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Wildfire season wears down rural, volunteer fire departments

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CENTERVILLE, Texas — This summer's brutal wildfire season is taking its toll on rural fire departments.

“It went from just mowing one day to 60 acres on fire and seven days worth of us being out here," said obne of 35 volunteer firefighters in Centerville, Texas, Colton Adams.

His father, Fire Chief John Adams, says his men sacrifice their lives to protect their communities.

“They get up in the middle of the night, they get up from their Christmas table, they get up from the birthday party and they come to something like this," Chief Adams said pointing to an ashen field.

"They don’t draw a paycheck."

Just as Chief Adams was explaining to 15ABC the hard work his volunteer firefighters put in, his radio alarm went off.

"Here we go."

This extended dry and hot weather easily turns small sparks into fiery blazes and has worn out a department, where most firefighters already have other full time jobs and responsibilities.

“It's hard this time of year. We spend every day on fires and wrecks — there was one night I don't think any of us slept for more than two hours," Colton Adams said.

"We started at two o'clock that morning, and we finished at midnight the next day.”

Though this has been an especially active wildfire season, the National Park Service says humans cause nearly 85 percent of all wildfires.

Something as simple as mowing a lawn or throwing out a cigarette butt can lead to acres-wide wildfires that take hours, or even days, to put out.

Fire Chief John Adams says the last month and a half has been especially brutal for his crew.

Last year, they responded to a total of 450 calls. Now, they are already over 350 calls just by the end of August.

“I sure wish October would hurry up and get here because that's surely gotta bring some cool weather and some rain," Chief Adams said.

"I think that would be a good relief."

Until October, they're asking the community to help them by taking the burn bans seriously, and being cautions of anything that might set off a spark.