{"id":204,"date":"2007-11-30T11:08:29","date_gmt":"2007-11-30T16:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/?page_id=204"},"modified":"2007-11-30T11:08:29","modified_gmt":"2007-11-30T16:08:29","slug":"interview-with-dave-weaver","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/interview-with-dave-weaver\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Dave Weaver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/?page_id=202\">Carlisle&#8217;s Historical Fires<\/a>                     <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/?page_id=286\">Interview with John Sheaffer<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/?page_id=217\">The History of the Carlisle Fire Department<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.unionfireco.org\/index.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Union Fire Company<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/historicalsociety.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Cumberland County Historical Society<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/?page_id=217\"> <\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>The following is the transcript of a digitally recorded interview with Fire Chief Dave Weaver of the Union Fire Company, Carlisle, PA. The interview was conducted by Jillian Boland and took place at the Union Company firehouse on October 29, 2007. Chief Weaver works at a Harrisburg area hospital and has a family in addition to volunteering for the department. He stressed the difficulties of balancing volunteering with the rest of his life. He also discussed the issues facing the department today as well as the company&#8217;s emphasis on preserving its past.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#000080\"><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> <\/font>Why did you start volunteering for the Carlisle Fire Department?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>I moved to Carlisle in 1987. I come from a small town back in Somerset County and I was a volunteer there. My wife and I moved to this area because of employment. My dad was a firefighter and I enjoyed what I did back home. I just like helping people and like the excitement of being a firefighter.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland: <\/font>Have you always volunteered at this station?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>I started volunteering in 1989.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> And as fire chief what are your responsibilities?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>There\u2019s a lot. You\u2019re responsible for maintaining records, which would be of fires or calls that we respond to. I am responsible for training and recording any training records that we have, and of course delegate to my officers. Our captain basically does a lot of the paperwork for me, and I utilize our officers a fair amount. I am also responsible for assisting with budgets with our president and started going to different meetings throughout the week. We have municipalities that we service so we try to go to their meetings to answer any questions that they have or any concerns, rather than always showing up at their meetings asking for money. We try to go to meetings here and there just so that they know who we are and that we\u2019re not always asking for money.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> How often do you train and what does training involve?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>We at least train here, we have in-house training, and that\u2019s twice a month on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month from 7-9. That can involve videos, it can involve going out, and if we have houses available, maybe smoking up the house. We can just train or practice. It\u2019s a variety. We also have town and local training, and through Harrisburg Area Community College, state training that is above and beyond the two nights a month. That can be live burns in their structures that they have. It could be just the whole gamut of training that you need for a fire department.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> How many people volunteer here?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>We usually use the number of 20 to 25 active members. When I say active, that\u2019s somebody that comes in and is issued turn out gear after they prove that they\u2019re going to be an active member. And active is that they take part in a quarter of our meetings a year, ten percent of our fire calls, or half of our fundraising, which is the car shows, maybe a car wash here and there, and chicken barbeques.<\/p>\n<p>Boland: Why do you think most people volunteer?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>I don\u2019t know. I just think the firefighters or the volunteers, they like the community that they\u2019re in, they like to give back to the community. And like I said, I mean, as weird as it sounds, it\u2019s fun. You hear this on certain movies, I think it was on Ladder 49, there\u2019s some excitement to going into a building that everybody\u2019s running out of. I think a lot of it is you\u2019re born into it. But you\u2019re giving back to the community. That should be the number one reason.<\/p>\n<p>Boland: Along those lines, what is the best part about volunteering for the fire department?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> Part of the best part is the camaraderie; the second family. There\u2019s not anybody here that I couldn\u2019t walk in and say, \u201cI need a couple guys to help me move two weeks from now\u201d or maybe you\u2019re down on your luck because of your health, or your income, or something, and you just, it\u2019s the brotherhood, or the family. It\u2019s the second family. I could do that, and somebody else could walk in here and we would return the favor to another member.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland: <\/font>Again, along those lines, what is the worst part about volunteering?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>Worst part as a volunteer, or worst part as fire chief?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Either one.