Video Recalls 50 Years of Fire Fighting

Source: Sunday Republican (Springfield, MA)

Author: FRED CONTRADA

GOSHEN, MA – For drama, it hardly rivals “Backdraft,” but if you’re in the mood to watch a bulldozer knock down an old firehouse, the “History of the Goshen Fire Department” is a must.

History, specifically small town history, is another selling point in the 44-minute video, which covers the 50-year existence of the town’s Fire Department from its inception in 1945 to one of its most explosive calls earlier this year.

Home-produced by volunteer firefighter Paul Webb, the project stemmed from the completion of the new fire station this June.

“We were having the dedication of the station, and we thought it was a good idea to do several things, this being one of them,” said Fire Chief Francis Dresser. “We never had a historian, so there are some awful holes in it.”

With only a camcorder to film and a videocassette recorder to edit, Webb spent about six weekends piecing together the history from old photographs and more recent videos. What he came up with was a chronological account of the department that highlights the contrasts between past and present and offers a few gems concerning small-town culture.

The video begins with Webb’s voice detailing the creation of the department in 1945 by Sidney Sears, Tony Thomas, Stuart Mollison and Gordon Newell. The first fire truck, a 1937 Dodge capable of pumping 500 gallons of water per minute, was purchased in 1948 and financed by various fund-raisers, including the “Firefighters Follies,” which featured men in blackface. The annual minstrel show ended in 1963.

“We stopped it when people got real touchy about charcoal faces,” Dresser recalled.

Among its other points, the video underscores the spiraling cost of firefighting equipment. For example, in 1956 the town bought a used Packard ambulance nicknamed “The Green Beetle” for less than $300. The first new ambulance purchased in 1971 cost $7,000. The next, bought in 1978, cost $35,000.

Money has always been hard to come by for the Fire Department, according to the video. In 1978, Webb narrates, Goshen applied for a federal grant to build a new fire station.

“This and future grant applications were to prove futile,” he explains.

The need for a new fire station was obvious, however. The original facility, built by volunteers on land donated by Webb’s parents, Otis and Marguerite Webb, was barely able to house the newer trucks. The second story of the building was condemned in 1984, and the town was unable to insure it. Voters finally approved $225,000 for a new station in 1987.

Although the old building was condemned, it seems virtually indestructible as a National Guard bulldozer tries again and again to knock it down in what is arguably the highlight of the video. At one point, after the bulldozer has demolished nearly all of the first-story walls, the second story seems to be floating on air.

“Three corners gone, and it’s still standing,” says the narrator.

Other home-made video clips give viewers a tour of the new station, which was completed in stages over the course of more than five years and dedicated last June.

Snapshots of the department show how it was transformed from an informal, poorly trained, ill-equipped operation into a modern department with the only all-volunteer advanced life-support service in the state. In 1978, with firefighters finally taking training classes, the department purchased its first Jaws of Life equipment.

“This was to be a much-used tool with all the accidents on Route 9,” Webb says, while the video shows a photograph of a car crushed against a telephone pole.

Emergency Medical Technician training began in 1982, followed a few years later by training for a mountaineering rescue team. The emergency 911 system was installed in 1993 and 1994.

In a town of 830 residents where buildings are few and far between, so are dramatic fires. The video shows the aftermath of the Holy Cross Camp fire in 1957 with the department’s hoses draped over the fire station roof to dry. More compelling, however, is television news footage from February of this year when Goshen firefighters, the State Police Bomb Squad and a score of other public safety officials converged on South Chesterfield Road to dispose of 150 pounds of dynamite.

The three 50-pound boxes of dynamite were discovered a few days earlier when Goshen firefighters responded to a fire at the home of farmer Richard Messeck. Neighbors who lived within 1,500 feet of the site were told to leave their windows open to prevent them from shattering in case the dynamite went off. The Bomb Squad was able to destroy the dynamite without incident.

Dresser, who was named Fire Chief in 1952 and has been with the department from the beginning, has personally seen it through its many changes.

“It used to just be a glorified bucket brigade, but it’s very professional now,” he said. “We spend more for training now than we used to for the total budget.”

Webb, 53, a volunteer firefighter for 30 years and an EMT for 20, said the making of the video was a struggle because of the lack of historical documents.

“The only disappointing thing was there wasn’t a heck of a lot of photographs,” he said.

Webb, who is also trained to handle hazardous waste, said he is called out on a couple of fires and about 200 ambulance runs a year. Like the other volunteers, he is not paid.

“You’ve got to want to do it,” he said.

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