Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Sebastian County reclaims its fire gear — in Cedarville
Sebastian County officials went Thursday morning to Cedarville to retrieve five county fire and emergency vehicles and firefighting equipment taken Tuesday night from the dissolved Jenny Lind Volunteer Fire Department.
Cedarville is in Crawford County. The Jenny Lind Fire Department was in Sebastian County.
Sebastian County Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Jeff Turner said officials found Jenny Lind’s pumper truck, tanker truck, two brush trucks and an ambulance at the Cedarville Fire Department. Also found at the Cedarville station were Jenny Lind’s 18 self-contained breathing apparatus masks and 36 air bottles for those masks, and 2,000 feet of fire hose.
“Several firefighters [with the now-closed Jenny Lind department] decided on their own to give [the equipment] to another department,” Turner said.
A report issued Thursday by Sebastian County Judge David Hudson said other items, including computer equipment, were taken from the two Jenny Lind fire stations.
Hudson’s report said the Arkansas Forestry Department had a tanker truck and a generator stationed at one of the fire stations and was called to check on its equipment. The generator was found on the property of the Jenny Lind department’s former Fire Chief Charles Cossey, the report said.
Hudson said he didn’t know whether the tanker truck was missing, but the Forestry Department found it.
Jenny Lind is an unincorporated community between Fort Smith to the north and Greenwood to the south.
Jenny Lind Fire Department Treasurer Freda Smith said she discovered the equipment was missing when she and her husband went to the fire station on Rye Hill Road between 9 and 10 a.m. Wednesday before a department board meeting scheduled for that morning. She reported the missing equipment to Hudson.
Smith said she was surprised the fire equipment was gone. She said she didn’t know who took it.
The missing equipment was reported to the Sheriff’s Office, which began an investigation, Turner said.
From interviews during the investigation, Hudson’s report said, deputies learned the equipment was in Cedarville. Cedarville Mayor Mark Isenhower was unaware of the equipment transfer, the report said.
Isenhower didn’t respond to a call seeking comment Thursday.
The investigation was ongoing Thursday, Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck said. Deputies were interviewing people affiliated with the Jenny Lind department, as well as the department in Cedarville.
Investigators will put their information together and turn it over to the prosecutor who will decide if charges should be filed, he said.
Hollenbeck said the most important thing was the return of the equipment to the Jenny Lind community to provide fire protection. Hudson said the equipment was purchased with Jenny Lind fire protection dues and county tax money, and will stay in Jenny Lind.
The Sebastian County Quorum Court voted March 21 to close the Jenny Lind Volunteer Fire Department. It did that by passing an ordinance setting eight fire districts in the county but didn’t assign a district to Jenny Lind.
White Bluff Rural Fire Department has been assigned the Jenny Lind station on Rye Hill Road and Greenwood Rural Fire Department was assigned the station on Gate Nine Road, according to Hudson’s report. It said a third department, EMP (Excelsior, Mount Zion, Palestine), was assigned a small section of the Jenny Lind district.
Jenny Lind’s fire department was shut down after officials in surrounding departments complained about the Jenny Lind department’s lack of collaborative training with other departments, failure to participate in water delivery system training, lack of effective backup, unreliable equipment, and lack of effective command and control at fire scenes.
In February, the Quorum Court had called on the Jenny Lind department to change its management as one condition of keeping the department open. Days later, Cossey, who had headed the department for more than 30 years, resigned, and new officers were elected. Several members of the department resigned after the meeting.