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A Shiro volunteer firefighter was recovering Wednesday from injuries he suffered in a crash while responding to a house fire.
Tim Warren was listed in fair condition at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston following surgery, officials said.
But it could take the Shiro Volunteer Fire Department months to recover.
The department's water truck was totaled in the accident at Texas 30 and Texas 90 on Tuesday night, leaving it unable to function without assistance from other departments.
Warren, one of 12 volunteers, was pinned inside the truck after it collided with an 18-wheeler carrying salt water, Grimes County Sheriff Don Sowell said. The fire truck was traveling west on Texas 30, and the other truck was northbound on Texas 90 and was already in the intersection, Sowell said.
It took crews more than an hour to get Warren out of the wreckage, Sowell said. Two tow trucks worked to remove the 18-wheeler from the fire truck before he could be taken by helicopter to the Houston hospital, Sowell said.
Officials said the home was destroyed in the fire, but not because of the wreck. Other area departments had 12 firefighters respond to the fire, and another 14 or 15 responded to the wreck.
Department of Public Safety Trooper Kevin Smith said Warren was at fault in the accident.
"It's going to show in the report as failure to control speed on the firefighter," he said. "Even though we have times when we're authorized to run red lights and things like that, we still have to use due care when doing that."
Shiro Fire Chief Thomas Hardy said it would take months and more than $100,000 to replace the truck.
"The truck that wrecked we bought used for about $35,000," he said. "It's gonna cost us between $150,000 and $180,000 to replace it new."
He said it would probably be about six months before the department could get another truck, meaning it will have to rely on surrounding departments to help with calls in the meantime.
"We're going to have to use mutual aid with four other departments," he said. "Bedias, Richards, Anderson and Iola."
He said the department already has an agreement in place with Bedias.
"It's almost like an automatic aid agreement with them," he said. "They roll with us on pretty much every fire we get."
