BelMont Fire COmpany

80 Schuyler St

Belmont, New York 14813

 

Nickolas A. Horton    President

Randy L. Swarthout

Secretary

                Chad M. McCaslin

                  Chief

Community Members,

            Another year down and many memories have been made. We hope you all are doing well. We write to you optimistic about our future and the future of our community. The Belmont Fire District is set to take over operations on January 1st 2022 and we couldn’t be more pleased about the reorganization of our Fire protection.

            This year we constructed a new LED Sign board that we received through the FEMA SAFER grant. Our hope is that it will help keep current and prospective members informed about current and future events. It has proved useful so far and we believe it will aid in recruitment and retention of members.

            We took delivery of our new truck 6 months late in June. We purchased all of the mounting equipment for it, a winch, and various other small items to get it in service. We believe this truck will respond to 90% of our calls. Its purpose is intended primarily for rescue operations. There is no pump or water on the truck however we did place 2 SCBA’s on it so that we can use it for Carbon Monoxide incidents. It will allow us to get out the door faster with up to 5 members and to an incident scene quicker.

In the coming years our goal is to be able to focus more on ourselves and the service we provide. Our main focus for years has been about raising funds for fire equipment. With the Fire District being fiscally self-sustainable we plan to focus more on training and recruitment of members. We want to create an environment that is enjoyable again in the hopes to bring in new members and retain the membership we currently have. Our roster of 28 members is at the lowest we have ever seen, in comparison to the early 90’s when we had a full roster of 60 members and a line at the door. The new training requirements and the amount of time needed to devote to the fire department has drove people away. Our youngest active member is 30 years old with the average age of our membership at about 50.

There is much more going on here than just interior fire attack, WE HAVE A JOB FOR ALMOST EVERYONE!!! The main requirement is BEFO (Basic Exterior Firefighting Operations) which is 79 hours. After that there are many different areas you can focus on, from rope and water rescue to auto extrication, interior fire attack and even fire investigation. Or if those aren’t for you, we always need drivers to free up personnel that could be doing other things. Driving requires 2 additional courses that aren’t very long, Pumper Operator and Emergency Vehicle Operators Course. If you aren’t interested in that you could join the auxiliary and social member side and be a helping hand to support us in the background.

This coming year we hope to be able to invest in the old Belmont Conservation Club which has been at the end of the to-do list for quite some time. We would like to construct a building with bathrooms and a kitchen that will better serve the community. We want to see it thrive again and we hope you do to. We are asking for any donations no matter how big or small to help us continue to operate through the coming year. Thank you for your support, we couldn’t do what we do without you.

 

Members of the Belmont Fire Company

 

***Donations may also be made on our website, www.belmontfireco.org ***

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