Fire in a Small Town: How volunteers civilized the rural West

by Ken Bilderback, Kris Bilderback

“Any town that has a fire department, an engine to fight the demon flames with, and a band of sturdy volunteer fire laddies to manipulate the apparatus is on the high wave of prosperity.” A newspaper editor wrote those words in 1913 to mark the birth of a fire department in Gaston, Oregon, the dead end of the Oregon Trail. History proved him wrong about the prosperity part, but prescient about the critical role that everyday volunteers played in civilizing the Wild West, and in keeping it civilized today. In fact, today rural areas are more dependent on volunteers than ever before, because in addition to dousing house fires, volunteers have become the primary emergency medical providers for a society increasingly dependent on such care. Yet in many ways, society is making the lives of volunteer firefighters and EMTs more difficult and less enjoyable than ever before. The Bilderbacks, authors of the internationally acclaimed “Creek With No Name: How the West was Won (and Lost) in Gaston, Oregon,” again use their hometown as the focal point for the triumphs, tragedies and travails of some of the bravest and least-appreciated heroes of the American West. “Creek With No Name” has been honored with First Runner Up, History Prize, 2012 New York Book Festival; Winner, Regional Literature, 2012 New England Book Festival ;Winner, Regional Literature, 2012 Southern California Book Festival; First Runner Up, Regional Literature, 2012-2013 Los Angeles Book Festival; Honorable Mention, Non-fiction, 2013 Great Northwest Book Festival; Honorable Mention, History, 2012 San Francisco Book Festival; Honorable Mention, General Non-fiction, 2012 Hollywood Book Festival; Honorable Mention, General Non-fiction, 2012 London Book Festival. Also by Ken Bilderback, “Wheels on the Bus: Sex, Drugs, Rock ’n’ Roll and Life in 1974” has been honored with Honorable Mention, Autobiography, 2011 New York Book Festival and the 2012 Southern California Book Festival.

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 2013

About the author

Whether it's getting flashed by a geriatric hooker in Miami or baking in the heat of a forest fire in Oregon, there's little that journalist Ken Bilderback won't do to get a story worth telling.

Bilderback is a retired newspaper reporter and editor and former NFPA-certified volunteer Public Information Officer for the Gaston Rural Fire District in Oregon. His hobbies include listening to nonagenarians talk about Prohibition, creating videos of cats interacting with gophers, and saying "Aw, shucks!" while winning literary awards.

Honors for "Creek With No Name":

First Runner Up, History Prize, 2012 New York Book Festival
Winner, Regional Literature, 2012 New England Book Festival
Winner, Regional Literature, 2012 Southern California Book Festival
First Runner Up, Regional Literature, 2012-2013 Los Angeles Book Festival
Honorable Mention, Non-fiction, 2013 Great Northwest Book Festival
Honorable Mention, History, 2012 San Francisco Book Festival
Honorable Mention, General Non-fiction, 2012 Hollywood Book Festival
Honorable Mention, General Non-fiction, 2012 London Book Festival

Honors for "Wheels on the Bus":

Honorable Mention, Autobiography, 2011 New York Book Festival
Honorable Mention, Autobiography, 2012 Southern California Book Festival

Reviews

[Jeremy Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was waiting for this book for quite some time, and was not was disappointed upon reading it. Overall it's a great book if you're familiar with Gaston, The Fire Service, or history in general. I have a lot of family and personal connections to this town, and as a member of the fire department I had a great personal interest in reading it. It's a very good "front to back" history of the department from the very meager beginnings up to the modern day as the author viewed it, as PIO and serving on the board.

The book is largely comprised of historic facts and figures, with large helpings of testimony and human emotion applied to make it a "story". It's obvious Ken and Kris spent a tremendous of time researching and interviewing people, and it's woven nicely into a "story" that reads like a novel. It's no stuffy history text, and I think many will appreciate that.

There are suggestions and opinions sprinkled in places in the book, which is to be expected as the author was not an outsider to the department, but a long term member of it. Whether you agree or disagree with the author's opinions it does not overpower the book or compromise the quality in any way. It's nowhere near an "opinion piece" or a smear, nor is it a rosy view of a flawless department. I would describe it more as a long story as it would be told by the volunteers themselves, and much of it is the words of the volunteers still alive to tell the tale.

Overall, I feel this is a very well done book that shows the years of hard work put into it, and will likely live on longer than any of us will. In the era of the Internet and big data we are documenting everything, the world needs more books like this that curate events and stories that were never recorded online. This book serves that purpose well.