End of era in firefighting
Published 10:34 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
STANWOOD — They’re the last of the volunteers.
Three men, with more than 75 years between them of racing out in the middle of the night to fires that ravaged the homes, stores and factories of Stanwood.
When Nick Hansen, Jack Freberg and David Brandt signed on to give up every Tuesday night to train with the Stanwood Fire Department, that’s just the way things were done, said Hansen, 54.
“It’s just what you did in the old days,” he said. “Everybody took their turn.”
Over the past quarter century, the three men have seen it all. A few licks of flame in a housewife’s kitchen. False alarms at local businesses. Floods, car accidents and high winds.
But nothing compared with the night in 1996 when Twin City Foods went up in smoke.
It was a magnificent blaze, said Bryant, 51.
“The volume and power of a fire is something you only understand if you’re there,” he said.
As the building collapsed and the firefighters scrambled to extinguish the blaze, Freberg knew just how deeply the disaster would affect the community.
The pea processing factory was where he worked his day job, as a maintenance man.
“I fought the worst fire at the time that could happen in Stanwood, and I lost my job at the same time,” said Freberg, 56.
But it was a can-do community, where workers did what was needed to turn things right. Freberg found a job on the factory’s demolition crew, then another job as a construction worker to rebuild it. When Twin City Foods re-opened, Freberg got his old job back.
“I never missed a beat,” he said.
That’s just how it was done.
Things are different now. The three men are the only volunteers left at the department. The rest of the firefighters are full-time paid workers. When they hold their last fire-fighting hurrah at a retirement party tonight, it will be the end of an era that celebrated community, and the volunteers who made it run.
“I was born and raised in Stanwood, and the community was always give, give, give. If you needed something, they were there,” Freberg said. “This was my way to give back.”
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
