COMMUNITY STEPS UP TO HELP DURING PANDEMIC!

Local fire chiefs Ron Patten of the Boyd-Edson-Delmar Fire Department and Korey Hagenson of the Stanley Fire Department aren’t quite sure just what the funds will be used towards yet, but they each have their wish lists. With matching donations from Martino’s Restaurant approaching $3,900 a piece in the wake of the annual Fire Prevention Week fundraiser, the local fire agencies were presented their checks this past Friday at Martino’s by owner Ron Haas, in front of a warm Italian villa display, outside snow would later fall that day. The long running annual fundraiser did especially good this year, with plastic fire hats almost all given out the day of the event. Martino’s Restaurant owner Ron Haas had more to share at the check presentation ceremonial Friday.

“I think it was probably the second best we ever did,” Haas said of community turnout for the annual fundraiser to benefit local fire departments, with the two local fire chiefs agreeing that the restaurant’s drive-thru was especially busy. Held each October during Fire Prevention Week, the annual shot in the arm for local fire services is staffed by crew members from each department, who take orders, bus tables, prepare pizza and even make the final pizza cuts—with a very large, curved pizza blade. And although the annual fire department fundraiser is over now, dine-in is open at Martino’s, with the practice of social distancing being observed to help keep the local business going. But as for Patten and Hagenson’s wish lists?

“We haven’t really decided,” Hagenson said for Stanley, though he said it had been talked about at the department. “One is a new Jaws set,” Hagenson said, having gone to inspect the Boyd-Edson-Delmar set purchased earlier this year

Photo by Joseph Back. with donations, liking what he saw. Fire Chief Patten of the Boyd-Edson-Delmar department was also undecided. “It will go for equipment,” he said of the funds raised through Martino’s fundraiser, but adding of specifics that, “I’m not sure yet.” But shifting away from funds raised to fire safety protocols, what’s the biggest thing people tend to forget in a fire event? “I would say they forget to get down low to the ground,” Patten said, with Hagenson agreeing with him.

“I was just going to say the same thing,” he said of Chief Patten’s answer. Patten said in addition that firemen will take a chance for a person, but not for possessions, while that trophy gun or other material object “can be replaced.” Not getting down to the ground, meanwhile, can result in asphyxiation from smoke, resulting in unconsciousness and worse in a burning home. As one poignant reminder of what can happen, in 1935 Franklin Schmidt went back inside the family farmhouse in Worden for a prized manuscript after helping his dad George Schmidt make it to safety in a midnight fire. Franklin never came back out. The foundation ruins of the Schmidt home, meanwhile, are still visible in the nature preserve along the west side of Copenhaver Avenue south of County N in the Schmidt Memorial Woods, serving as a reminder that one can never be too careful when it comes to fire precautions. The ruins are visible from the roadside, and do not require visitor entry into the hunter-free woods that will nonetheless soon be surrounded nonetheless by gun deer hunters. If you do choose to enter, wear orange for proper visibility, and get your kids their safety whistle from the Stanley Fire Department to help keep large wildlife at bay. The bears should be sleeping, but safety first!