KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
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One family of five Kansas City, Kansas, Fire Department firefighters had the unique opportunity to work together Wednesday.
“I just can’t tell you how proud I am of my whole family, certainly my sons that are standing here,” Chad Womble, the assistant chief of recruitment and retention for KCKFD told me. “When I say sons, I’m definitely including Tyler Nevells, he is my son as well.”
I met Womble, along with his three sons, Tyler, Trenton and Cameron, at Fire Station 19 in KCK on Wednesday morning. Tyler Nevells is Chad Womble’s son-in-law.
Chad told me the idea of having all five family members work together was Chief Dennis Rubin’s idea.
“Shortly after Cameron was hired, Chief Rubin had the idea that, ‘You guys have got to spend one day working together,’” Womble told me.
He also said coordinating Wednesday’s joint shift took a lot of planning.
Rubin told me shifts like this never happen, so it truly is a unique opportunity.
As soon as my photographer Lauren and I showed up at Station 19, half of the family had to run out to a call that came in, and the other half was already out.
Rubin told me Station 19 is a high-traffic station. Womble explained normally none of the family members are stationed at Station 19, but they needed a location with a pumper and an ambulance.
“My dad did a great example of showing us how good of a career it was,” Cameron Womble, Chad’s youngest son, told me. “Definitely some good benefits and just the physical aspect kind of intrigued me.”
Cameron Womble joined KCKFD as a firefighter EMT in 2024, the same year Nevells also joined as a firefighter EMT.
Both of them are hoping to begin paramedic school in the fall.
Trenton Womble started with KCKFD as a firefighter paramedic in 2021. Tyler Womble is also a firefighter paramedic, but he started in 2018.
“I didn’t think that I would ever have this many of my brothers in the department with me,” Tyler Womble told me. “I thought it was just going to be me and my dad.”
Trenton Womble told me he feels the same way. Tyler told me at first, Trenton was thinking about being a police officer. Funnily enough, Station 19 sits right next to a KCKPD station.
“Growing up, we’d go visit the fire station all the time, you know, and get to play on the trucks and stuff like that and just kind of see all the equipment,” Trenton Womble told me. “At that time, never in my wildest dreams would I think I’d be at a station working on rigs with my dad and brothers. I think that’s just uber cool that we actually get to do that now.”
I asked them what the most exciting part of the job was, and Nevells couldn’t just name one thing.
“I’d say the most exciting thing is just being together, spending time with one another, being able to serve our community together, as a family and as fellow brothers in fire service,” Nevells said.
Chad Womble told me where the family serves is also an intentional choice. As our station’s Wyandotte County beat reporter, I was eager to hear about their connection to the area.
“I am what they call an original Dotte,” Chad told me. “I was born and raised in Wyandotte County.”
Unlike his sons, Chad is a first-generation firefighter, but he still had role models around him. Growing up, his best friend’s father was a firefighter with KCKFD.
“The whole career just intrigued me, and I never really wanted to work anyplace else but Kansas City, Kansas,” Womble said. “This is home, this is the community I want to serve.”
Chad says his sons are also ‘Original Dottes.’ Besides their last names (and even first names, in the case of the Tylers), they wear the name "firefighter" with pride.
“They probably don’t want to hear this, but I get reports from guys all the time about ‘em, and they’re all good,” Chad said.
Lauren and I got to ride in the back of a fire truck on Wednesday on their way to run drills for training Cameron needed to complete.
“One of the things firefighters do on the first year of the job is they’re given a task book,” Chad told me. “That task book has in it a number of firefighter drills that they have to complete with their crews while they’re in the field. We thought it’d be a great opportunity since we’re all here together. We’re all gonna do at least one task in his task book.”
Even on a cold, rainy and windy day like Wednesday, this family was in full force with their training. As a civilian, I would not have known if these were drills or the real thing.
Chad told us to prepare for the possibility of a call coming in while we were out with them. It reminded me of the sporadic nature of being a journalist.
“That’s one of the beauties of the fire service, you don’t know what you’re going to do each day,” Chad told me. “Every day is a little bit different.”
But on this day, Chad got to share a moment with his sons that will go down in history and start a fire he never plans to put out.
After all, they have their whole lives together.
“I’ve never been more proud in my life than this moment,” Chad said.
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