The fire department in the town where I grew up is setting up some kind of historical display and asked me if I had any mementos of the 30 some years my dad was involved with the fire department when it was all volunteers.

I found a couple things to loan them, and wrote out my memories of that time in case they are interested:

"My dad belonged to the Berthoud Fire Department for many decades, starting in the early 1950s, probably ending in the early 1980s when they moved to the house in Drake.

The fire siren could be heard all over town, and whenever it went off, middle of the night, the firemen would jump out of bed, pull on clothes over their pajamas, and head out to the fire, often in their house slippers because they were easier to put on quickly. The location of the fire was written on a blackboard inside the open fire house (located on Massachusetts Avenue), but often they could follow the line of firemen's vehicles that were headed there.

When my mother was curious about where the fire was, she would drive over there to look at the blackboard, but sometimes she called someone to ask them. I’m not sure if it was the person who answered the phone when someone called in the alarm, but I think it was more likely a near-by neighbor who walked over and looked. It might have been Dorothy Reuter because they lived a block west of the fire house on Massachusetts.

I don’t know who the emergency phone calls went to, but it would make sense if they went to Loveland’s police station, and then they contacted the Berthoud cop, so he could sound the alarm, but I really don’t know.

After the Interstate was built, Hart’s Corner moved to the basement of a little house on Highway 56, where that tractor sales place is located now, and it had a fire in December or January when it was 30 below, so cold that the big fire siren froze. I can still hear that late-night siren.

I don’t think the Berthoud siren went off at noon every day like it does in some towns. The grade school was in the middle of what is now Fickel Park, and they had a big bell that called the kiddies in from recess and started the day and the end of noon break. We walked home at lunch time, and the bell would ring us back. Probably that was enough noise for noon time in Berthoud.

One time I was with my dad in his big flatbed truck used for delivering Massey Ferguson tractors and the fire signal went off. We were on Mountain Avenue, and he flipped a U-turn and off we went. I think it was a minor weed fire that was out by the time we got there.

The department bought an American LaFrance fire truck from the factory located in Elmira, NY. In the Mid 1960s. My dad flew out there with Pete Somebody, a farmer from east of Berthoud, and drove it back. The factory gave them a banner that tied on, something like Here is a New American LaFrance Fire Truck, and my dad claimed that they drove in a parade somewhere in the Midwest, just happened upon it. It was a flat-front truck and looked very modern at the time.

Every summer the firemen participated in fireman games against the other small fire departments in the region. They would train for it because the goal was to be the fastest to knock two beach balls off metal stands using hoses that were unfurled from a small fire truck on the move.

They practiced on north Fourth Street, using that little old open truck that I hope Berthoud still has.

On the day of the games we’d go to Windsor or Fort Morgan or Fort Lupton or Loveland. These were all volunteer fire departments. Loveland had an old ambulance painted white that was very exotic looking. There was a big pot luck picnic segregated by town (not all the towns blended together) and probably drinking beer but I don’t remember it getting out of hand.

Also every summer was the state fireman’s convention in various towns like Estes Park. My sister and I never went to that, it was more of a big drunken party, but we heard stories from my mother. They would stay in the motels and party hard. My dad fitted a metal suitcase with a siren powered by a small car-type battery. It had a button on the top, and he had Berthoud Fire Department on the side by Dick Holzmeister, who was the town sign painter. I’m sure he had a great time with it at the convention.

My mother had stories about how they’d gather in someone’s motel room for drinks, and she’d short-sheet their bed. (You tuck one end of the top sheet into the mattress to look like the bottom sheet, and then bring the other end up to look like the top sheet so when they put their feet in, it’s short.)

She would also put a couple of quarts of water in a brown paper bag and just carry it until someone would ask her what it was, and then when they looked into the bag, she’d splash them. It was probably funnier if everyone was drunk. The people who were in the fire department in those days really liked to drink and have a good time.

My dad also had a siren in his car to use when responding to a fire. In the mid-60s he got a transistorized car siren that had a loudspeaker mode and he had a lot of fun with that. This was in our Ford Econoline van, the first year they came out with that model.

My dad administered the Volunteer Fireman Pensions for Berthoud, as far as I know, and to the extent it required administering on the local level, until he retired, but I don’t have any paperwork from it. He probably turned his file over to someone else.

Most of the fires were hay stacks or weed fires. The worst I can think of was the couple of times cars didn’t make that curve on Highway 287 one mile west of Berthoud. The gas station out there was called The Ideal Spot, and it was originally closer to the highway. One time a couple of college kids left the road and ran into a storage shed there, causing a big fire and killing them both. There was another bad fire caused by cars running into the building, so it was moved back from the road some, and now that curve isn’t even there any more. Back in those days, the firemen weren’t EMTs, so they didn’t respond to every ambulance call like they do in many cities these days.


This is a little fire truck my dad made for us to drive in the annual Pet and Doll Parade. It has a lawn mower engine and a siren. There was a little ladder to hang on the side of it.