July 10^th – All summer long Greenwood Volunteers will be working on their certification levels to assure that they are capable of providing the best possible service to the fire district’s residents. Thanks to a grant from FEMA’s Assistance to Firefighter’s Grant program, Greenwood’s firefighters are working with a Granbury company, fireintexas.com, to gain higher levels of state certification.  In the picture above (starting at the top right) FF’s Chad McBride, Tom Palatino, Milt Reichek, Rod Bass, and Lieutenants Ben Meche and Mark Privitt receive instruction on the finer points of fire hose deployment.  All their skills are timed and in full bunker gear.  The firefighters must demonstrate that they can do the skills in times that are established as state standards.

It’s a lot of hard work in the heat of a Texas summer and the firefighter’s must be monitored continuously to assure that they don’t develop heat exhaustion.  One of the firefighter’s compared the training to the two-a-days that he went through in high school football.

As the number of certified firefighters grows it will help the department to improve its insurance rating, which ultimately will yield lower fire insurance premiums for the district’s residents.

     Chief John  Burgoyne and Chaplain Nancy Burgoyne were in Beijing China recently and while there they visited some firefighting brethren from China.  In China, the firefighting service is national, similar to how our military is organized.  Firefighters there are dedicated to firefighting and do not perform Emergency Medical Services as most fire departments in the United States do. The Burgoynes had a great time with their counterparts in Longfang and came away from the experience talking about the firefighting “Brotherhood” because of the warm reception they received.

     The Burgoynes were in China with a delegation from Fort Worth Sister Cities which visited the two finalist city candidates, Zhaoqing and Guiyang.  After the delegation ended, the Burgoynes traveled to Beijing where they lived for 4 years in the early 1990s when John worked for IBM.

     The Burgoynes make a habit of visiting other fire departments whenever they travel. They say they always learn from the experience as do their hosts.  Longfang is a suburb of Beijing.  They were very impressed by the professionalism of their counterparts in China and enjoyed discussing tactics and war-stories with their hosts.

      At their March 2nd Monthly Business Meeting, the members of Greenwood Rural VFD voted unanimously to retire the radio-id “4112″ that had been assigned to founding member JW Young, who passed away a few weeks ago.  JW was an institution at Greenwood VFD and was an active volunteer in the department for over 40 years.  He held every position in the department from “probie” to Chief and helped teach firefighting to many of the department’s current members.  Retiring a radio-id in a fire department is similar to retiring the jersey of a football or baseball star.  It is a way for the members to honor JW’s memory.  There will never be another JW Young…. and there will never be another firefighter using his radio-id – 4112.  JW, we know you are up there looking down on your brothers and smiling at the honor they have bestowed on you.  We love you Brother!

 By Chief John Burgoyne 

It is with great pride and pleasure that we give our sincere thanks and gratitude  to Howard Lovett and Greg Garcia who so graciously donated their materials, time and talent to ensure our Department was not long without our friend, Smokey the Bear.    Thanks guys, not only from us but from our entire community as well!!!

With great sadness the firefighters of Greenwood VFD buried one of their own on Monday, February 8, 2010.  JW Young was a founding member of the department when he was 17 years old and was still on the roster when he died at age 59. 

The Young family has many ties to the department – Kenneth Young, JW’s father was one of the early Chiefs, and JW was Chief back in the late 80′s or early 90′s.  JW’s son John carries on the family tradition and is active in the department today.  JW held every position in the department from probie to chief and he was a mentor to everyone at the department.  It is only fitting that our medical team answered the 9-1-1- call when he passed away.  JW was a very generous man who would give you the shirt off his back if you were in need.  He never let the sun set on a disagreement at the department.  He was a very kind man.  He served his community for over 40 years until his health began to deteriorate – there aren’t very many people who are as dedicated to serving others as he was.  We at the Greenwood VFD will miss him; the Greenwood Community will miss him; and Heaven is a better place with him there!