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80 years of service
La Plata volunteers celebrate another milestone
Friday, Dec. 25, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Courtesy of LA PLATA VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT
the original volunteer members of the La Plata Volunteer Fire Department pose in this undated photograph with the department's new Chevrolet hose wagon and Seagrave pumper at the first station built on Firehouse Street in 1930.
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The 34 folks armed with a hose cart, buckets and small ladders who formed the La Plata Volunteer Fire Department in 1929 would be astonished at how their effort has blossomed through the years.
The department is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year and it has come a long way from its humble beginnings when the first order of business was to buy real firefighting equipment: a Chevrolet hose wagon and a Seagrave pumper.
The La Plata department — the county's first — was founded by H.H. Hawkins, F. Brook Matthews, Ralph M. Lorenze, Thomas P. McDonagh and Thomas B.R. Mudd, according to LPVFD historical accounts. Shortly after the department's first formal meeting Dec. 6, 1929, at the Charles County Courthouse, a committee took on the task of buying professional apparatus to replace the primitive equipment the department used when it was first founded.
The department decided to hold an annual firemen's ball to collect the money that was needed to run the department — an affair that raised $1,217.15, according to fire department historical accounts.
More money was needed than what the firemen's ball could produce, however, so Leo K. Farrall Sr., Harry Hawkins, Wallace Barnes, Hugh Mitchell and McDonagh decided to hold a yearly firemen's carnival that became the major source of funding for the department for many years, according to the department's history.
In 1930, the department joined the Maryland State Firemen's Association and signed the first mutual aid agreements with the U.S. Navy Fire Department in Indian Head and Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department in St. Mary's County.
In the early years the volunteers were instrumental in establishing fire codes and a fire tax in the county, said Steve Shahan, who served as LPVFD's chief for 18 years.
In later years, fire department officials worked with the La Plata Town Council to institute legislation that would make it mandatory for developers to install sprinkler systems in new homes that are built in town, Shahan said.
"That's a big plus for homeowners," he said. "Sprinkler systems ensure that a fire doesn't get too large and difficult to put out."
The department fought countless fires within the town limits and at other locations across the county, including the Diggs building fire on Charles Street in town in 1988 that started in the early evening hours and continued to burn for a day or two, Shahan said.
"It was a unique fire because it was an older building," he said. "The fire got up in the building and it advanced very fast."
The department also responded to the bleacher collapse in 1988 at Maurice J. McDonough High School in Pomfret where 78 students were injured; La Plata volunteers were the first to respond to the April 2002 tornado that killed three folks in town, said Deputy Chief Matt Gilroy.
Answering the call
Today the department has 84 volunteers and responds to more than 1,400 fire calls a year, said Gilroy, who has served as a volunteer firefighter with the department since 1994. Gilroy follows a family tradition of serving with the department. His dad, Lynn Gilroy, serves as the organization's treasurer and his brother, Mike, is also a firefighter.
Beth Gilroy, Matt's wife, serves as the secretary of the La Plata Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary and Sharon Shahan is the chairwoman of the education committee. The auxiliary plays a pivotal role in raising money for the department and providing drinks and snacks to firefighters when they are battling a blaze, Shahan said.
"It's a great feeling to bring a firefighter a cold or hot drink when they're fighting a fire," she said. "It's a kind of passion with me. It just grows on you. It's my way of helping out because I can't fight fires or rescue people."
Chief Jason Moore joined the department in 1997 after serving as a firefighter with the Bryans Road Volunteer Fire Department since 1990. Moore said his uncle, Morris Clarke, sparked his fever to be a firefighter after he rode in his uncle's District of Columbia Fire Department chief's car when he was a kid.
"I was supposed to be a cop," Moore said, adding that many of his relatives served as police officers. "I joined Bryans Road and learned everything that I could. I was there all of the time. Then I got married and moved to La Plata and I knew a lot of the volunteers there."
Matt Gilroy, a paid firefighter with the National Institutes of Health Fire Department in Bethesda, said he is proud of his role with La Plata's volunteer organization.
"I was born to do this," he said. "I just do it to do it. It's great to serve the community that you live in. I wouldn't trade it for anything."
La Plata carved the model that other volunteer fire departments in the county followed when they were established, Steve Shahan said.
"La Plata was the first volunteer fire department in the county," he said. "It sort of set the groundwork for the whole system."
Volunteer John Latimer Jr. said he was inspired to join the department by his father, the late John Latimer Sr. who served as the department's chief from 1977 until the late 1990s.
