KELLY — Kelly Volunteer Fire Department is celebrating its 40th Anniversary this year and Chief Charles Russ has been the chief of the department for 25 years. Russ took two years off as chief in one-year intervals.

On Saturday the all-volunteer fire department will hold a bar-be-cue plate sale beginning at 11 a.m. and honor their charter members at 1 p.m.

Russ has been the Kelly Volunteer Fire chief and a farmer. Russ has been married to his wife Angela, or as most of the people in the Kelly Community know her as “Peaches,” for 28 years. They have a son and a daughter and four grandchildren.

Kelly is located in the southeast section of Bladen County on N.C. Highway 53. It’s a rural community with a Post Office, Potter’s Store, the Volunteer Fire Department and EMS. The EMS are housed in a building given to the fire department about ten years ago by the David Lee and Dudley Smith’s family.

Russ was awarded the fist ever hero award by the Bladen County Commissioners in 2006 after he had pulled a woman from a burning car. His humble connents were, “I was just doing what my first instinct as a fireman or anyone would have done.”

Russ has been able to serve the Kelly Community and his neighbors by farming, making it a quick access to the fire department or an other disaster within the community.

When asked what were some of the worst times or conditions the fire department had to face over the years, he said, “1999-it was 16 days of flooded roads and houses after hurricane Floyd. There were many residents along Black River that either had to be evacuatated or those that choose to stay, they had to be checked on everyday.

“Myself and other members of the fire department would man a boat on N.C. 210 and travel along the flooded highway checking on area residents. My wife ‘Peaches’ she was a member of the fire department then and we both helped our fellow volunteer firemen and the community.

“Then there was the time the volunteers of Kelly Fire Department spent 25 hours on N.C. 11, an oil tanker flipped over on the Cape Fear River Bridge. There has been other tough times over the years but we all plulled together and learned something from each one of them.”

Russ said, “We have 12 first responder members of the fire department and seven of those are EMS certified and we have several younger members I’m hoping some of these will step up and take the place of some of our older members, it sure would be a help to not just the fire department but the community