Redings Mill Fire Protection District was founded in 1978. We provide Fire Suppression, EMS, Rescue, and Haz-Mat responses for 110 square miles of rural and suburban area in Southwest Missouri. We are a combination department comprised of career and volunteer firefighters. We operate from five fire stations, two of which are staffed around the clock. We are an ALS non transport agency. We are governed by a 5-member Board of Directors that meet monthly. We have 8 villages/townships with a combined population of 2,500 people. The remainder of our jurisdiction is unincorporated county with an estimated population of 12,500 people. Our area is part of the Joplin, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region with an estimated 176,849 residents. Located on the west side of the Ozarks, our district lines meet up with Kansas and Oklahoma. We have auto and mutual aid agreements with 13 neighboring jurisdictions as well as statewide mutual aid in Missouri. We serve first alarm for a portion of the City of Joplin, City of Neosho as well as the Quapaw Nation of Oklahoma. Since 1950 there have been 40 tornadoes in our county as we sit in “Tornado Alley”. Nationally we are 161% higher in likelihood of a tornado strike than anywhere else in the country. We are also near the New Madrid Seismic Zone that has had 10- 3.0+ magnitude earthquakes in the last 3 years. Some of our most recent accomplishments follow. Our entire fire district became Missouri’s first FireWise USA Community in 2010. From 2002 to 2008, we increased our full-time staff from 4 to 12 operating from one station staffed around the clock. By 2020 we have increased to a total of 20 full-time staff operating out of two stations staffed around the clock. In 2018 our State Regional Homeland Security Oversight Committee funded three new Type III Rescue Teams to improve access to water rescues resources. We were selected as one of the three new teams. Since then, we have made over 32 swift water and flood rescues. In 2020 we completed a project installing over 1,000 smoke detectors within trailer homes located in our response area. There have already been two success stories from the new detectors where the occupants were alerted to a home fire due to the detectors, likely saving their lives. We stay busy and do our due diligence to provide the best possible service for the citizens of our community.
