Folks across Haywood County celebrated America's 250th birthday with fireworks, and many of those explosives came from one unlikely place — a fire department in Tennessee.

The Grassy Fork Volunteer Fire Department sits just across the state line in Hartford, Tennessee. Over the last 16 years, the department has relied heavily on its annual fireworks sale to fund critical needs within the department.

The profits have funded a new fire station, new engines and new equipment to ensure the firefighters are able to protect the community.

And that's been thanks in large part to the traffic coming from east of the border in Haywood County.

Grassy Fork Fire Chief Walt Cross said he makes a point to tell his Haywood County shoppers how important their business is to the department.

"You're the ones who built this station, you're the ones who bought these trucks, you're the ones who make this possible for this station. Haywood County helped build this by buying fireworks, and we just appreciate that," Cross said.

Buying the station

The lucrative fundraiser got rolling back in 2011 when Grassy Fork needed a little extra help to make ends meet.

"We were having challenges financially at that time. We had one station, and the county would pay us $10,000 for that one station," Cross said.

Even with that check, it was tough to get things paid — and paid on time. The check came from the county every year in February, but the fire department's insurance payment was due in January.

"Every year, I'd have to write a letter and beg the mayor to release that money a month early, so we could pay our insurance. We did boot drives, we tried letter campaigns, we tried cookouts, and they just weren't generating enough money to meet the needs," Cross said.

That's when Cross met a volunteer firefighter from Fall Branch, Tennessee, who told him how they funded their station — fireworks.

Cross reached out to the department and began chatting about what they needed to do to successfully sell fireworks.

That first year, in 2011, the department set up a tent across from a gas station just north of Interstate 40.

"We made $2,000 in our first year, and we just tucked that money away. Then the next year, we made a little bit more, and we just kept tucking the money away. I say it took us about six years of just tucking money away," Cross said.

After those six years, the department had saved enough to start looking for a property that could house a new station.

But the original piece of land they looked at wouldn't be the final location.

"They said, 'No, we have a better place for you. Come on over here,'" Cross said.

That better place is where the fire station now hosts its annual fireworks sales. The department still operates its other station, but the newer one is busier.

"The reason we needed a department down here in Hartford is that the majority of our calls are on the interstate, or we're running automatic aid."

From there, the department cleared the land and started on the block work for the building. The next year, they added the building's metal roof. A couple of years later, the department added another metal building behind the main building.

Getting equipment

Grassy Fork moved one of its fire engines to the new station, but it still needed more engines. So, Haywood County stepped in to help in another way.

Haywood County Fire Marshal Andrew Messer, who was at the time the assistant fire marshal, heard the department needed a truck and knew just where they could find one.

"He said he knew a truck over in Cedar Mountain that was a good truck, and thought it might meet our need here, and so we went over there and negotiated with them and bought a truck. We raised enough money to buy that truck," Cross said.

Later on, Maggie Valley Fire and Rescue told Cross one of their engines would be up for sale within a couple of years.

The Maggie Valley department gave Cross and his folks first dibs.

"I said, 'Absolutely. That truck would do exactly what I need,'" Cross said.

That truck, plus another truck for wildland fires, were purchased with fireworks money and moved into the newest building.

Haywood County's help

There were plenty of times that fire departments in Haywood County helped out in a much bigger way than just pointing the Grassy Fork firefighters towards new equipment.

"Because we didn't have much, when they got a new vehicle, they would donate a vehicle to us, or apparatus, or air packs," Cross said.

They've also supported Grassy Fork firefighters with turnout gear. Cross said that in North Carolina, turnout gear can only be worn for 10 years.

When departments in Haywood County would get new gear, they'd donate the old stuff to the department right over the border.

"Our fire department started looking like Haywood County over here. We had the names of those departments on our guys' backs because that was newer than what we had," Cross said.

Since then, Tennessee has opened up grants to help cover the costs of turnouts, helping the department afford its own gear.

But the assistance goes both ways. Grassy Fork Volunteer Fire Department works hand-in-hand with the folks of Haywood County regularly, but doesn't receive payment for those services across the state line.

Cross said that historically, they'll go about seven miles past the state line to help in emergencies, but his firefighters have gone out as far as 15 miles to help on calls before.

The department works most often with Junaluska Fire Department when there is an accident on I-40 or with Fines Creek Fire Department when there's something off the interstate but near the state line.

"With Junaluska and with Fines Creek, there's no state line. They come over here and help us, and we go over there. We're just like next-door neighbors in the same state. That's the nice thing about living in the country. We're neighbors, we're kinfolk," Cross said.

This year's firework sales didn't go great for Grassy Fork, but it wasn't just the fire department that had a dip.

"We had a tough year this year, but it wasn't just us. It's an economy issue. It just wasn't as good," Cross said. "They were hoping for more sales because of 250, but we saw more people just saying, 'We'll just go to a fireworks show.' They just don't have the money."

The other major problem was the traffic from Haywood County to Hartford due to the I-40 construction in the Pigeon River Gorge.

"We saw folks from Haywood saying that it's too much of a hassle to come over in this traffic, and so that has been a hindrance this year," Cross said.

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