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They have pledged to help the community around the clock, 365 days a year. So, the local emergency responders, crises don’t hold off because of a holiday.
While most are celebrating the season with their families, the volunteers and officers of the fire companies and police department of Springfield Township will either be working or on call, just as they were for Thanksgiving and other holidays throughout the year.
As Don Sirianni, deputy chief of the Oreland Fire Co., said, “Fire doesn’t take a holiday.”
For the Oreland, Flourtown and Wyndmoor fire companies and the Springfield Township Police Department, holiday operations are no different from everyday preparedness.
The Springfield Township Police Department remains regularly staffed over the holidays and with undiminished services, just like any other day, said Cpl. Lee Allen, president of the Springfield Police Association.
Fire Chief George Wilmot of the Flourtown Fire Co. said no person is at the station on a regular basis because it’s completely staffed by volunteers.
But he always has a good idea of how many volunteers will be in town at a given time, and he knows who will be out of town, which stays true during the holidays, he said.
But they also have back up.
“The three companies in Springfield rely on each other,” Wilmot said.
The other Springfield fire companies, each made up of volunteers, are also constantly keeping track of who is available in case of emergencies, volunteers said.
Volunteers do not plan their holiday celebrations around whether they might get called in for duty.
Being a firefighter means one might have to excuse him- or herself from holiday dinner with the family, Sirianni said.
“It gets in your blood. If you’re around, you go,” he said. “Neighbors helping neighbors is the way we look at it.”
Calls are not more common over the holidays than at other times of the year, volunteers said. But they have certainly occurred.
John Fleming, volunteer firefighter and EMT of the Wyndmoor Fire Co., said the company has come out on Thanksgiving to respond to oven fires and last year arrived to extinguish a Christmas tree fire just a few days before Dec. 25.
The Flourtown Fire Co. has also responded in the past to calls on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Wilmot said.
The Oreland Fire Co. had a three-year streak in which volunteers responded to serious fires on Christmas Eve, Sirianni said.
For these groups, the holiday season also means celebrating among the families of fellow members and reaching outward to spread some cheer as well.
For the Oreland Fire Co., December means decorating the town for the holiday season, an effort expanded this year to include the Springfield Rotary, Oreland Lions and Flourtown Fire Co. to deck the streetlights of Springfield.
For Flourtown and Wyndmoor volunteers, the holiday season means driving Santa Claus on a fire truck. Flourtown firefighters make these runs twice during the week of Christmas — once in Erdenheim and again in Flourtown — and give candy canes to the children, which they have been doing for about 50 years, Wilmot said.
Wyndmoor volunteers have begun a tradition in which they — and Santa — bring gifts to the Stenton Family Manor, a homeless shelter in Philadelphia. It started began last December when a basement flooded and ruined gifts meant for these families. The company delivered toys and brought Santa to the shelter, Fleming said.
Members have also been working with United Cerebral Palsy organization for 12 years and have done work with the Ronald McDonald House, he said.
Combined, the three fire companies will have answered about 800 calls by the end of this year, according to numbers provided by the volunteers contacted.
Among some of this year’s notable events, the Wyndmoor and Flourtown companies received the Golden Pin Award from Holmatro, a rescue tools company, which recognized them for saving a life at a vehicle rescue scene, Wilmot said.
A driver crashed on Bethlehem Pike the beginning of 2009, and responders had to extract him from the vehicle, he said.
This year, the Wyndmoor Fire Co. spent hours on vehicle, water, ice, high-angle and confined-space rescues, hazardous materials containment, emergency medical services and police assists, Fleming said.
In March, Wyndmoor and Oreland firefighters spent more than four and a half hours extinguishing a structure fire on Camp Hill Road, according to an e-mail from Fleming.
In August, over a seven-hour period, Wyndmoor and Flourtown volunteers, along with the nearby Barren Hill Fire Co., completed six flood-related responses, including vehicle rescues and hazmat investigation, he wrote.
Wyndmoor also has a MEDPOD truck, which contains equipment for a mass- casualty accident, which members used in August when the power went out at a health care facility.
The fire companies are always looking for more volunteers to help them serve the township.
The police officers in the township are also active in the community. The police association, an 11-year-old group that comprises both active and retired officers, is separate from the police department.
Members provide services throughout the year, such as renting a truck for shredding papers and providing the service free to residents every spring, Allen said.
The association also sponsors youth sports leagues in the township, offers a $1,000 scholarship to graduating seniors, and donates to charitable organizations like the Women’s Center of Montgomery County and Mainline Animal Rescue.
“We wish everybody a happy holiday. Be fire safe and fire conscious — not only during holidays but during the entire year,” Wilmot said. “We’re always trying to think of the safety of the community and trying to make it a safer place for all of us.”
