The town of Lewisville, Texas, used to be a small town, according to Fire Reservist and weather-buff, Bryan Jarvis. Just a few years ago, Lewisville had two traffic lights and two fire stations manned by paid firemen, supplemented with a 16-man volunteer fire department. But times have changed. Lewisville, located just north of Dallas, now has six stations of paid fire staff, and Bryan is one of the last remaining volunteers. While Bryan no longer fights fires, he continues to provide a myriad of support services from dragging hoses to monitoring tornados. Among his most valuable contributions to his community are his Davis Weather Monitor II weather station and local weather web page.

Back when Lewisville was still a two-traffic light town, Bryan's interest in fire fighting and weather inspired him to build his first weather station in his home (which happens to be right in the middle of town) and to connect it via a credit card modem to the dispatcher. Bryan later installed a Davis Weather Monitor II which now provides current weather information to the dispatcher via his website.

"The Weather Monitor has been very useful to our fire department," Bryan said. "For example, if there is a grass fire we can check the wind speed and humidity to determine how many trucks to send."

Recently, Bryan's weather station helped Lewisville impress evaluators during an Emergency Preparedness Drill with a scenario of a hazardous materials spill from a nearby Texas Instruments plant. Because of Bryan's web page, dispatchers were able to check the current wind speed and direction and determine a safe evacuation route.

Besides fire fighting and weather watching, Bryan is also a Ham radio operator. He has managed to combine all three interests by using the APRS (Automated Position Reporting System), a GPS with coordinates of his weather station, and his Weather Monitor II to broadcast mobile weather reports to other Ham radio operators and to the internet. "I live in 'Tornado Alley,'" Bryan said, "so I get to do storm chasing as well as fire-fighting."

Now we can all keep track of Bryan when he is out in his truck chasing storms, pulling fire hoses, or picking up a quart of milk at the corner store. His web page, http://www.flash.net/~bryanj1/, has links to his home location and his truck's current location!

"I saw a need for our community," Bryan told us, with a shrug. Needless to say, we at Davis feel pretty good about being a part of Bryan's community service.