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>I\u2019ll answer both. Part of the worst part about volunteering now &#8211; I\u2019ve been volunteering for probably twenty-seven years now, probably the worst part is having to fund a volunteer service. We shouldn\u2019t have to go out and beg and barter and steal to run a volunteer service. The worst part of being fire chief, there\u2019s the times it\u2019s sort of like a kindergarten. You sort of have to try to make everybody happy in the department. We all have our different personalities and we have our different things that set each other off. You\u2019re always sort of trying to move the peapods around just trying to make sure that maybe this guy doesn\u2019t talk to this guy, or this guy the way he approached this guy, just to sort of keep the family happy and cohesive.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Speaking of funding, how is the department funded and do you rely mostly on fundraisers?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>We don\u2019t rely on fundraisers as much as some companies. Right down the road, New Kingstown Fire Company, they have, I believe, they have a bingo once a week. They have almost every weekend, if not every other weekend, they have some type of dinner, or they have some type of breakfast. We rely on 10 car shows a year through Carlisle Fairgrounds where we lease property and we charge for overnight parking and daytime parking. A percentage, I couldn\u2019t even give you a percentage, it\u2019s probably thirty or forty percent of our income, but it\u2019s not near what some companies do. A lot of companies, I mentioned New Kingstown, they have a huge Ladies\u2019 Auxiliary. They probably have thirty or forty senior ladies that have grown up through the fire company, either their husband, or sons, or brothers and other men and sisters have been involved with so they\u2019re more of a family or community known fire company. Where in Carlisle, you have more of, it\u2019s more of a business atmosphere. It\u2019s not, \u201cHey, what\u2019s going on this weekend?\u201d Well, it\u2019s a carnival at the firehouse, or it\u2019s a bingo at firehouse. Carlisle\u2019s just more of a transient hub.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> How many calls do you typically have a year?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>We run right around a thousand calls a year.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> What are the different types of calls and what are the more frequent ones?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>The most frequent are what we call the \u201csmells and bells.\u201d The automatic fire alarms, the burnt popcorn, the unattended food. There\u2019s enough smoke to cause the alarm to go off, but we handle a lot of just false alarms. A detector goes off because of lack of maintenance. It\u2019s either dust, or maybe a spider crawled through it, and those are the nuisance calls. Other calls we handle, out of that thousand, we probably handle two hundred auto accidents, maybe two hundred car fires, and I think our average is about 20 structure fires a year. That\u2019s actually where you\u2019re going in, and taking the hoses in, and putting the fire out and such.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland: <\/font>Has the call volume changed with increased trucking in Carlisle?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> I guess it would have to, but to be honest with you, since I\u2019ve been a member here, there\u2019s always been trucks here. So I would have to say no, but with the warehousing that\u2019s come through, in the last 10 years, there\u2019s just been a boom in warehousing, so we get the nuisance calls there. The automatic fire alarms, the water flow alarms and things like that, but I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve really increased too, too much just because of the trucks. Probably just in development in itself. I mean, residential and industrial around this area just boomed, say in the last 5 to 10 years. So I can\u2019t specifically say because of the trucks, but probably because of the inflation of population, I\u2019m sure it\u2019s increased.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland: <\/font>In addition to fundraising, does the department participate in any charity work?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> We do, a little. I guess you could look at our charity work as being fire prevention. We do have a budget of roughly two thousand dollars or twenty-five hundred dollars that we specifically buy fire prevention material. Coloring books, pencils, crayons, handouts for the community. We just participated in through 27 News out of Harrisburg and Lowe\u2019s. They have a fire prevention program where they gave us smoke detectors and we in turn can give those to the needy in Carlisle. So I guess we do, but we don\u2019t have something that we say that we have that we specifically throw back into the community other that what we do: our fire prevention and making fire calls.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> I know when I was little, the fire department used to come to the elementary schools, do you do that also?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>Yes. Actually last week was fire prevention week, and  (garbled, can\u2019t understand) calculations I think we came across about 1500 children and adults, parents, that we either toured through the museum or our paid driver, with some personnel, went out to some of the daycare and the kindergartens and the elementary schools. We do that every year and that\u2019s through Carlisle.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> As far as you, what do you do outside of the department?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>Outside of the department I have a wife and three children. My wife and I have been married over 20 years. I am active with the midget football association for Boiling Springs, which I coached for five years. Right now I\u2019m presently, I\u2019m not coaching anymore, but I am helping right now with, they have a board, and I\u2019m on that board. Other than that, that\u2019s my only other volunteer. Being a firefighter, volunteer firefighter, you don\u2019t have a lot more time to volunteer too much on other events.<\/p>\n<p>Boland: Do you find it hard to balance volunteering, family, and work?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>Oh yeah, big time. You figure all of our volunteers here 40 hours a week. We have a couple live-in students that are full-time students, and they also work part-time jobs so they\u2019re even more adjusting their schedules. But it is hard. Like I said, you may have three events throughout the week. I might have a training night, a meeting night, and maybe two meetings with municipalities. So that\u2019s 4 out of 7 nights, and yes you have to adjust because my wife isn\u2019t going to sit there and say \u201cWell, geez, you know go ahead, it\u2019s your forth night out.