On Sunday, Fire Chief Teddy Stamatis had just left his home to go shopping when a fire call came in for a working fire at the Macclesfield Rural Fire Department's station.
On arrival Stamatis found heavy fire showing in the firehouse. He was able to get one of the apparatus bay doors open and remove one of his tankers to safety.
He tried to get back in but the building was too heavily involved. He could hear the other local fire departments responding and many of his firefighters were now arriving on location.
There wasn't much they could do until the other fire apparatus arrived. A total of 10 different stations responding with over 70 firefighters, and they took several hours to bring the fire, which was reported at about 9:30 a.m. under control. Crews were still extinguishing hot spots and removing debris at 4:30 pm, seven hours after arrival.