Kendall County Fire Chief: Rural Texas Runs on 30 Volunteers and Luck
Sisterdale VFD Chief Brian Reilly tells The Building Texas Show why a roster of 30 to 35 volunteers, 20 to 30 minute rural response times, and 4 to 5 minute flashover in modern homes mean the Hill Country's next Bastrop-scale fire is a matter of preparation, not chance.
Sisterdale, TX (Newsworthy.ai) Friday Nov 6, 2026 @ 7:36 AM CST
The Building Texas Show — Your Volunteer Fire Department Needs You Right Now
“There's no reason why the next Bastrop isn't Kendall County. There's really no reason why that wouldn't happen here. It's not, it hasn't happened here, but that's not because we're so good. It's because we're fortunate. Fortunate is not a plan.”
The newest episode of The Building Texas Show, titled "Your Volunteer Fire Department Needs You Right Now," hosted by Justin McKenzie and released September 28, 2026, sits down with Sisterdale Volunteer Fire Department Chief Brian Reilly for an unvarnished look at the staffing crisis facing rural fire service. With roughly 70% of America's firefighters serving as volunteers and most departments unable to keep trucks staffed, the conversation lands at a moment when 17,000 people a month are searching for homes in the Texas Hill Country, largely unaware of the response-time math waiting for them at the end of the driveway.
Chief Reilly walks listeners through the realities of running a department whose roster floats between 30 and 35 responders across a rural stretch of Kendall County. The episode maps several distinct threads:
The Building Texas Show — Your Volunteer Fire Department Needs You Right Now
“There's no reason why the next Bastrop isn't Kendall County. There's really no reason why that wouldn't happen here. It's not, it hasn't happened here, but that's not because we're so good. It's because we're fortunate. Fortunate is not a plan.”
- Why a 4 to 5 minute flashover time in modern, plastic-filled homes cannot be beaten by a 20 to 30 minute rural dispatch and drive time, no matter the budget.
- How the Hill Country Fire Coalition, working alongside groups like Team Rubicon, is trying to keep ordinary fires from becoming firestorms.
- Why the litigious, credential-heavy modern fire service has drifted from the practical, farming-era model that once defined rural mutual aid.
Reilly is blunt about what preparedness really means when the nearest engine is a half hour away. On the illusion that money solves the problem, he tells McKenzie:
"We could have 40 fire engines and 100 firefighters there full time. If you're 20 minutes from the fire station and it took 10 minutes to even get dispatched, it's burned for 30 minutes. With modern fuels, all the plastics that are in houses now, your flashover time is like 4 or 5 minutes. It's not 20 like it used to be."
The chief also refuses to let Kendall County residents lean on their good fortune, warning, "There's no reason why the next Bastrop isn't Kendall County... Fortunate is not a plan."
The deeper reporting in the episode traces how field medicine, which Reilly notes worked its way into American fire service through the late 1970s and 1980s (as documented in the TV show "Emergency"), now accounts for more than half of every department's runs. Reilly recounts his first major interior structure fire, where the only thing left standing was a kitchen refrigerator covered in a family's weekly priority list, gymnastics practice, groceries, errands, all rendered meaningless in seconds. He argues that debris management, fire breaks, and landowner responsibility, once assumed under an older farming ethic, must be relearned by newcomers before the next major event, not after. The next and final Sisterdale episode will examine why the cedar in Hill Country yards is itself the fuel.
Sisterdale VFD Hunters Supper & Raffle. The Sisterdale Volunteer Fire Department will host its 49th Annual Hunters Supper & Firearms Raffle on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026, from 5 to 9 p.m. at the William "Bill" Whitworth Fire Station, 1207 Sisterdale Rd., Boerne. Supper includes BBQ plates, a Cajun shrimp dinner and homemade desserts, and the raffle drawing is at 8:30 p.m. This year's featured prize is a 2026 Special Edition Custom Sisterdale VFD Henry 30-30 rifle, along with firearms, scopes, knives and more. Tickets are $10, winners don't need to be present, and firearm winners must complete the transfer through a licensed FFL. Proceeds support the gear, equipment and day-to-day needs that keep the station and its volunteers ready, including a new covered bay. Tickets and the full prize list are on the department's Hunters Supper & Raffle page.
About The Building Texas Show
The Building Texas Show, hosted by Justin McKenzie, tells the stories behind the people, places, and pressures shaping modern Texas, from the Hill Country to the coast. The show works to surface these conversations before the next major event forces them, giving residents, newcomers, and civic leaders context they can act on. New episodes release every week across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This episode is available now wherever podcasts are heard.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Who is Chief Brian Reilly and what department does he lead?
- Brian Reilly is the chief of the Sisterdale Volunteer Fire Department, a rural agency in Kendall County in the Texas Hill Country. His roster floats between 30 and 35 volunteer responders covering a large rural stretch where dispatch and drive time to a call can run 20 to 30 minutes.
- Why can't more funding or paid firefighters solve the rural response problem?
- Reilly says even 40 engines and 100 full-time firefighters cannot close the gap when the station is 20 minutes away and dispatch takes another 10. Modern homes filled with plastics reach flashover in 4 to 5 minutes, so the structure is unlivable long before any professional crew can arrive, regardless of budget.
- What does Reilly mean by "Fortunate is not a plan"?
- Reilly warns that Kendall County has avoided a Bastrop-scale disaster through luck, not skill. He argues that once residents recognize they are getting by on good fortune, they have an obligation to use that time to prepare, harden their property, and take the burden off luck before the next major fire event arrives.
- How has the mission of volunteer fire departments changed since the farming era?
- Reilly explains that older rural departments relied on practical farmers with narrowly defined roles and community appreciation. Since the late 1970s and 1980s, field medicine has entered the fire service, and medical calls now make up more than half of runs. Litigation and credentialing requirements have also added significant burden to keeping a volunteer department alive.
- What is the Hill Country Fire Coalition?
- The Hill Country Fire Coalition is a regional group that has engaged partners like Team Rubicon to reduce catastrophic fire danger in the area. Its function, as Reilly describes it, is to educate landowners who do not know how to manage fuel loads and to give people who need help a mechanism to ask for it, so ordinary fires do not become firestorms.
- What can rural homeowners actually do before firefighters arrive?
- Reilly points to landowner responsibility that was once assumed under the old farming ethic: clearing debris piles, installing fire breaks, and managing fuel on the property. He notes that some landowners do this intentionally and some do not, and that these choices matter enormously during a large community fire because prevention is the only thing that beats the flashover clock.
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