Kaylee Simons
Elmore Autauga News
For most of his life, Tommy Sanford has lived waiting for the next call.
Long before cell phones and modern dispatch systems, Sanford built his life around unpredictability. Nights, weekends, holidays, church services, and family time could all be interrupted in an instant by a fire pager or a phone call sending him toward someone else’s emergency. For over 40 years, Sanford worked as a Troubleman for Alabama Power, responding to outages and storm damage across the area. At the same time, he was helping build and lead the Santuck Volunteer Fire Department, where he has now served for more than 50 years. A lifetime spent on call is not something most people fully understand until they live it.
“You just don’t ever know when you’re going to have to go to an emergency,” Sanford said.
Even now, nearing 75 years old, Sanford still responds whenever he can. More than five decades ago, he attended one of the first meetings that would eventually lead to the creation of the Santuck Volunteer Fire Department after a family in the community lost their home because there was no nearby department able to respond in time.
“There was no fire truck close to respond, and they lost everything they had,” Sanford said.
That moment stayed with him. What started as neighbors trying to protect one another slowly grew into a lifelong commitment to the people and community Sanford calls home. Over the years, he has watched the department grow from a small rural effort into a system covering roughly 36 square miles with three stations and mutual aid agreements helping departments across the area support one another during emergencies.
Still, Sanford says many people never truly see what volunteer firefighters carry behind the scenes. The cost alone can be overwhelming. Sanford said properly outfitting one firefighter can cost around $20,000 between radios, air packs, turnout gear, and equipment. Even older trucks can cost departments hundreds of thousands of dollars. But beyond the financial side is the emotional weight that comes with responding to tragedy over and over again.
During the interview, Sanford reflected on the moments that stay with firefighters long after the trucks leave the scene. Over the years, he has responded to fatal wrecks, drownings, house fires, and emergencies involving families on some of the worst days of their lives. Those experiences carry a heavy emotional weight, but they also serve as a reminder of why the work matters.
For Sanford, some of the most meaningful moments come afterward. Seeing families rebuild after a fire, watching someone recover from a serious accident, or simply knowing a life was saved are the kinds of moments that have kept him answering calls for more than 50 years.
Even so, Sanford still talks about the work with the kind of compassion that only comes from someone who genuinely loves his community. For him, the calls that stick the hardest are not always the worst ones. Sometimes it is simply driving past a house that once burned and seeing a family back home again.
“You go by a house where we’ve had a fire, and they’re back in their house,” Sanford said. “It just gives you a good feeling.”
That quiet sense of responsibility has shaped much of Sanford’s life. While many people spend decades working one demanding career, Sanford spent much of his adult life balancing two roles that both required him to constantly be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Storms, structure fires, grass fires, wrecks, and medical calls. Emergencies do not wait for holidays, weekends, or sleep. Even recently, Sanford responded to a grass fire after already handling another call earlier that same day.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do it,” Sanford said. “But as long as I can still go and do, I’ll go.”
Sanford also spoke passionately about the importance of younger generations becoming involved in volunteer fire service, as many longtime volunteers continue getting older. Departments like Santuck rely heavily on community support, fundraising, and volunteers willing to dedicate enormous amounts of time to protecting people they may not even know personally. Much of that support through the years has come from the longtime Santuck Flea Market, which Sanford says has helped sustain the department while also benefiting neighboring fire departments, churches, missions, and local businesses throughout the area.
For Sanford, though, the heart of the department has never really been about the trucks, the equipment, or even the titles. It has always been about people. After more than 50 years spent answering calls for the Santuck community, Sanford’s legacy is not just found in the emergencies he responded to, but in the consistency of a life spent showing up whenever somebody needed help.
