The Chief of Kimball’s Volunteer Fire Department, Rick Wynne praised his volunteers at the January 4 meeting of the Kimball city council.

“These are all volunteer hours,” Wynne pointed out. “These guys leave their work, they close their businesses and they are very dedicated.”

His address was greeted with applause from those in attendance for the firefighters. Several of the volunteers accompanied the chief to the evening meeting.

Wynne attended the meeting to submit to the body his list of ‘active fireman’ on the fire department. Andrew Bohac was recently named the new assistant fire chief for the Kimball department and John Boutard is a new board member. The crew combine for 75 years of firefighting leadership experience.

“Kimball is in good shape, as far as the fire department goes,” explained Wynne, “we’ve got a bunch of new, young fireman that are enthusiastic.”

KVFD now lists 34 volunteers. Their bi-laws state that they can accept up to a total of 40.

Most their hours of volunteer time was spent on rural calls this past year. In 2011 they received 22 rural calls with a total amount of 386 volunteer hours, ten city calls with a total number of 68 volunteer hours, and two mutual aid calls, one in Dix which was a total of 46 volunteer hours and one in Bushnell which was 30 total volunteer hours.