MCNEILL — For a moment, imagine this scenario.

You wake in the middle of the night to a sound you do not recognize. Pop, pop, pop. From your slumber, you rub your eyes and try and connect with the popping noise as it slowly merges with snaps and sizzles. With the growing noise in your head, you take in a breath and you realize your lungs are feeling as though they are packed with cotton and your room looks as though you are in a fog. For a moment, you try to decide if this is all a dream or you are actually awake.

That is when you see the orange glow just beyond your bedroom door, separating you from the children’s bedrooms - FIRE!

Grabbing the bedside phone and dialing 911 as you race past the now growing blaze to grab your children from their rooms, panic seeps in. With a child in your arms and another by the hand, you race for the nearest door, breathlessly telling the voice on the other end of the phone that your house is on fire. Where is the dog, you ask yourself. Did the cat go out last night or is she still inside? Once outside, you think of grabbing the hose to help, but everything is going too fast. Your brain rushes past thoughts of irreplaceable family pictures, Grandma’s china, Daddy’s gun. Your baby is crying.The neighbor is screaming.

Then in the next moment you hear the sirens and the whipping motion of the flashing lights come into view. The local volunteer fire department has arrived. Just over four minutes have passed since you first called.

Several men jump from the truck and go into action. Hooking up heavy hoses to huge chrome spickets, all the while pulling on heavy water-proof coats, donning helmets and carrying fire hoses, they attack the raging glow beyond your living room windows without hesitation.

Some lug huge, heavy air packs on their back and go inside to look for the dog you say is still in there. Another stands next to you, a hand across your back, asking if you are okay, are the kids okay. Others climb ladders to check additional rooms. Still others, bracing against the powerful push of gushing water from a four inch hose, aim the water to force the flames into angry embers.

You sigh.

Soon, if you are lucky, they will be able to contain the fire and save your house. But, sometimes, they struggle for hours on end to beat the raging flames, if not able to save your place, to hopefully save the homes of your neighbors. And then when all the fire fighting is over, the men do not return to their homes. Instead, they stay, sometimes for hours, making sure all the hot spots are out, that no walls will fall, that no one was left inside.

Then still hours later, wet and covered with soot, their bodies hot from the heat of the fire and their heavy protective gear, the men make their way back to the fire department where they will shower and unwind and talk about the day. Eventually, they will be able to finally make their way home where wives and children, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers wait.

And then in the morning, most of those volunteers will get up and go to a job that pays their bills. All the while, waiting for the tone to sound again. This is the calling of a fireman.

In Pearl River County there are 14 volunteer fire departments. Each relies on people willing and able to risk their lives at any given hour on any given day. And each of those volunteers take pride in being there when that call comes in.

One of those departments is McNeill. Chartered in 1973, the department started with a handful of local residents. According to fire Chief Marvin Glidewell, the department didn’t have much at the beginning. “There was no money, no building, no truck,” explained Glidewell.

With a borrowed 24-year-old fire truck from a Kiln fire department, McNeill began the task of answering all the calls that comes the way of a fire department. From a cat in a tree, to a lost child, to a raging house fire, the volunteers would show up within minutes of the call. “Our average response time is just over four minutes,” said Glidewell.

Continuing, with a catch to his voice, Glidewell, tells of the year his department was faced with what would prove to be its most difficult.

“Three babies,” says Glidewell, explaining that within a short period of time, the volunteers responded to three calls in which a child lost its life – one a toddler, found pinned beneath its mother’s car, still in its car seat, another found at the bottom of murky pool, and the third child, hung from a Venetian blind cord. “That was our most difficult year,” said Glidewell.

The department still moved forward, and within five years of its charter and with help from the county, McNeill purchased an abandoned church and 3.2 acres tucked off behind Mississippi Highway 11. Explaining that the property was a good deal for the county, Glidewell said the former church had a good sized library for public use, and the location was also used as a polling place. Not long afterward, a three-truck bay was built behind the church.

Slowly, the department, like the others through-out the county, began to add ladder trucks, pumpers and rescue vehicles, eventually growing to a seven-vehicle fleet. “Our (district’s) insurance rating was moved from a zone 10 to a zone eight,” said Glidewell.

Continuing, Glidewell explained that the McNeill volunteers, like the others through-out the county, respond to a variety of calls for help. From assists for other departments, to car accidents, to a fallen tree across a roadway, the volunteers respond at all hours of the day and night. “Even if there’s a cow in the road we tend to go,” said Glidewell. “We go because if we left it there, we’d be working on an accident.”

But, according to Emergency Management director Danny Manley, many of the calls to the local fire departments are not of emergency nature or are the result of carelessness, sometimes resulting in the over-taxing of the volunteers. Pointing out that many of the departments get called out for brush fires, trash fires, and forest fires, jobs that actually are the responsibility of the state forestry division, Manley said residents need to think twice before lighting a fire. “Our local fire departments do their job and they do it with a smile,” said Manley. “But (the extra calls) are taxing them financially and physically.”

Noting that unattended fires are the departments’ “biggest challenge,” Manley said the volunteers are faced with responding to a fire in the summer heat, dressed in heavy turn-out gear and battling a blaze that never should have started in the first place. “People start a fire, then go into town and then it gets going,” continued Manley, noting that following the first frost and at the beginning of spring, fire calls spike. “When you have dry conditions and dry air coming from the north, you have very dangerous circumstances,” said Manley. “I just want people to think of their volunteers first.”

In spite of the long hours, no pay, and few thanks Glidewell said volunteering is a rewarding experience for local residents. “We will consider any and all applications,” said Glidewell, noting that each year the department runs two fund raisers to keep the station up to date. He explained that the departments through-out the county get only a certain amount of funds from the state for their budgets, the amount depending on their district’s population, as well as grants, and donations from residents.

“It cost $6600 to dress out a volunteer,” said Glidewell, adding that the $6600 does not include training or certifications, only the turn-out gear and radio. “We depend on grants and donations,” said Glidewell, noting that residents can help out their local departments in a variety of ways besides monetary. “All you see here,” he said, pointing to the walking trail, the finished dining room, and the upstairs space. “Was done by our volunteers.”

Continuing, he said he would not change the last 35 years he has spent with the department. “We have had some good times,” said Glidewell. “It has been good.”

The McNeill Fire Department will be hosting their annual Fourth of July day-long celebration this Saturday. There will be live entertainment, food, and activities including a parade, a bike parade for children, arts and crafts, and their famous fireworks display at dark. Door prizes will also be awarded. Glidewell suggests participants bring their own chairs for the event and while there, take advantage of the quarter mile walking track.