On today’s date 100 years ago, January 26, 1916 a tragedy struck the Town of York, Maine. Just prior to 7pm caretaker Charles Perkins discovered a fire at the Marshall House Hotel in York Harbor on Stage Neck Point. He quickly summoned the fire department, which at the time was only the York Beach fire department. They responded with their primitive equipment along poorly maintained roads to a fire which had a significant Headstart on them. By the time the fire department arrived at the fire scene a purported 30 minutes later, the building was a “mass of flames”. There was little that the firemen could do but wet down the rubble. The below picture is a postcard view of the Marshall House before the fire. After the fire there was “popular outcry” for a fire department to be established for “York Village and Corner” the group formed as the “York Village and Corner Ever ready Volunteer Fire Co.” They elected their first chief Albert “Bert” Newick who was a local gentleman, who still has family In York.
Their first meetings were held in the town hall in York Village before relocating to “Firemen’s Hall” in the new fire station which had been recently vacated by the York Village School. Early minutes of the meetings were lost long ago and the first recorded meeting is August 18, 1916. This is not believed to be the first meeting as they were pretty well established by this time having a hierarchy and seemed to have an order to things already.
The fire department of January 26, 2016 looks quite different than it did 100 years ago. The firehouse is modern, the equipment and training are state of the art and in accordance with local and national standards for fighting fires. The call volume is radically different; however. 1923 was the first year the department kept a record of its responses and even that year there were fewer than 25 calls for service, nearly all of them for some type of fire. In 2015 the department logged just over 1200 responses; our busiest year to date. Nearly 50% of them for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) runs. Another large percentage for auto accidents and fire alarm activations. The smallest part of our run total was actual structure fires, a growing trend in the national fire service. One thing that hasn’t changed in 100 years is our dedicated volunteers. Our state of the art equipment can’t make it to a fire or emergency without well trained, dedicated volunteers that selflessly give of their time to make our department run like a well oiled machine. We are justifiably proud of this milestone as a centennial celebration is extremely large accomplishment. In this day and age of declining volunteerism in the fire service our roster is pretty nearly full to the limit of 60 members. We’re proud of our volunteers and all they do to make York Village Fire Department great!!! Here’s to our second hundred years!!!