Latimer joined the department in 1986 and served as the chief from 2003 to 2004. He now serves on the organization's board of directors.
"I saw my dad do this for all of those years as I grew up so I wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps," he said. "I like helping the community out."
Latimer along with his fellow volunteers responded to the 2002 tornado in La Plata.
"There was massive destruction; it looked like a war zone," he recalled, adding he also responded to the Diggs building fire. "It was a pretty large fire. We had to bring in a lot of other departments in the county to fight it. We fought it for a couple of days. There were a lot of spectators. Charles Street was shut down. It took a lot of man hours and a lot of work to get that fire under control."
Being a volunteer firefighter is also a family affair for Matt Posey, who has been with the department since 2001. Posey's great-grandfather, Francis Wills Posey, served as one of the first fire chiefs.
Posey, who said he devotes between 25 hours and 30 hours to the department each week, said every time folks hear that familiar siren or see a fire truck or ambulance quickly approaching in their rear view mirror, they should pull to the side of the road and say a quiet "thank you" to all of the volunteers who rapidly respond to fires and other emergencies 24 hours a day.
"The fire department is a community thing," he said. "I'm very proud to be a member. The country is facing economically troubled times and it's important for people to know that everybody in the department is a volunteer. When you see a fire truck on the road it's important to know that those people aren't getting paid."
Serving long
and well
John Matthews, 79, has been a member of the fire department for 50 years. Matthews, whose brothers Harry and Martin were also firefighters with La Plata, said he has seen some amazing changes in the organization since he joined.
La Plata High School students fought fires during the early days, said Matthews, who served as La Plata's chief for two years in the 1950s.
"During the day I went to school and often I would have to leave and fight fires," he said. "We had Group 1 and Group 2. The first group would answer fire calls and then the second group."
Matthews said he has answered some tragic and strange emergency calls during his volunteer firefighting career.
"I've seen some real weird things," he said. "I worked for the electric company [Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative] in Hughesville and I sometimes ran with Hughesville [Volunteer Fire Department]. I remember this lady tied her horse to a well to pump water and the horse reared back and she went into the well. She was killed."
The department did not have the extensive equipment it does now so responding to some emergencies was very difficult, Matthews said.
"In the early days we only had two pieces of equipment," he said.
"I never thought that we would have the equipment that we have now."
In the early years the telephone operator would sound the fire siren to alert firefighters about a call, Matthews said.
"We had a siren on top of the old firehouse," he said. "If there was a fire, people called the telephone operator and she would blow the siren. We had old crank phones back then. … We would call the operator and she would tell us where the fire was."
The fire department did not have an ambulance service in the early days, Matthews said. Often fire department volunteers would answer emergency calls but patients had to be transported by the Maryland State Police ambulance that was housed in Waldorf, he said.
Matthews said he has enjoyed his stint with the fire department, adding that he still attends drills and meetings at the
fire station.
Rolling into
the future
The future of the volunteer department — which grew from a very small fire station on Firehouse Street in the 1930s to larger digs on Charles Street in 1960 to its present location on Washington Avenue in the early 1990s — is bright with the promise of the continuing dedication of volunteers from all walks of life, Gilroy said.
"I hope my sons get involved in the department but I won't push them into something that they don't want to do," he said. "We need to strive to keep the volunteers going and keeping up with the calls. I highly recommend volunteering. It's good to serve the community that you live in."
Although volunteers said they do not want to see a paid fire department in Charles County it might come down to that because of the demands placed on volunteer firefighters because of a growing population, Gilroy said.
"I hope it never happens but in the future I do see a department with paid personnel," he said. "It will happen one day but I don't want to see a paid department."
"I would hope that the fire service would remain a volunteer service but it's getting pretty bad," Matthews said.
"The only thing that's really saving the volunteer service is the paid firefighters who are off during the day to keep the engines running. The number of volunteers is getting smaller and smaller each year. It's not like it was a long time ago when just about everyone in town volunteered."
Folks can be confident that volunteers will always respond to calls for help, Posey said.
"The department runs over 1,400 calls a year; that's a lot to task volunteers with," he added. "We don't have to do it. We want to do it. It's something to be proud of."
"There's a longstanding tradition that La Plata is No. 1, not because the No. 1 is on our building but because we strive to be better than anybody else," Moore said. "La Plata is top-notch. Down the road we may go to a paid system but I'll do everything than I can to keep the department a volunteer force. I'll be the last man standing. I'll make sure that this volunteer fire department lasts as a volunteer force."
