Photos by Karim Shamsi-Basha.
An old photo from the history of the Cahaba Valley Fire Department.
When the Cahaba Valley Fire District began in 1978, U.S. 280 was a two-lane road, and the volunteer fire department was whoever showed up. No trucks worth the name, no paychecks, no station to speak of — just people who looked at a stretch of Shelby County filling up with houses and understood that if one of them burned, nobody was coming.
Photos by Karim Shamsi-Basha.
Firefighters with the Cahaba Valley Fire Department work on their equipment.
“This area was expanding and filling with people, and those who saw the need for a fire department started this station,” Fire Chief Buddy Wilks said. “That’s how those volunteer fire stations begin, to serve a community in need.”
Chief Grady Gulledge led the all-volunteer outfit in the early years. The first paid firefighters were hired in 1987, a paid chief followed in 1990, and in 1993, the district absorbed the Rex Lake Fire District.
What began with volunteers now runs four stations and 61 employees, covering the U.S. 280 corridor from the Doug Baker area out to Mt Laurel, Rex Lake and the Narrows.
Wilks came to Cahaba Valley in 2017 as a shift commander and became chief in 2021. He spent 26 years with the Birmingham Fire Department before that, starting in 1991 out of the East Lake station.
Photos by Karim Shamsi-Basha.
A photo album shows the history of the Cahaba Valley Fire Department.
The district calls itself “all-hazards.” Crews handle structure fires, storm damage, medical emergencies, ambulance transport, technical rescue and wide-area searches in Oak Mountain State Park.
“It’s a huge area out here, and we have to be ready for anything,” Wilks said.
Most of it is not fire. Of roughly 3,100 calls a year — about nine a day — 63% are medical: heart attacks, falls, car wrecks. Fires account for about 5%. The department’s paramedics run advanced life support, performing CPR and administering medications.
The big exceptions stick with people. In 2023, someone burning brush on a windy day set off a wildfire that ran across Double Oak Mountain toward Vandiver and burned some 300 acres before helicopters helped bring it down.
Photos by Karim Shamsi-Basha.
Chief Buddy Wilks, right, with firefighters at one of the stations..
Alexander Hamilton, 29, has been with the district eight months after leaving a career in sales and going through the Alabama Fire College in Tuscaloosa.
“There’s more action as a firefighter, and the job feels good,” he said. “I love serving the public and the community.”
Chad Parker, 24, is three years in and works as an EMT. He grew up around here, and he is the first firefighter in his family.
“This is where I started,” Parker said. “You never know what you’re going to get. That’s part of it. And the brotherhood is something hard to describe. We hang out outside of work. We depend on each other. We have to.”
Nearly 50 years and four stations later, the trucks are better, the training is longer, and U.S. 280 has six lanes. But the arrangement has not changed. Somewhere out there tonight a phone will ring, and someone will show up.
