FD1 volunteer retires after 42 years

LAKE SERENE — His dad always backed the car into the garage. He kept his boots and firefighting gear ever handy by the door.

As a child, Nathan Nofziger learned a sure way to get into trouble was to lose a Lego in one of those boots, a toy that would later be found when his father would pull the boots on in the middle of the night.

Nathan Nofziger watched his father disappear into the dark and come back in the morning, covered in dirt and soot and smelling of smoke before heading off to his real job in the morning.

When windstorms hit, his dad would grab a chain saw and cut through fallen trees that blocked roads so people could get through.

For 42 years, David Nofziger served as a volunteer with Snohomish County Fire District 1.

“It was important to him,” Nathan Nofziger said.

Lt. David Nofziger retired earlier this month from the department he has been a part of since the President Lyndon B. Johnson administration. He worked primarily from the Lake Serene Fire Station 23 near his home. That’s where an Honor Guard of past and present firefighters recently paid tribute to his four decades of volunteer service.

The way Nofziger, 65, tells it, all those years of fire calls and emergency responses, all those Wednesday night drills, all those nights at home interrupted by a radio and pager calls, weren’t an inconvenience.

“You can talk about community service, but red lights and sirens are a big deal too,” he said.

Times have changed dramatically in the sprawling South Snohomish County district since the late 1960s.

The district itself, which now numbers 194 full-time paid firefighters, was manned solely by volunteers. At its height, there were 84 volunteers. With Nofziger’s retirement, there are now 21.

Fire District 1 has expanded its service area, taking in places such Edmonds, Brier and Mountlake Terrace.

And the people it serves have changed too.

“Back in the day, we were on many a barn fire together,” said Fire District 1 Capt. Tom DeLisle, who began working with Nofziger in the mid-1970s when the South County still had several farms.

In those days, they could ride on the fire engine’s tail board together. Hay hooks now used to haul out smoldering mattresses were then used to yank out burning hay bales.

In changing times, Nofziger was a constant in urging and ensuring training for volunteers and sharing his institutional knowledge.

“He was a big inspiration on all of us new fellas,” DeLisle said.

When Fire District 1 voters decided to begin hiring professional firefighters, Nofziger had to make a choice. He stayed with the family business his father started. With his sister and brother, he still owns the bright red A House of Clocks, a Highway 99 landmark of sorts that in 1929 was one of the first gas stations north of Seattle.

Lt. Dave Peck, a medical doctor and longtime fire district volunteer, said Nofziger “has been a good friend” and has an ironclad memory of the district’s history.

Some of that history includes sad moments.

Nofziger recalled a 1975 fire in what is now Lynnwood. He helped rescue Gary Hinkley, a 17-year-old foster child, from the burning home. He found the young man collapsed and unconscious on the living room floor upstairs. The teenager suffered burns to 85 percent of his body, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. Hinkley died five weeks later. His case remains an unsolved homicide.

There also was the fire in a cul-de-sac in Meadowdale in the early 1970s. Three children died, including a 2-year-old boy. The child was the same age and shared the first name of his Nofziger’s son.

“It took a while to get over that,” he said.

Friendships, family gatherings and fond memories of Thanksgiving meals with fellow firefighters were all part of why he stayed on so long.

The professional firefighters always treated the volunteers with respect, he said.

The respect is mutual, particularly in Nofziger’s case, DeLisle said.

“Dave is an institution in Fire District 1,” the fire captain said.

Eric Stevick writes for the Herald of Everett.