By Shelby Shank
Field Editor
The call can come at any moment.
Zack Altman might be miles from town on a tractor plowing a field or hauling hay, but when the pager goes off, everything stops.
He’s a full-time farmer and rancher in Memphis, a rural town of about 2,000 people. But when the need arises, he becomes something else entirely—a volunteer firefighter with the Memphis Volunteer Fire Department (VFD).
Seventeen volunteers make up the fire department, covering the northeastern side of Hall County and responding to everything from structure fires and highway wrecks along U.S. 287 to fast-moving wildfires.
Memphis VFD covers 660 square miles of Hall County and serves over 6,000 residents. With no paid crews on standby, the department relies entirely on volunteers, and most of them are farmers and ranchers.
“There’s a few that have different jobs, but mainly everybody in our fire department is involved in agriculture one way or the other,” Altman said.
More than a brotherhood
That shared way of life helps form the foundation of the department.
“This fire department has a brotherhood, and it becomes our family away from our family,” Altman said.
That bond is built in the moments between the chaos and strengthened during long calls that stretch into late nights, when there’s just enough time to check in and make sure everyone is holding up.
“If somebody’s family is going through something, we’re asking about it,” he said. “Because their family is your family.”
The brotherhood is also built in the moments when trust becomes everything.
“You’ve got to trust these guys with your life,” Altman said. “You have to know they’re looking out for you, and you’re looking out for them.”
Chasing wildfires
Fire is a constant threat in Hall County.
With an average rainfall of 15 to 16 inches each year, the land stays dry, leaving grass and brush ready to burn.
“It ignites like a match and just keeps going,” Altman said.
Wind only makes it worse. On any given day, wind gusts can push 20 to 30 miles per hour, sometimes climbing as high as 70 miles per hour and turning a small spark into a fast-moving wildfire in minutes.
Altman has seen just how quickly those fires can turn dangerous.
In 2024, he responded to the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest wildfire in Texas history and second largest in the United States.
After hearing crews in Canadian had been battling flames for days without rest, Altman loaded up with two other volunteers and drove more than two hours to help.
“By the time we got there, the fire was already coming into town, and it was one of the most tragic things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “You drive into a place that’s usually full of life, and it’s just gone. You can’t see the sun, and there’s smoke everywhere. Houses and people’s livelihoods are just burning up, and it got so bad they were telling us if a home was fully engulfed, to move on and try to save the next one because everything was catching so fast.”
Fields of service
Altman has been a volunteer firefighter with Memphis VFD for 11 years. He also works as a seasonal wildland firefighter with the Texas A&M Forest Service. But the pull toward service started long before he joined the department.
Growing up, he watched family members and community leaders serve on the fire department and set an example he wanted to follow.
“When I was a senior in high school, I found out you could join, and I immediately put my application in,” Altman said.
After high school, that passion led him to a full-time position with the Texas A&M Forest Service. He left college to pursue firefighting, answering what he felt was a clear calling to serve others.
“I jumped on it. I signed up, came home from college and told my dad I was quitting school to be a full-time firefighter,” Altman said.
His father supported that decision, but everything shifted in 2016 when his father passed away.
“After his passing, I felt like I had an obligation to our family legacy to carry on the family farm,” he said. “I’m a sixth-generation farmer, and I didn’t want to let our farm go away.”
Today, he grows cotton, wheat, hay and raises cattle.
But service is rooted deep in Altman as noted by his involvement in the community and across the state. He is a member of Texas Farm Bureau’s Young Farmer & Rancher Advisory Committee and serves as the secretary-treasurer of Hall-Donley County Farm Bureau.
Agriculture is where his heart has always been, but so is firefighting.
“We have agriculture. It’s what built the community. It’s what continues to sustain it,” Altman said. “We might be poor in money, but we’re rich in bonds and friendships.”
And when those bonds are tested—when smoke rises on the horizon or a call comes across the radio—Altman doesn’t hesitate. Because for him, service isn’t separate from his life in agriculture.
It’s part of it.
And he always answers the call.
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