The Paul Smiths-Gabriels Volunteer Fire Department was founded in 1977, but it was formed from the 1966 volunteer fire department of Paul Smiths College.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, September 9, 2006
A 40-year tradition of fire fighting
By JACOB RESNECK; Enterprise Staff Writer
PAUL SMITHS - While the Paul Smiths-Gabriels Volunteer Fire Department was founded in 1977, its roots lie with a group of Paul Smith's College students during the summer of 1966. Forty years on, it's been incarnated into a municipal department that protects the town of Brighton and parts of Santa Clara.
The fire department keeps busy, responding to about 100 calls a year and running a budget of about $120,000. This year’s been active; nine months into the year, the department recently responded to its 88th fire call.
But in the beginning, it was a 1942 World War II surplus fire truck lying in the college scrap heap that attracted the attention of students looking to start a college fire department. Through a spirit of volunteerism, they founded a small department to protect the campus. While it continued for about a dozen years, the fledgling department was limited to on-campus activity and wasn't able to protect the rest of the town of Brighton.
"We did go to a fire on the Keese Mill Road, but it always became a kind of touchy situation as the school was scared of the liability," recalled George King III, who as a 19-year-old helped found the college department with other students and became the College department's first chief.
King said when he arrived at Paul Smith's College as a hospitality student, he already had some firefighting experience as a volunteer in Massachusetts. He was taken aback by the remoteness of the college and asked if there was a local department. He said the dean of students admitted there wasn't; in fact, the college had recently lost a building to fire.
"So we started organizing the fire department," King " said, "and when I left two years later, there were 73 members and three pieces of operating equipment - a tanker and two pumpers." The college department fought fires on and around the campus for about a dozen years but wasn’t able to protect the, surrounding houses, recalled Rouse Fountain, founding chief of the successive Paul Smiths-Gabriels Volunteer Fire Department.
That was demonstrated in 1976. That winter, founding member Bill Jost recalled, a fire broke out at his father's house, in McColloms. In those days, the Bloomingdale Volunteer Fire Department provided fire. protection for the town of Brighton and its trucks had to traverse icy and snow-covered roads during inclement weather.
Jost said when the fire engine arrived, its water pump had frozen solid during the 15-mile trip.
"That had a lot to do with my dad wanting to get a fire department here," Jost, said.
As a 17-year-old, Jost was a charter member of the new department; Now first assistant chief, he's the last active member from the original 25 founders.
The founding, chief of the Paul Smiths-Gabriels department, Bob Tummons, recalls the circumstances of the new department.
The leadership of the college wanted to disband its small department "due to insurance reasons and, probably, lack of participation," he recalled. He and a few others were approached which led to discussion in the town of Brighton about founding its own municipal department. A consensus was building", he said, that Bloomingdale was too far away to provide adequate protection.
"Some of the response times from Bloomingdale, they took too long," Tummons said.
It was nothing personal. At the time, town of Brighton residents were members of the Bloomingdale Volunteer Fire Department -- but the engines were based too far away... The college was very supportive, Tummons recalled, donating the equipment from its former department and offering a place on campus for the department that continued until 1998.
Some students and faculty signed up as members. Students who were trained firefighters in their home communities were able to pitch in and the result was a combined college/community partnership.
Century-old Saranac Inn blaze: the fire department's first test
On June 18, 1978, the new department got one of the area's most infamous fires as its maiden call. The century-old luxury resort that had played host to President Grover Cleveland was fully involved.
"That was our first call; it was mutual aid to the Saranac Lake department," Tummons recalled. "We fought the fire, stayed overnight;it was an overnight deal. It was a very, large fire, and a lot of coverage."
The blaze spawned hundreds of smaller fires, which four volunteer departments worked more than seven hours to contain. While the hotel was lost, firefighters prevented the structure fire from blazing into a full wildland conflagration.
Fountain was also there that, evening. The department still only had one pumper, he said; the surplus military two-and-a-half ton "deuce-and-a-half truck." Unfortunately, it wasn't up to the job. "'While we were fighting the fire we blew the engine in it," Fountain said.
The Paul Smiths-Gabriels fire department today
The Paul Smiths-Gabriels Volunteer Fire department remained on the campus of Paul Smith's College until 1998, when the college donated an acre-and-a-half parcel adjacent to the school to build a new firehouse.
After groundbreaking in the spring, the department had a modern facility that houses its six trucks and a barge.
Twenty-five members strong, the department still has its challenges in maintaining volunteers and recruiting new ones, Chief Roger Smith said.
"Trying to replace people or just get new people interested - it's probably the most difficult," Smith said. "People say all the time, 'Why would I want to run into a building that's on fire?'"
If you have to ask, firefighting probably isn't in your blood, he quipped.
It's all about the training, Jost interjected. A basic fire, fighting course is about 80 hours of practical and theoretical instruction, giving fire-fighters the confidence to accomplish what to others might seem foolhardy.
"It's not as big of a risk as some people think it is," said Jost, a 30-year veteran. "You're well trained, and that gives you the confidence to go inside and save a person or property."
While the job is unpaid, the sense of camaraderie that exists within the department and with other firefighters -- is very rewarding, Jost said.
Still, the time commitment can be daunting and Smith said he recognized that before he joined.
"It took me a few years to decide it was the right time because I didn't want to start anything I couldn't put enough time in" Smith said. He joined in 1989, he said, and swore he wouldn't become an officer.
"But I was in for two years and I began to climb the ladder," Smith said, the chief for the past seven years.
Two departments meet, 40 years later
In June, the two Paul Smiths volunteer fire departments met 40 years after the college department's humble founding. Members from the college department were elated to see that "Sam," the 1942 Army pumper, is still in service as the department's parade truck. A check for $1,600 was raised amongst them and donated for its upkeep.
When the returning, members saw what their experiment had transformed from a ramshackle retired truck to a state-of-the-art fire station, it was a moving moment, King said,
"When we saw what they had that came from something that we had started as a bunch of students 40 years ago," King said, "it was an emotional moment."
After spending about three days with members of the new department, King said, it was like attending a reunion with family members he hadn't met before.
