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In 1962, Cypress-Fairbanks looked very different than it does today, with most of its residents cattlemen, rice farmers and steel workers. And there was no fire station. But resident Lawrence Lieder decided to change that.

Lieder's commitment to having a Cy-Fair Fire Department led it to become one of the largest combination departments in the country, having 400 volunteer and 200 full-time firefighters, said Cy-Fair Fire Chief Joe Davis

"Without people like (Lieder) the residents of this area would have been greatly under-served," Davis said. "He was very, very instrumental in starting the fire department and keeping it going."

Davis and his department recently honored Lieder during a ceremony to commemorate 9/11.

Freeman Vickers lived in Cy-Fair for 25 years and was a Cy-Fair firefighter under Lieder. He said Lieder was invaluable in creating the Cy-Fair Fire Department.

"Without him there wouldn't have been fire protection for that area," he said.

Lieder, 82, was president of the Cy-Fair Fire Department for 19 years and he and his family are still very active in the department today. All three of his sons have volunteered for the department, and his son, Roger, is a veteran Houston firefighter.

"It's just in our blood," Roger Lieder said. "There's no way to describe it. Being a firefighter is just a part of you."

Lieder said that in 1962 he was a steel worker in Houston, but lived in Cypress with his wife, Mildred, and his sons and daughter. He believed residents' needed fire protection and he began to hold town meetings about it.

"We just didn't have anything out here," he said. "If there was a fire, (firefighters) had to drive from Houston to help us."

Lieder said he and about 30 men, none with any background or training in firefighting, held barbecue fundraisers and bought a truck they outfitted to carry water to fires. Residents called the men's homes if there was an emergency.

Mildred said that during the day wives took the calls and used a phone tree to reach firefighters.

After a fire call came in, the wives would call the homes of firefighters to get enough volunteers to fight the fire.

She recalls a time when she couldn't find anyone to help an elderly man who was afraid a grass fire was going to reach his house. She took her children, who then ranged in age from 6 to 12, and headed over.

"I told the kids to grab some feed sacks and wet them down and we got a broom and went to the man's house," she said. "It wasn't a very big fire and we put it out. So, even I'm a fireman, too."

Lieder also helped bring ambulance service to Cy-Fair in 1979. He became an EMT, emergency medical technician, and said he saw many grisly car wrecks on nearby roadways that were becoming crowded as the area grew.

"We were really happy to get an ambulance out here," he said. "It was something we needed very badly."

Mildred said her son Roger once went with her husband to help in a severe car accident on FM 1960 and Texas 249. He was only 16.

"I told (my husband) to let him go with him," she said. "He wanted to be a firefighter, so I thought this would either get it out of his system or he would become one."

It was the latter for Roger, who at 18 convinced the Houston Fire Department to allow him to join, even though the age minimum was 19. But the department first got his mother's permission.

"A captain from the Houston Fire Department came to see me and asked if it was OK," Mildred said.

"I said, 'Yes.' You want your child to have a good vocation, and this is a very honorable vocation."

Mildred said her daughter, Carolyn, never got into firefighting, but her sons, Larry, Roger and David, have all volunteered for the Cy-Fair department.

David served a short stint, and Larry served 10 years before becoming a Lutheran minister, she said.

Roger served 25 years with the Houston department, throughout that time also volunteering for the Cy-Fair department.

He is now assistant chief of the Whitehall Fire Department in Grimes County, which he helped form in May.

Vickers is Whitehall Fire Department chief and he has known the Lieder family for years. He also recently spent 11 days with Roger fighting the wildfires in Montgomery, Grimes and Waller counties.

The firefighters worked 24-hour shifts, slept for about five hours and started over again, Roger said. He said that many times the men had to pick up their equipment and run from the fires, leaving them to watch their friends' homes burn to the ground.

"You don't think about any of that in the moment," Roger said. "You can't. You just have to keep going."

Vickers said Roger has always been "extremely committed" to firefighting.

"You can take the boy out of the fire station, but you can't take the fire station out of the boy," he said. "He has always committed his personal time and finances to firefighting."

Lieder said he never dreamed his small fire department would become the big operation it is today. All he ever wanted was to ensure his family and neighbors were safe from fires.

"It was just something you did to try to help your fellow man and neighbors," he said.

For more information about the fire department, visit www.cyfairvfd.com/.