Czichos intends to reach 50 years

#2 OCT 4, 2018

There are many leaders, even in a small town, such as mayor, city council members, constables and deputies; the list can be quite large. But one individual in Wimberley has faced the fire, and weathered the storm for that matter, to leave his mark on the community – Wimberley Fire Chief Carroll Czichos.

Czichos’ story is intertwined with the history of fire department. Back in 1943, the small town got its first fire-wagon, which could be pulled by hand or attached by a pickup. It was donated.

When Bowen Elementary caught fire in the 1950s, it proved to be essentially useless, and the school burned down. Around that time, Carroll Czichos was born, right here in town, in 1952. From the start, his family was involved with firefighting. Raymond Czichos, Carroll’s dad, helped acquire a fire engine from Gary Air Force Base in San Marcos in 1956.

The area grew slowly and the town’s fire and emergency calls grew with it. The local boy graduated in 1970 and he joined the first responders as a radio dispatcher while also working with the EMS.

“When I came in, it was a different time. They had a different dispatch system… fire calls came in on the radio.” The 1970s were before the time of pagers.

Besides being the fire chief for 48 years, he has also been a Hays County Fire Investigator for 24 years. He is a Certified Fire Fighter, accredited for training and rescue. He also is certified as a Master Peace Officer.

Looking back, he remembers when the fire station was located on Ranch Road 12 where the Sassy Scraper is now located. (For you old timers, across the street from the Burger Barn.) The one fire truck that was used didn’t start all the time.

“We sometimes had to push the truck down hill to get it started. That helped us a bit,” Czichos said.

The next station was located on Emergency Lane, behind Ace. They had a three bay station and were sharing space with Wimberley EMS. Then came the new station. “There new station meant new people and the rescue trucks brought more people into the fire department at that time,” Czichos said.

He became an arson investigator, a certified peace officer and Assistant Hays County Deputy Fire Marshall. “In the 80s, we had 110 calls a year where now it’s about 430 calls,” he said, explaining the growth of the area.

Since 1980, Czichos has led the Wimberley Fire Department as not only Chief, but also a teacher and trainer. During all those years, he has educated responders in firefighting while also teaching water, rope and boat-based rescues. Everyone of those skills was put to the test during the floods of 2015.

Training years for a large-scale emergency, Wimberley became a center for training swiftwater rescues even before 2015. After all, the Wimberley Valley is in Flash Flood Alley. Under Czichos’ leadership, modern training techniques were stressed along with the purchase of modern equipment and protection gear for the firefighters. Starting in the 90s, the fire and rescue training held here was accredited by Texas A&M University. But the training paid off – particularly during the Memorial Weekend Floods.

“It was an interesting flood. I had been in major floods before, but they don’t hold a candle to 2015… On Saturday, about two in the afternoon, I got a call, ‘there’s flooding in Blanco, six to eight hours away’…I called my contacts, ‘hey this is happening…there’s water over the (US) 281 bridge (in Blanco).’” Emergency plans were kicking into high gear, with Wimberley people being evacuated.

“Within the first hour we had over 120-130 calls on a waiting list. We got a few people on roofs and treetops. ‘Sorry, we’ll get to you when we can’…(Thinking to myself) How we going to get enough people to help?” The flood was epic in every sense of the word.

“We were looking at a couple of hundred lives and we got to a lot of them, about 110 of them, with volunteers helping the rescue.”

There was a task force from Texas A&M, Parks and Wildlife and other numerous agencies helping. There was a list on Sunday morning of 34 people missing. Eventually, eight deaths were reported.

“It was a miracle it was only eight. There were over 300 houses lost. We did not have a good warning system, which we have now… the training kicked in throughout – the swift water disaster training… All in all it went quite well, with credit to the townsfolk, with neighbor helping neighbor.”

An interesting side note of the floods is that Czichos became friends with the Texas Lt. Governor, Dan Patrick. “I got to do one on one with the Lt. Governor for three hours...Talking about what to do about the flood. I need this and this. Czichos was given the Lt. Governor’s personal number, which he has used a few times since.

As for the future, he would like to see a satellite station on Winter’s Mill, hopefully get to around the clock service and updates on equipment. “With the increase of people, we have to go with it.” He hopes to achieve 50 years in 2020 and will think about retirement then. But anyway, he’ll be involved in the design of future Wimberley fire trucks and new buildings for the department.

“I’ll be out, but still in. I’ve got grandkids to visit.”