08/26/2026
Most of you know that we took a team of six firefighters with Engine 2 and Rescue 1, out to Palo Pinto County to assist with a mutual aid call to help with structure protection.
Answering the call: Captain Zack Waggoner, Lieutenant Brian Waggoner, Firefighter Casey Kimbrough, Firefighter Colin Reed, Firefighter David Baker and Chief Joel Viertel. This doesn’t include the names of all of those firefighters who stayed behind to make sure that Albany stayed safe in the event we had an incident here at home.
The call came in around 5:30 on Monday and we arrived at the highway 180 Incident command location at about 730pm. During our time there, we protected about 100 head of yearlings and saved several structures. The team returned to Albany with both trucks around noon on Tuesday. Much was learned from this experience.
As your Chief, one of the things that I observed with the houses that were lost was the heavy vegetation and fuel load around the homes. That, coupled with the intense heat and wind, there was simply no way to save these structures. here in SHACKELFORD COUNTY we have had at least a couple of years of good rain in the spring and early summer which created tremendous grass and fuel growth. We are ripe for a catastrophic fire event around the city of Albany and throughout the county. I have talked with a number of Land owners around the city limits and have obtained permission to do prescribed Burns, but there are others that I’ve not been able to reach or get resolution with. It is an incredibly time-consuming task to try to work out all the logistics of a “controlled burn“.  The Texas forestry service, and SHACKELFORD COUNTY RVFD will help us manage this fire as well as, we have a professional burn management specialist on our department. Many people are scared of burning grass around their homes or up next to their property. This is understandable, but if we do it in a planned, supported procedure, we have an exceptionally high degree of success with no incident. we don’t just light a fire and hope it doesn’t burn your house down. If we simply “Hope” that we never have a catastrophic fire event, that is not an effective strategy. In the event that we have a large fire on the south or west side of Albany, with the heavy winds that we see so much of the time, we are in serious trouble. Recall a couple of years back what happened at Carbon and Ranger. Keep your grass mowed short and out away from your house. Get rid of leaf and brush piles and anything that is fuel for a fire that will burn.
If you are a property owner that has grassland up against the south and west side of the city limits of Albany, please contact me if you would like someone to come visit with you about how a prescribed burn would be managed.
Thank you for your support
Joel W Viertel
Chief, Albany VFD 