\u201d You sort of prioritize what meetings you might have to go to or what trainings that I might have to be at. And again that\u2019s where I rely on my officers. I can say, \u201cHey, I know tonight\u2019s training night but I have three other nights that I have to be at other meetings, so I can\u2019t come to training tonight\u201d and they handle the training and make sure that the personnel are educated and taken care of.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Along those lines, how are schedules structured and how is it decided who will work?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>There is no, really, schedule or structuring, and we\u2019ve talking about that, but it\u2019s hard to do. I can\u2019t say, \u201cHey, I\u2019ll be in Tuesday night and volunteer a shift of 3 to 11\u201d because of my family commitments and other things. It\u2019s really just by email and by phones. We sort of have an idea of who\u2019s around. If I go on vacation, I let my deputy chief or my assistant chiefs know that I\u2019m going to be out of town, so they might make themselves more available. But we don\u2019t have, other than our part-time and full-time driver, we don\u2019t have a schedule or a call out schedule that we have people sign in for or are scheduled by me. If the pager goes off and we\u2019re available, one call you might get 2 guys on it another call you might get 13 guys. It just sort of depends on the nature of the call and who\u2019s available.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Does that ever cause problems? Do you ever have not enough people show up?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>Luckily, no. You sort of find on the \u201csmells and bells\u201d calls, you really don\u2019t need a lot of people for that. And I don\u2019t expect out of our act of 20 or 25 people that they jump in their car for those 400 calls a year and go to the \u201csmells and bells\u201d call. You can almost tell, sort of like the tone in the dispatcher\u2019s voice, that it\u2019s something that you\u2019re going to be busy on, like an auto accident with entrapment, or a building fire. You\u2019ll see people, our members, will come out of the woodwork to get to those because they know that they need more help, and we need more help. So, so far it hasn\u2019t been a problem. Will it down the road? It might. Depending on diminishing numbers of volunteers, it might be a problem.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Do think that the Carlisle Fire Department will ever have to go with paid firefighters, or do you think that volunteer firefighting will be able to last?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> It wouldn\u2019t surprise me that within the next 5 years it\u2019s going to be some type of paid service. We have a minimally paid service now, but I think that you\u2019re going to see with at least 5 years, tops 7 years, that they\u2019re going to have to do some type of staffing. Either some paid people, maybe during the day, whenever I\u2019m at my job, or the other people are at their 7:00-3:00 job or 8:00-5:00 job. But eventually I think, say 10 \u201315 years, you\u2019re going to see probably a full, full time paid department.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Do you think that will affect the volunteers, and yourself specifically?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>I think by the time that happens I\u2019ll be wanting to retire as a volunteer. And unfortunately me retiring or getting out of it after 30 years, there is nothing to show for it. There\u2019s no retirement, there\u2019s no pension, there\u2019s nothing like that. But I think you\u2019ll still have people who want to volunteer will still volunteer. And the nice thing in that is if you have four guys on the engine and two or three guys happen to be volunteer, that gives you seven people. So I think the people will still volunteer, but it might not be as demanding that I have to get up at 3 o\u2019clock in the morning and go. This might sound like an attitude, but let the paid guys handle it and if they really need some more help, okay we\u2019ll do it.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland: <\/font>So overall is this a positive experience? Do you enjoy doing this?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>Oh yeah. Yes. For the 26 or 27 years I\u2019ve been in it, it\u2019s been awesome. The people you meet. I wish I would have maybe gone to more conventions and more seminars on a national level because there\u2019s a lot of neat and interesting people out there. There are a lot of neat chiefs from big departments like Washington D.C. and Chicago and things like that that go to these seminars. They just sit right down with you and they\u2019re just like you, and they\u2019re lucky that they got paid for those 30 years of service they did.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> As far as the department itself, when was the Carlisle Fire Department created?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>I don\u2019t know the exact year. There\u2019s not a charter, it was declared by Carlisle Council that there should be a Carlisle Fire Department. So you\u2019re not going to find any charter or any written ordinance, it\u2019s an ordinance that was initiated by Carlisle. And basically, they appointed a fire chief. And that fire chief oversaw at that time the five fire companies in Carlisle. And then each one of those five fire companies had their own chief because if the Carlisle Fire Chief wasn\u2019t there, then my rank would be recognized as being the person in charge, or underneath that Carlisle Fire Chief I become like one of his deputies. And I\u2019m not sure what year that was started.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> You mention that there were five companies, and there are only three now, so why did some close?