“Day or night, seven days a week, 365 days
a year, we are there at the drop of a hat to
lend a helping hand to anyone in need.”
had a vision of service for the community and it has been carried
on by numerous people throughout the years. Their dedication was
unwavering and we still carry out the mission of those eight gentlemen
from 100 years ago.”
And it wasn’t easy for those first volunteers. In the early days, the
firefighters had to assemble into a bucket brigade, a technique where
buckets were passed to each other to extinguish a fire. For eight years
they had to haul a hose cart to fire locations until 1924, when the fire
department bought its first motorized piece of fire apparatus, an opencab American LaFrance chain-drive pumper.
The BVFD became chartered as a nonprofit charitable corporation
in 1929. In 1945, the volunteers purchased the Bonosky property on
Bower Hill Road and donated it to the borough. The present borough
building was built there and was shared by the borough and the BVFD
until 1997, when the firefighters moved once more to their current
station on Commercial Street. The station includes a social hall, four
bays that contain the department’s fire vehicles, along with a meeting
room, offices, lockers and a training and work area.
But whatever their location, the firefighters’ efforts are appreciated
by the community.
Some of the “unsuspected heroism” that has impressed Costain
includes The Big Flood of 2004. “Many of our members were initially
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Chartiers Valley | Summer 2016 | icmags.com 21