Ward Roddam has been fighting fires for most all of his life.
In all the fires in all that time, he has only been afraid for his life once.
That was just last December when a grass fire sped through more than 150 acres east of Rockdale.
“I was driving a brush truck. I aged a few years in that fire. I have never been scared on a fire scene before,” he said. “I have always respected them, but this one almost got us.”
He told the young firefighter with him to duck down and hold on and he took off to try to find a way out even though he couldn’t see a foot in front the truck because of the dense smoke.
“I was prepared to drive through a fence,” he said, but luckily he found an opening and he and his passenger got back to safety.
But that recent scare isn’t the reason he announced he’s stepping down as chief, rather he has lost some of the passion he had in his earlier days, he said.
“It’s a passion. I believe that I have always been a passionate leader,” he said. “If I can’t be that 100 percent passionate leader, then I don’t need to hold the job for just the title.”
Roddam said a good friend of his told him he would know when the time was right.
“And I know it’s the right time for me,” he said. “It’s time to step back.”
During Roddam’s firefighting career, which technically began with the Minerva volunteers when he was 15, he has helped battle two the biggest fires in the history of Rockdale.
The Brookshire Brothers fire was in July of 1998.
“In that fire, myself, Herbie Vaughan and Jonathan Muston were on the first hose line. We were advancing from the front to the back. There was about five-foot visibility,” he said. “We could hear it, we could feel it, we just couldn’t see it.”
They also could see a big display of barbecue sauce in glass bottles.
“We got an ‘all out’ call. We left everything,” he said, including the mess of all that barbecue sauce on the floor when they knocked over the display getting out of the store.
“I said well that is something we are going to have to clean up,” he said. But he didn’t. The fire took care of that and most everything else.
The other big fire was the one that took out Arledge Antiques and Ballard Carpets in December of 20o2.
“I was on the first hose line in that one,” he said. “That fire could have consumed every building on that block.
“Once it vented through the roof that flame shot up 50 to 60 feet,” he recalled. “There was debris all over the street. I remember thinking back to New York City. It was not the same magnitude, but that thought did come to my mind.”
Before the fire vented, he was in the building.
“I was trying to advance upstairs when all of a sudden a piano fell from the second floor and he had to retreat.
“That fire had a 45-minute to 1 hour head start on us,” he noted of the fire that had a 2 a.m. call.
“I grew up in Minerva. The Minerva Volunteer Fire Department began to rebuild when I was a teen,” he said. “I went down there to help them get restarted.”
He was attracted to the lights and sirens of the firetrucks.
“I remember as a teen working a big grass fire between Minerva and Rockdale,” he said. “I was watching those guys from Rockdale work the fire and I thought, golly, I want to be a Rockdale firefighter.”
When he turned 18 he made good on that wish while a senior at Rockdale High School. He applied and became an associate firefighter because in those days if you lived outside the city limits you could only be an associate.
“I still have that very first helmet I was given,” he said.
Then he left for college at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville. Later he got married to his high school sweetheart, Kathryne Parsley, and was selling cars in Elgin when the young couple decided to move to Rockdale in 1989.
In June of 1990 Roddam rejoined the Rockdale department.
“Earl Whitmore was fire chief. I am pretty sure I learned my discipline skills from Earl practicing them on me,” he said.
He climbed the ladder to the top as the chief in an orderly fashion.
“I served as a firefighter for years before being promoted to lieutenant, then captain, then second assistant chief, then first,” he said.
Vaughan, who will take over the position Roddam is leaving praised Roddam’s dedication.
“He will be badly missed. He was great for the fire department,” Vaughan, who has worked on the volunteer force with Roddam for years, said. “I hate to see him go. I understand, but it is really going to be a blow. He provided top-notch leadership.”
“I would like to congratulate Rockdale Fire Chief Ward Roddam on his well deserved retirement, and convey my sincere appreciation for his many years of service to our communities,” said Rockdale Chief of Police Jerry Meadors. “Chief Roddam has a true servant’s heart, and may never know the number of lives he has positively affected as a public servant. I would also like to thank Chief Roddam’s family for sharing him with us for so many years. Their sacrifices are sincerely appreciated as well. I wish Chief Roddam all the success and relaxation retirement has to offer.”
Rockdale City Manager Barbara Holley said, “How fortunate this community has been to have his service and leadership over the last 31 years. In the last storm, he and the other volunteers provided 4-wheel drive vehicles to the city crews to do water repairs in the ice and snow, and he and his men distributed food to those in need. His shoes will be hard to fill.”
His retirement is official April 12.
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