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Pardue recognized that nearly every story he read about rural fires included the phrase "By the time the firefighters arrived, the house was fully engaged." His curiosity about the effectiveness of rural volunteer fire departments led to this story, which found that they really aren't effective at all. People protected by volunteer fire departments are nearly three times as likely to die in a fire than those protected by full-time departments. Lots of interviews and database analysis exposed a lot of problems within volunteer fire departments.