (former Barclift Furniture/city theater building) in the heart of downtown. Each of those fires were difficult to fight due mostly to the buildings’ ages and/or construction. The City Hall building, for example, had three layers of roof, and the fire getting between the layers made it extremely difficult to fight.
After 40 years of fighting fires, Strickland’s not planning on going anywhere. The amount of paperwork has grown significantly through the years and there is always something that needs working on with the trucks or equipment. But even after all this time, what got Bud into firefighting is keeping him there.
“Mutt was a real good friend and I hung around his shop and I moved to town, and I just wanted to be a firefighter,” Strickland said. “And I just thought, ‘Well, I’ll try it and see if I like it,’ and I fell in love with it. Helping the community. That’s what I wanted to do. That’s what keeps me going.”
