Welcome to the City of Granger Washington Fire Department

The volunteer members of the Granger Fire Department are proud to provide professional fire, medical and rescue services to our community.

 REMINDER...  THERE IS NO OUTDOOR BURNING ALLOWED WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS OF GRANGER. CONTACT THE YAKIMA COUNTY CLEAN AIR AUTHORITY IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS 834-2050 

Scroll Down to see these items

    * Curtis Retires

    * Christmas for local families

    * Christmas Party

    * Recent Action

    * Dinosaurs

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Curtis Willey, a 26 year veteran of the Granger Fire Department turned in his gear and officially retired on December 31. Curtis has been an icon of this department for the past 26 years serving in the capacities as Firefighter, Zone Chief, Assistant Chief, Secretary-Treasurer and held a Firefighter First Respnder medical certification. Throughout the years Curtis received many awards for top responder and most inspirational firefighter. He could always be counted on to be at a call, no matter how good or bad and no matter what the time of day. When many of us were having trouble getting out of bed for the second or third time in 1 night, Curtis was always already at the Station waiting for additional personnel to respond. If you put numbers to what Curtis accomplished during his 26 years they would look like this. Approximately 4,800 calls that he responded to. Approximately 1,200 training classes that average 2 hours each. And speaking of training classes, Curtis maintained perfect attendance at his training. Curtis might deny it but he always served as an inspiration to the rest of the firefighters at our station and even other stations around us. Near the end of his career, Curtis suffered several set backs in the form of leg amputations. This would have been career ending for most people. For Curtis it was just another challenge to overcome. And he did overcome. He contiued to be an active firefighter while being a double amputee. His only real set back was being slowed down at night when getting out of bed as he had to put his legs on before responding. Curtis was always upbeat about putting his legs on in the middle of the night,  joking that being in a hurry he would get his legs on backward and could only walk in circles! Curtis never let his disabilities stop him. Having done some research, I found that there are several firefighters that are single amputees but I have never found mention of any firefighters that are double amputees. I believe that Curtis is one of a kind...even across the nation.

 

Christmas for families

The Granger Fire Department helped several families in need have Christmas this year. For the past several years, the Fire Department has sponsored 2-3 families that required assistance to have Christmas. After adopting these families, the department members would purchase needed items which usually consisted of food and Christmas presents for the parents and children. This year was no exception with the department sponsoring 3 families. As food and presents were being gathered the department received a Christmas gift of our own, in the form of 129 wrapped Christmas gifts for children! This wonderful Christmas contribution was made by our neighbors in Zillah. The members of the Zillah Food Bank held a Christmas present drive and had 129 presents that were not needed by their organization. After a few phone calls the presents were gladly accepted by the Granger Fire Department to be distributed to local families. From this point we contacted the City of Mabton Fire Department to see if they could use some of these presents also. We were put in touch with one of the local Churches in Mabton that was able to take 39 of these presents for needy families in their community. After distributing presents to families in Mabton and approximately 18 families in Granger, we were left with just a few presents. These presents were gladly accepted by a shelter in Sunnyside that had need for gifts for several children that were in their facility and had nothing for Christmas. What is normally a good Christmas for our Department turned into a real blessing with the donation of these additional presents. All said and done families in 3 communities were helped this year. It was a great feeling to be able to help deliver presents to the families in need on December 23rd and 24th. Every family was very grateful and it was a heart warming feeling to see childrens eyes light up when they realized that there were Christmas presents for them. A special thanks to all of the firefighters involved in getting these gifts out, the Zillah Food Bank and our neighbors in Mabton and Sunnyside for helping get all of these gifts to children before Christmas.

Christmas Party

Granger firefighters and their families enjoyed a night of Christmas cheer on Thursday December 17th at the annual Christmas party. The party held at the Granger Elementary School was a full night of good food, great fun and a bunch of great presents. Firefighters started the evening with appetizers as people arrived. Shortly after, dinner was served that featured turkey, ham and all of the trimmings. After having a great dinner it was time for the present exchange. Everyone had brought a gift and it went onto a table unmarked. All names were put into a hat and drawn randomly. If your name was drawn, you could unwrap a new present or "steal" a  present from someone else that had already been unwrapped. This made for a great time with some gifts going through several potential owners before finally finding a home. It is always a great time and this year was no exception.

A special thanks goes out to Kelly Carter for putting this event on and taking care of all of the details. It was a great time that everyone enjoyed.

 Click to see more pictures of the 2009 Christmas Party

Some recent action

After a semi-truck hit an object in the roadway the passenger side fuel tank was ruptured. This shows the recovery efforts made by firefighters, recovering approximately 80 gallons of diesel. Shown is a recovery pool, chute made from pike poles and a plastic recovery drum that has been dug into the bar ditch.

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 DINOSAURS???

 OK. Some explanation is in order. Judging by the emails there seems to be some question as to why there are dinosaurs on a fire department web site. No, the dinosaurs are not a reference to the age of our fire trucks or fire chief! They are part of the dinosaur theme that the City of Granger adopted several years back. If you tour our city you will see many dinosaurs that roam our streets and even our pond at Hisey Park (often called Dinosaur Park). Our City is well known throughout Washington State for its dinosaur theme and many people travel to Granger to see the dinosaurs, have their picture taken with them and even play on them. Yes we see many adults riding the dinosaurs also! These creatures are the creation of our Public Works Department and are built from scratch here in Granger. We also have a yearly event called Dino-in-a-day where the public can come out and get their hands dirty helping to make the cities newest Dino addition. So if you are ever in central Washington come take a trip down Dino-Drive and see what our creatures have to offer.

Also we have added a clickable link to Firefighter Close Calls that appears in the right column. This is a great web site to keep you up to date on current issues. Visit often!

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 CHECK YOUR SMOKE ALARM TODAY. MAKE SURE IT HAS A BATTERY THAT WORKS! IT MAY SAVE THE LIVES OF YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.

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