HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1975-06-26, Page 28From hose and re"el itQ m,odern t nker
Seaforth's fire brigade
By Nancy Andrews„.
Staforth's fire department will
be celebrating with the town its
centennial this y ear. •
When nostalgia sweeps the
town, milk residents will )vondet
if'today's firemen still possess the
same spirit as the founders of the
brigade had .in the days of the
hook. and-ladder company.
The fire department has 20
local volunteers, three fire trucks,
Plus an older model that has been
pensioned off and is used just for
its ladder. A new 'truck was
bought recently for a cost of just
under $40,00.
This. was a far-dry from the
value of fire equipment,
excluding 'the value of the tanks,
which was worth about $2,200 in
the early 1870's.
Prior to the forming of the new
brigade in 1875, Seaforth had a
fire brigade with James Cline as
chief. The water supply came
from oveka dozen tanks located
throughout the town • each
containing 1,738 cubic feet of
water.
Today's fire chief is Don
Hulley, who had three years with
the fire department before he
took over as chief. Since 1970, the
fire department has been under
the control of an Area Fire Board.
Instead' of contracting • Out to
neighboring townships as it had
done since 1951, Hullett, Hibbert,
McKillop, Tuckersmith and
Seaforth joined the area board
' and agreed to a joint fire
department. '
This yeaes budget was $16,726
with Seaforth paying a share
based on assessment. This turned
out to be $5,499 or about 33 'per
cent of the cost.
Representatives on the -board $ are appointed by .the
municipalities. Seaforth has two
members on the board and CleaVe
Coombs, of Tuckersmith is
chairman.
Right this minute, if a fire
broke out, a telephone call would
be made which would be
answered by the hospital
switchboard. At one time, there
were six fire phones placed
throughout the town which would
ring in different homes.
Bessie Broonie, wife of fireman
Ron Broome, 'said one of the
reasons the fire phones were
abandoned was b,ecause some
wives didn't like answering the
fire phones and also the hospital When they were fighting one
fire in Dublin, another was
. started,, so Brucefield was 'called
to relieve them. Ever since the
late. 1950's, Seaforth has had a
mutual aid agreement with
surrounding municipalities.
Mitchell is the town's first hop
call. •
,Seaforth belongs to a country-
wide mutual aid gssociatidn which
contains about 17 units and Mr.
"Scott said it took a couple of years
to get the firemen to accept the'
mutual aid agreement because
they didn:t understand it,,
although they had been providing
it for years.
Firemen must fight fires for
Jove, for surely -they are net
it for money. Today firemen get a
grant which is $150 per man plus
$4 for each hour firefighting and
$2 for answering the fire alarm.
grants seldom go over $400 and
the 'average would be about $260,
the fire chief said.
Mr.•Scott -said the firemen got
paid a grant for as long as he
could remember. „They used to
get $12 a year, minus $1 for
missing a meeting and $1 for
missing a fire.
Fireman George Garrick said
they tan get called to a fire from a
dance, and there goes a good pair
of shoes and dress pants.
Firemen are hardly in it for the
money, he said.
To enter the fire department, a
the fire hall during the day and
about a maximum of five minutes
at night because it takes longer
since they must wake up, and get
,dressed.
. There are about four firemen
who live in running distance from
the hall, and they usually get
there first, answer the fire phone
in the hall, and might take out the
trucks, ' the rest of the men
following later, he said.'
As the chief said: "The firemen
who miss, the truck are really
disappointed, we don't get that
many and they want to be at the
fore front.
The first nine men go out to the
country fires, and the rest are
often disappointed when they find
the quota has been mached. If it's
a town fire two fire trucks go out,
and.if a country fire-a truck and
tanker goes out so the town isn't
left unprotected at any time, he
said...Ninety-five per cent of the
time, only two trucks leave the
town, he said.
Two at once
• But what happens if two fires
occur at the same time? Well,
Chief Hulley said: "We've had
that happen. We had some
arsonists around."
has someone manning the
switchboard 24 hours a day.
The switchboard operator trips-
a switch which sets the siren
ringing in the town. At end time; "
it was quite comical around here,
a fireman remembers. A-lot of the
men were older, and didn't have
time to put their teeth in, so they
'were gumming 'it at the fire.
Wife Feels
When asked how his wife felt
when the fire whistle blows , Jim
Sills said, she gets as excited as
he does. "As I'm getting my
pants on, She's• getting my coat
ready and we try co-ordinating
everything at the front •door."
Den Hulley remembers before - -
joining the department-, he used
to sleep through the fire alarin.
