Donate todayMonday, April 13, 2026Good morning! 
I learn new things about our community all the time. Sometimes those things are distressing.
For instance, late last week I discovered that Tennessee has one of the nation’s worst rates of fire mortality in the nation. That’s a figure that reflects the number of people who die in unintentional, residential fires as compared to the population as a whole.
Only eight other states are in worse shape on that count.
WHAT TO KNOW
Photo: WPLN fileIt’s particularly troubling to see that fire mortality statistic in the light of stories I’ve seen come across my desk in the last several months. We have a lot of volunteer fire departments in Tennessee. Pretty much all of our rural counties rely on volunteer firefighters. Many suburan areas do, too. And what I’ve noticed is that a lot of those volunteer squads are indicating that they’re at a crisis point.
Perhaps the most dramatic situation happened recently in Cornersville, Tennessee, where the entire volunteer fire department resigned together, saying they just couldn’t manage anymore with bare-bones resources. The firefighters in Roane County say they just can’t find enough volunteers these days and are afraid one or two fire halls may need to shut down entirely. Last fall, Sumner County’s volunteer fire crews told the county commission they needed significantly more money to keep up with the demands of the fast-growing community.
I talk about this topic on today’s episode of the NashVillager podcast. In preparing for that, I came across a study written 25 years ago that almost seems to predict this exact kind of predicament. It details several ways that growth makes it harder for a volunteer fire department to function. Growth can complicate everything from people’s ability to volunteer to how difficult it is to get fires under control.
One thing I want to say very clearly is this: from everything I can find, the consensus seems to be that the people fighting fires tend to be incredibly skilled, regardless of whether they do it as a career or are volunteering their time. The primary difference between professional and volunteer fire departments is how they are funded and what kind of resources are available to them. And when fires are killing a disproportionately high number of people in our state, perhaps we should be asking if the resources being provided to those departments are truly adequate.
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On today’s episode of the NashVillager podcast
with host Nina Cardona 🎙️
Do growing Tennessee communities devote enough resources to their fire departments?Fires aren’t quite as common as they once were, but they still have the power to devastate. Plus the local news for April 13, 2026 and long term unemployment.
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MORE TO KNOW
- In a rare bipartisan action, the Tennessee legislature has approved a measure making it easier for people to restore their voting rights after being convicted of a felony. The law eases longstanding financial hurdles, including a rule that had been unique to Tennessee that required full payment of backlogged child support. People now have the lower burden now of showing compliance for the most recent year. [Associated Press]
- All of Middle Tennessee is now officially in drought, according to the latest update of the U.S. Drought Monitor. All but a small portion of the rest of the state is considered “abnormally dry” or worse. Looking forward, there is very little chance of rain in the area over the coming week, and temperatures could reach near-record highs.
- Just three years after launching as the sport’s first team at an HBCU, Fisk University’s women’s gymnastics team has wrapped up its last competition. The team is disbanding, but it went out with a bang, placing in both the vault and balance beam events at the WCGNIC Championships. [Fisk]
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