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> Some closed for financial reasons. Some closed I\u2019m sure because of manpower. You\u2019ll be talking to Johnny Sheaffer, he\u2019ll really be able to help you with the Cumberland because there was the Cumberland and then the Goodwill and they formed then the Cumberland-Goodwill. And they were two fire companies that just merged. Now you\u2019re seeing some mergers because of pressure of politicians. To be one organization is better because you have more resources as far as manpower and the money going into one pot rather than the three or four or five different entities. But I have to say, probably because of  manpower and probably some political reasons.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Why do you think that the Union Fire Company has survived?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> Because of our leadership and the Union Fire Company for years has just always been aggressive. Back in the day, and even today, there\u2019s a certain competition: trying to be the first one to get there, the first one with the hose line in the door, the first one to put the fire out. There\u2019s still that competition today, but we\u2019ve always been aggressive. Two years ago we bought a new fire truck for about a half a million dollars. We were always known as the engine company, and we didn\u2019t have an aerial device or a ladder truck. Well, two years ago we bought a truck that has a seventy-five foot ladder on it and we took shots for that because it\u2019s like, \u201cOh now you\u2019re trying to get into the truck work of it\u201d and that was not our intention. Our intention was to, because of diminishing personnel, get a more functional piece to keep up with the growing population and the residents and the industry in the area. When you pull into a million square foot warehouse, that little fire truck, and even with us having a seventy-five foot ladder on it, isn\u2019t going to put that fire out, but it just us a better resource to handle that situation.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Are there different jurisdictions for the three stations or are you all in charge of Carlisle?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> No. What they\u2019re called is box areas. It\u2019s like a grid work throughout the town, and it\u2019s divided up just on location of where your firehouses are and sort of main thoroughfares like Hanover Street and Louther Street. I\u2019m sorry. Hanover Street and High Street are a big division. And then they just sort of plot what areas are handled by what companies. In Carlisle, at most of our incidents all three fire companies go on that call unless it\u2019s something small, like a car fire, you might get two engines on it. If somebody gets hit by a car, a pedestrian accident, you\u2019ll have an ambulance and a fire truck go to that rather than three fire trucks and a ladder truck and a rescue. It just depends on what the nature of the call is.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Do you have an ambulance here?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> No. Cumberland-Goodwill has the EMS side of it, and they also offer the rescue service. But they handle all of the EMS. We\u2019ll occasionally go out on more serious incidents where they might need some help working on the patient, or with some of the higher rise buildings, three or four floor buildings, where they have a heavier patient. We\u2019ll go help lift if the EMS need help getting the patient out of the house.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Even though you don\u2019t have the EMS, is everyone here CPR certified, or First Aid certified?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> Yes. We have basic first aid and we at least require that, and that could just be recognizing that somebody\u2019s bleeding and trying to put pressure on it, or helping with collars with people with cervical injuries. And then we do have some people who are ACLS certified and more advanced First Aid. And then we do have some EMTs that are on our rigs also.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland: <\/font>When was the Union Fire Company itself created, and have you always been in this building?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> We were created in 1789 actually, 14 days before George Washington was elected President.  I just found that out probably 5 years ago. I was listening to a tour one of our senior members gave, and when he said that, I was thinking, \u201cWell, geez, George Washington was President like 600 years ago.\u201d This is actually our third building that we\u2019re located in now. Our first building was in a wagon shed located behind the courthouse, the old courthouse up on Hanover and High, and it burned down. I don\u2019t know the dates, like I said, when you talk to Johnny Sheaffer, and even down in some of our history downstairs, you can even find a story about that. Then we moved to Louther Street, across the street from our building now, and I think that building burned also, but I\u2019m not sure. Then we moved into the building that was built in 1889 and that\u2019s currently part of our museum now.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland: <\/font>How long has the station had a museum?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver: <\/font>Since, hmm, I don\u2019t know. I know it\u2019s been since I\u2019ve been here, since 1989, but it was well-established before that. We had to sort of move out of that because of the apparatus getting larger and the building just wouldn\u2019t fit the apparatus.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland: <\/font>And why was the museum started?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> We were lucky that we realized that we had, that our forefathers had preserved our history. When the Great Depression went through, we didn\u2019t have to sell a lot of our archives and a lot of our pictures to maintain, so it\u2019s sort of a dedication to our forefathers that started the company. We lived through 9\/11 and certain events in our lives that were tragic, but they lived through the Great Depression. They lived through the horse-drawn days. They lived through the days where they had to pull the cart, pull the hose cart or the wagon to the fire. And we have to remember that wasn\u2019t on a paved road, or a cement road. That was probably on a cobble stone street at best, and once you got out of town, it probably turned into a muddy dirt road. So they were our forefathers. Those were the guys that did the work. Firefighting today, compared to what they did, today it\u2019s easy. What they did was just unbelievable.