It’s a slow, painful death, dying in a grain bin. It can take hours, but eventually the corn will crush the life out of you or suck you down to suffocate.
And it’s no easy task to extricate a victim from the powerful grip of the grain. It takes specialized equipment and the training to operate it.
So when Todd Fischer, then Boscobel’s fire chief, took a 911 dispatch to the scene of a grain entrapment in June 2019, his first move was to call for backup from Fennimore. That’s the closest location of the necessary equipment.
Fischer and the other volunteer firefighters spent a tense time keeping David Bailey surfaced and alive until the rescue crew arrived. They succeeded— but it was a close call.
“We can’t house a tech rescue trailer here with that specialized equipment because we don’t have room in our station,” Fischer said. “So we were out there just trying to keep the corn from overcoming David. We ended up saving him. They got there with the truck and we got him out. But it’s a prime example of what would improve if we can get a new station built.”
Hershel Marks, the current chief, echoes Fischer’s concern.
“When I got on the department 20 years ago, you fought fires, and you did car accidents, maybe a barn fire. That was basically what you did,” he said. “Now you’re doing rope rescues, confined space rescues, swift-water rescue. There’s a lot expected of us.”
Fisher, Marks, and some members of the Boscobel Area Fire District’s board, are advocating for a new fire station to replace the 62-year-old structure on Wisconsin Avenue.
The old one is just too small, they argue, to accommodate the modern trucks and equipment required to get the job done. The last time the department replaced a truck it wouldn’t fit under the overhead door until they’d scooped out some of the concrete leading into the parking bay.
Fire trucks get replaced on a schedule every 25 years and are inspected annually. Boscobel’s ladder truck—required for larger buildings like NuPak and the prison, and helpful in many other fires—is already overdue for replacement. No new ladder truck would fit in the existing structure.
The station also houses the local Emergency Medical Service (EMS), where call volume has ballooned in recent years: Last year volunteers responded to some 600 calls. Like the fire department, EMS is hoping to gain more space for vehicles and staff. While currently staffed by volunteers, the EMS administration anticipates staffed overnights in the short-term future.
Who pays?
A new fire station would be great—there’s just one problem: Money. The proposed station will cost roughly $10 million. And with today’s mix of funding for emergency services, that’s quite a stretch for Boscobel.
“This thing can’t be built with local tax dollars,” Fischer said. “The money doesn’t exist, and we understand that.”
Based on the experience of nearby municipalities, including Platteville and Prairie du Chien, members of the district board are confident that they can receive most of the money from federal sources.
The federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program is expected to provide $1 million toward the budget, with additional funding coming from a socalled earmark in the appropriations bill.
Earmarks are written into the federal budget when an individual senator or congressman requests funding for a project in their home district.
In recent budget cycles, numerous cities have received federal funding for new or upgraded fire stations: La Crosse ($4.5 million), Prairie du Chien ($5 million), Viroqua ($5.2 million), and Platteville ($7 million).
Compared to Platteville and Prairie du Chien, the Boscobel district protects more property, geographically speaking, according to Fischer. Also, the local department is responsible for protecting the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility, a state institution.
But even assuming a CDBG and a federal appropriation, the funding will likely fall short of the total price tag.
“We can’t come up with it through the taxpayers. We can’t come up with it through our budget. We don’t expect the city of Boscobel to take out a loan and carry that,” said Fischer. “There’s going to have to be a capital campaign of some kind to fundraise that remaining $2 or $3 million dollars.”
To that end, the district is hosting an open house on October 8 at noon and is inviting the public to attend to view plans for the new firehouse and hear about its importance.
Donations sought
While every dollar earned will help the cause, the leadership of the district board acknowledged that it will take some high-dollar donors to bring the station to life.
Over the coming months, they’ll be brainstorming ways that donors big and small can be acknowledged for their contributions.
One willing to help is Aimee Salzgeber.
Last year, she got a phone call at work that’s every parent’s nightmare. Her two teenage daughters were home alone when fire broke out. In a freak accident, a television on the back porch overheated in the sunshine.
“My daughter discovered it. They had just had lunch. We had some baby goats. She went out to check on them and saw the fire. She got her sister out of the house and her dog and called the fire department,” Salzgeber said.
One of the EMTs called Salzgeber at her workplace, and by the time she got to the house a half-hour later, it was fully engulfed.
Firefighters fought the blaze and eventually got it under control. At that point, they offered to retrieve as much of the family’s keepsakes as could be saved.
“We really wanted to try to salvage some things. Like the kids’ baby blankets, my husband’s mom’s Hope Chest,” she said.
“You know, you see the firemen rush to the aid of so many people, and until it’s you that they’re rushing to, you don’t realize the magnitude and the time and the amount of sacrifice that they make,” she said. “One of them was at one of their kids’ birthday parties and left in the middle of eating his birthday cake.”
Salzgeber’s house was a total loss, but the rest of the farm outbuildings were saved. She’s come away from the experience more committed than ever to the department.
“I just think it’s really important that we give them the tools so that they’re safe at the end of the day.” For Salzgeber, that includes pitching in as a community to build the new station. “I would fund the whole thing if I could afford to,” she said.
