GREAT BARRINGTON — From 19 volunteers manning a hand hose-pumper nearly 170 years ago, the Great Barrington Fire Department has evolved into a modern town department with two stations, some 20 paid firefighters, a state-of-the-art building, and a fleet of emergency vehicles that includes a glistening million-dollar ladder truck.
But the operations of the department remain a mystery to many, so Great Barrington Fire Chief Charlie Burger sat down with Town Manager Mark Pruhenski last week to discuss his department’s operations during a virtual coffee.
See Edge video below of the March 2 “Coffee with the Town Manager” featuring Fire Chief Charlie Burger:
Burger said the department has come a long way, to put it mildly. From a group of ragtag volunteers with primitive horse-drawn equipment, the department now boasts the aforementioned 20 members, three of whom are full-time. The rest are “on-call,” meaning they get paid per call when they respond.
Of the three full-timers, Burger said, “They’re on a rotating schedule. They handle a lot of the fire prevention inspections, equipment maintenance, [and] prepping for training and they respond to calls as they come in. But our primary staffing for emergencies is still on-call … firefighters.'”
Still, he says even the number of 20 on-call members can be “deceiving” because often some are away at college, or taking a leave of absence for one reason or another, so effectively he has about 14 to 15 active members at any given time.
Summer weekends are the toughest time, when “only a fraction are available.” But Burger had nothing but praise for his members and noted that there is no real difference in skill level between full-time and on-call firefighters.
“It just has to do with additional responsibilities,” he explained.
Pruhenski, who himself served briefly in the Great Barrington Fire Department, asked Burger how someone who is interested in firefighting enters the field. Burger said the predominant method for recruiting is word-of-mouth, but sometimes people just walk into the fire station on State Road and ask.
After speaking with them, Burger tells them to come by the station on a Monday night training session and observe. For those who sign on, additional training sessions occur at the state fire academy, which offers year-round training and an accelerated program during the summers.
Under further questioning from Pruhenski, Burger was quick to point out that not every fire department worker is a muscle-bound young buck willing to run into a burning building.
“We get a lot of people with diverse backgrounds, with lots of skill sets and transferable skills,” Burger said. We really are the catch-all of emergency services. If somebody has a problem they don’t know how to solve, we’re the ones that get called. We’re generally the end of the line.”
Burger said the core of the job of a firefighter is “very physically demanding and extremely difficult.” But often, as firefighters age, “they graduate more towards driving the trucks … or command positions. They still fill some of the most vital roles.”
Currently, the department receives about 1,200 calls per year, with the volume split evenly between fire and rescue, and emergency medical services (EMS). In the past five years, there have been 65 structure fires.
Over the years, Burger’s department has transitioned from a simple department that fought fires to one that engages in all manner of operations, including motor vehicle extrications and technical rescues, mostly hiking incidents at the Monument Mountain reservation or for people who have fallen through the ice on one of the region’s many lakes. Some of his firefighters are on the Western Massachusetts Technical Rescue Team, overseen by Western Massachusetts fire chiefs.
In other cases, firefighters have to respond to more mundane problems, such as broken or frozen water pipes, or helping residents gain access to their homes after they have locked themselves out.
“People ask why we have so many fire trucks, but most of the time those trucks aren’t necessarily at a fire,” Burger explained. “There’s a ton of other specialized equipment on them.”
In addition to the firefighters themselves, there is a volunteer support group, headed by Burger’s mother, that raises money to provide support at major incidents. Volunteers bring food and water to emergency responders on the scene.
“It’s easy at a major incident to go through several hundred, if not thousands of dollars worth of supplies, just feeding 30 or 50 people,” Burger said.
And, of course, the Great Barrington Fire Department responds to mutual aid calls for other departments, and receives mutual aid in return. Businessman Richard Stanley asked Burger about the possibility of establishing a regional fire department — which Burger said is permissible under state law. The concept has been suggested numerous times in the past.
“That is definitely being talked about in various ways and at various levels, both with regards to EMS and fire,” Burger replied. “That’s a very challenging issue going forward but it definitely needs to be discussed.”
The Great Barrington Fire Department has a long and interesting history. A group of volunteers formed the Hope Fire Company in 1854 and managed to purchase a Button hand pumper, which was delivered by railroad car in June of that year, according to a history of the fire department on the town’s website.
That same year, the Great Barrington Fire District was formed to bring water to the town from the East Mountain Reservoir. In 1889, the Housatonic Hose Company was formed separately. Near the turn of the century, a series of fires caused extensive damage in the town, including one that nearly wiped out Railroad Street and the old Central Block in Housatonic. It was around that time that the Castle Street firehouse was built.
In 1976, the first district sold its firehouse to the town and both the Great Barrington Fire District and the private Housatonic Hose Company were combined to become a town fire department with a single chief.
The Great Barrington Fire Department left the Castle Street station after the new $9.1 million firehouse on State Road was completed in 2010. The department’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2023 is slightly more than $717,000. That figure does not include capital purchases, health insurance or pensions for full-time workers. Those items are paid for in other lines in the town budget.
“Thank you, on behalf of those of us who run away from burning buildings,” selectboard member Ed Abrahams told Burger.
Burger can be reached at cburger@townofgb.org.
