We visited Concord’s four fire stations to see what the life of a firefighter is like when they are on duty. We learned that each station has its own unique personality, stemming from the station’s history, location and of course the firefighters themselves!
Central Station
If the Concord Fire Department was a human body, Central Station would probably be the brain. For one, the battalion chief’s office is there, where a lot of the hour-to-hour operating decisions are made. Ladder 1, the city’s only ladder truck, is housed there, and the CFD certainly couldn’t function without that. It also holds a lot of memories – between the artifact-filled museum in the bowels of the buildings and the historic portraits that line the walls, there is a great sense of tradition there.
It’s not all solemn, though – the crew tried to pull a fast one on us when they claimed that firefighter Roman Bastek was in the station as part of a “Polish firefighter exchange program” – and they keep it light when they aren’t out on calls. While we were there, the only smoke we saw was coming off a grill as firefighters cooked up a group lunch. It smelled great, but Lt. Tom Freire told us it doesn’t always go so well.
“Some guys, it’s better if they don’t cook,” said Freire.
Broadway Station
The Broadway Station motto is “Running Like Crazy,” and with good reason – not only is it the busiest station in the city (more than 2,800 ambulance calls and more than 2,400 fire calls last year), but for most of the ’90s, it was the busiest station in the entire state! The Broadway boys are located in a traffic accident hot spot – they’ve watched car crashes unfold in front of their eyes from their vantage point just past the busy Clinton/Broadway intersection. The station itself is cozy (at 5,300 square feet, it’s the smallest in town), though the crew said it doesn’t have the character that some of the other, older stations do.
“It reminds me of my elementary school when I was a kid,” said Lt. Tim Robinson.
Manor Station
Manor Station in Penacook covers the largest geographic region of the four stations. Give the crew a couple minutes, and they’ll probably turn that fact into a joke at firefighter Andy Davis’s expense. Davis has been with the CFD for 11 years, but he’s still technically the “new guy,” perpetually residing at the bottom of the fire totem pole.
“He’s just a guppy swimming in a pool with sharks,” said firefighter Mike Corcoran.
Of course, it’s all good-natured; the crew is united by the jovial locker-room camaraderie of men who routinely put their lives at risk in the service of the public. Manor Station firefighters consider their brethren to be their second family. “Sometimes even your first family!” Captain Jeff Stone said with a wry twinkle in his eye. The “Misfit Toys” (so dubbed because firefighters transferring from other stations always seem to end up at Manor) have put their own flair on the station, bringing in their own furniture and supplies to spruce the place up.
“We try to make a little bit of home in here,” Stone said.
Heights Station
“The motto for the day is Semper Gumby – always be flexible,” said Lt. Bobby Silvestriadis as we watched his men try to cram yet another vehicle into the tiny Heights Station garage. The station was tasked with short-term storage of some new vehicles, which led to a Tetris-like game of space-shuffling. The Heights firefighters took it in stride – just another day at the busy Loudon Road station (affectionately dubbed “The Litterbox” thanks to its lion-based badge). When they’re not fighting fires, you might catch the Heights crew out back tending their vegetable garden (how many fire stations can you say that about?!) or hammering out some solutions around their command center/dinner table (“A lot of the world’s problems were solved at that table,” said firefighter/paramedic John McBride). As the oldest station in town, the Heights has its share of history. Back in the ’70s, it was the last station in town to still have a Dalmation on staff (Blitz was a great dog, they told us, but he would just try to bite everyone!). The crew also told us about “Heights Time,” a station tradition wherein firefighters would come in 45 minutes or so early for their shifts so they could relieve their predecessors faster and get them home in time for supper.