Even now if the telephone rings
he doesn't hear it, but it only
takes one dingle from the alarm
and he's wide awake, he said.
The present firemen are not the
only ones who hear the alarm.
Habit dies hard . Jack Scott, 75,
fire chief for 22 years ' and 'a
fireman since 1931 said -he still
wakes-up at the first sound of the
whistle.
"It's never out of your system,
it's just a•habit," .he said.
He said people' were always
amazed how fast the firemen
were on the street.
Chief Hulley said it takes two to
three Minutes until the men are at
from the edge of the truck, Bill Eisler. Front Row:
Don Coleman, Jim Sills,Don Pletsch, Ron Broome,
George Reeves, Jack Muir, TOrn Phillips, Jim Glew,
Jack Bedard, Harry Hak, Don Hu'lley and Jim Palin.
()Staff Photo)
man needs permission to leave
'his job at any time: Some places
still don't .allow their employees
to join, the fire chief •said.
Jim Sills said sometimes.
someone makes a crack when the
alarm rings about how he's
leaving to save a foundation. His
answer to ' them.. he said was
"You'd want me to go if it was
your place' burning down."
When the fire bell rings, the
men have to be able to drop what
they're doing and go. This can be
inconvenient as in the case 'when
Ron Broome had glued steps for a
carpbt,, and the alarm went.
• It took hiirra half a day to clean
up afterward, the, firemen., said.
When y ou're self-employed, the
time it takes to fight a fire which
can be from 15 minutes for a false
alarm to 2 to 3 - hours to a
maximum of six hours,comes out
of your own-pocket, Mrs. Broome
said.
If it happens at night, like a ,lot
of them do, then you just lose
your sleep, she said.
On Call
Fireman Garrick said: "You're
on call pretty well all the time
whether y ou' are babysitting, or
at a dance. No matter what you're
doing, you pretty well have to '
drop everything, even leave
chbrch on ,Sunday.':
It could be said one fireman
went above and beyond the call of
duty. The fireman's wife was
pregnant and expecting any time,
when the fire whistle blew: The
fireman left to fight the fire and
the baby was born later that
night.
Now the men age from 23 to 45
since most of the veterans have
retired. Jack M uir is the senior
man with about 20' years in the
department.
Mr. Scott said it's good to have
some older fellows in the
department who know the ropes,
but it's a young man's job to tell
Tie thith;-holding the hoses and-
putting up ladders. "I miss the
firehall, 'cause I kicked a lot of
time around there," he said.
Mr. Scott who retiredas chief a
couple of years ago said he never
felt his age until the year before
he retired. It was 10 degrees
below and there was a fire in
Mitchell. "I was alright during
the fire, but after when it was
time to roll up the hoses I was all
.shivery."
"I was never the same since.
Before I never thought anything
about running to the fire hall," he
said.
When he started on the fire
brigade, they' only had an old
truck, two feel carts for the hoses,
and some axes. "That was the
extent of it," he said.
"Of course, everything has
gone modern. Now they have
everything to work with," he
said. .
Now the tiremen have three
trucks that hold about 500 gallons
of water apiece. a tanker holding
1,500 and a portable canvas tank
that holds 1,000.
A booster pump at a river, can
pump water into the tanker which
can return to the fire, empty its
load 'in the portable tank and„,
return if necessary for more-water
CALM PROFESSIONALISM — Who would 'have
thought from looking at George Reeves, the he or a
fellow fireman could have been dancing, or sleeping
several minutes before the fire whistle blew. On a
typical night, firemen blindly throw on their clothes,
rush to the fire hell to Madly tear around their
cramped quarters for coats, hats and boots. Minut
later they are calmly fighting a blazing fire. Firemen
joke if they get a fire call on Monday night while
playing baseball in the Industrial League. They are
the fastest and best dressed firemen around
al-though the other team suspects a put-up job.
THE HU ON EXPOSETO , JUNE 26, 1515 —5
from the river.
"Pretty well for every fire we
go through that procedure," the
fire chief said. This would be
done mainly for country fires
which lack fire hydrants.
He said now 75 per cent of the
fires are rural. Rural fires are in a
sense worse, because it takes
longer to get to them, and they
lack a water supply, the chief
said.
"If farmers $invested in a pond
-they would get more protection
(Continued on Page 20)
a
p
tr
IT IS NOT THE ST, VALENTINES DAY MASSACRE
— Although we lined these firemen against their
truck and shot them-These fighting firemen will live
on to fight other fires: Back row: Vern Scott, Bedford
Taylor, George Garrick, Pete -Kling and swinging