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> How many people do you think come visit the museum?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> We started taking records on that, probably, very detailed records, in the last 2 years. We probably see, I\u2019d say anywhere from 300 to 400 to 500 people a year that come through. And we don\u2019t charge for that because it\u2019s not our part of it. It\u2019s what we give back to the public to show them what our history was.<\/p>\n<p>Boland: Do you think it helps them understand the  time and effort that you put into this?<\/p>\n<p>Weaver: I think it shows them a timeline, but I don\u2019t think anybody understands the effort. I don\u2019t think a lot of our politicians understand the effort. I think people in general take us for granted. You might have a house fire, and we had this, we had a house fire two years ago, that two children passed away in the fire and there was one infant that survived that one of our firefighters pulled out. And you saw that in the headlines in the newspaper for a day, and then we went back to normal. I just think people take it for granted.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland: <\/font>Do you think that could ever change, and how do you think it could?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> I think it can, but unfortunately it gets back into a time issue. When you talk to people, counsel people, supervisors, municipal leaders, they tell you it\u2019s up to us to educate people. Well, I have a meeting tonight and I have another one tomorrow and I made a couple calls last night. It\u2019s at where you sort of have to prioritize things. And yes it\u2019s a priority, but we just don\u2019t have time right now to go out and talk to all your civic organizations, to your rotaries, or going out to all the townships that we serve and try to convince them because it\u2019s not going to be one half our meeting sitting down saying to you, \u201cHey, Jill. Here\u2019s what we do for the community. Here\u2019s how much money we save. Here\u2019s what we do day in and day out.\u201d And they\u2019re going to be like, \u201cHuh, okay.\u201d Then we\u2019ll have to go meet with them again, and again, and again, and it takes some time.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> You mentioned past fires. What are some famous and, or historical fires that you know of, or any memorable ones from the time you\u2019ve been here?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> The two that I was involved with, and John Sheaffer will be able to give you a lot of the neat, bigger fires, but we had a fire on High Street, West High Street, that burned three or four buildings, and that was, I forget the date actually, but it was several weeks before Christmas and left like 52 people without a house and without any belongings. It turned out it was an arson fire that started in a restaurant downstairs and it was just a big fire. It started like at  3 o\u2019clock in the morning and I think we left probably 3 o\u2019clock in the afternoon the next day. But there was the Bowman\u2019s fire, it was in 1962. I wasn\u2019t even born then. But we have pictures of it downstairs. There are several fires that Randy Watts and John Sheaffer will be able to touch base with you. But we don\u2019t have like a lot of big fires anymore. It seems like maybe our fire prevention is working. We have what\u2019s called \u201croom and contents fires,\u201d where you sort of get called, and there\u2019s smoke from the window, and we go in and we\u2019re really aggressive. We maintain that fire to maybe a room, or a closet, or to a kitchen, and I think a lot of that, too, might be building materials. There are different codes and stuff helping us do our job because the building is better.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Is there anything else that you think should be mentioned?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\">Weaver:<\/font> There\u2019s probably a lot that can be mentioned, but we don\u2019t have enough time to go into that. I just think that if I really had to preach about something it would be how for granted we\u2019re taken. Like I said, we do some fundraising, we do a letter that we send out and then less than 20% of the people send us money, but we go out and talk to people and say, \u201cWell, geez, you know, only one in four have sent money. How about if we just put a fire tax on?\u201d To help us so we can get rid of the fundraising, so that I don\u2019t have to sit here and prioritize different things. So I can go be with my family and I can go and just hang out at the firehouse like I want to. I didn\u2019t join the fire company 27 years ago to come in and cook chickens. That certainly wasn\u2019t what I wanted to do. I knew that was part of it, but now as I\u2019m getting older, I\u2019m getting wiser and I\u2019m getting to the point where money isn\u2019t a real issue, it\u2019s more time. Time, as you get older, you just realize that you don\u2019t have enough time. [laughs] But that would be it.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Boland:<\/font> Thank you.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/?page_id=202\">Carlisle&#8217;s Historical Fires<\/a>                 <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/?page_id=286\">Interview with John Sheaffer<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/?page_id=217\">The History of the Carlisle Fire Department\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.unionfireco.org\/index.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Union Fire Company<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/historicalsociety.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Cumberland County Historical Society<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/?page_id=217\"> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carlisle&#8217;s Historical Fires Interview with John Sheaffer The History of the Carlisle Fire Department\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Union Fire Company The Cumberland County Historical Society The following is the transcript of a digitally recorded interview with Fire Chief Dave Weaver of the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/interview-with-dave-weaver\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-204","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlislehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}