Firefighters honored

Nevada Firefighter Noah Weber is honored as Firefighter of the Year at a dinner held Thursday. Weber is relatively new to the department and his dedication and willingness to take training and volunteer for extra duty were some of the reasons given by Chief Bill Gillette for his choice. "It was hard this year, really hard. We're lucky to have so many dedicated people that it makes a decision about who's the best difficult. I'm glad that this year it was somebody new. That shows that we're getting in the quality of people we need."

By Steve Moyer

Nevada firefighters were honored for their work and dedication at a dinner Thursday evening. Chief Bill Gillette honored relative newcomer Noah Weber as Firefighter of the Year and several members of the department for being the top responders. He also went over statistics from the past year and outlined future developments in the works.

In honoring Weber, Gillette said that the decision was made difficult because of the high quality of all the personnel in the department.

"It was hard this year, really hard. We're lucky to have so many dedicated people that it makes a decision about who's the best difficult. I'm glad that this year it was somebody new, that shows that we're getting in the quality of people we need."

Gillette noted that the department responded to 755 incidents with January being the busiest month with 73 runs and November, the slowest month, being only slightly less busy at 53 runs. "We responded to 81 different type of incidents but the bulk of the runs really fell into the category of miscellaneous service calls. Next were rescue/EMS calls with 205 runs followed by hazardous conditions/no fire with 147 runs, finally, we went out on 73 fire runs.

Gillette noted that the dollar loss for the year was $473,755 which didn't include automobile losses. While complimenting the firefighters for keeping the loss down Gillette noted that prevention was the best way to keep losses down and encouraged the department personnel to keep up the good work.

Looking to the future, Gillette noted that the department is going to get new protective suits for the department's firefighters and announced that the department is actively looking for more firefighters.

"We'll get in 24 sets of suits. If you look around, you won't see that many men here. We're looking for more people. We're in the process of transferring the test to the city's Web page so people don't even have to come in to take it, they can take it from the library or wherever. Then when they do come in they'll already have that taken care of."

Gillette noted that rural departments had asked to be more involved and he planned to make sure that their requests were honored. "I've been asked by Compton Junction and Milo to be called when we go out on rural calls and it's a good thing that we work together with them. The more we work together the better the coordination will be and that can only help."

The department is taking part in a hazardous material training exercise in Springfield April 10. "I'm taking everyone I can down there so we'll be dependent on mutual aid to help the four on duty. I have already talked to several departments and I'm sure they will provide what we need."

Gillette expressed his opinion that the Nevada firefighters were more than up to the task ahead. "This is not going to be a difficult exercise. It will be bigger than we've been used to but we've done this before. You all know what's involved and we won't be facing anything we haven't seen."

The Nevada firefighters will be involved in two two-hour exercises during the training, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. There will be a United States Civil Support team on hand which will coordinate radio traffic among the departments taking part in the training which will use a device which will allow each department to hear the others without having to change the frequency of their equipment. To prepare, the Nevada department will hold training locally on March 27.

"We'll need everyone we can get to participate, including all the part-timers and those not going to Springfield. They need to get in 'suit time,' too -- and this will help them get it."