In the small town of Adams, Tennessee, a small fire department stays ready if they ever get a call.
“Yes, I am a department of one,” said Chief Donovan Tucker of the Adams Fire Department.
The rest of the department’s manpower is all volunteer. Sometimes that can be tricky to navigate, but especially right now, during tobacco curing season.
“It’s very tricky, but fortunately we have had enough [volunteers] come in,” said Tucker.
At one point, the city of Adams and the surrounding area was considered the dark-fired tobacco capital of the world. Dark-fired tobacco is used primarily for cigars, pipe, and chewing tobacco. In fact, in nearby Clarksville, the state’s oldest newspaper The Leaf-Chronicle was named for the bumper crop. The distinct smell of a curing tobacco barn has become a beloved tradition in the area.
Curing tobacco is a delicate art. Eighth-generation tobacco farmer, Timothy Head, showed me how it works back in 2022 . A smoldering fire has to stay going around the clock for nearly a month to give the leaves the perfect cure. But changes out of the farmer’s control can make something routine suddenly become risky.