In defense of Mars Hill’s volunteer firemen
Letter painted false image of volunteers
To the editor:
This letter is written to correct some erroneous information given in a letter printed in the Star-Herald on Aug. 8, 2012 written and submitted by Terry McEntee of Presque Isle. He wrote of watching a truck burn in Mars Hill on July 24th 2012, and that the Volunteer Fire Department did not respond for one-half hour.
I am a member of the Mars Hill Volunteer Fire Department. I have been a member of the department for over 20 years and do not ever recall a response time that long, even in the middle of the night.
Our response time is good, but before I wrote this letter to the editor, I wanted to check my facts. I went to our logbook, where we record our call time, time on scene, time we are done, time our equipment is back in service, and any other significant facts that occur during an incident. After checking these facts, I called the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office to verify that our recorded facts matched theirs. The Sheriff’s Office dispatches us and we let them know when we arrive on scene, if we need to call in mutual aid or any other significant occurrences. Both our records and the Sheriff’s Office records show that our response time was less than six minutes. This is significantly less than the 30 minutes Mr. McEntee reported in his letter — one-fifth less time in fact.
As a department, we all take offense to anyone writing a letter and publishing it in the local newspaper saying our response time is five times longer than what it actually was. It paints us in a bad light and it is an insult to our efforts. The firefighters on volunteer departments do not do this job as a career; we all have jobs that support our families. We volunteer and train to be firefighters as a service to our community, to protect persons and property.
Philip R. Gray
Volunteer Firefighter,
Mars Hill Fire Department
