Dedication and Service

Dedication and Service 50 Years on Call with the Volunteers of Colorado’s Genesee Fire Rescue

DEAN ROTBART and HANK O’BRIEN with Past and Present Members of Genesee Fire Rescue 1

Dedication and Service 50 Years on Call with the Volunteers of Colorado’s Genesee Fire Rescue DEAN ROTBART and HANK O’BRIEN with Past and Present Members of Genesee Fire Rescue

TJFR Press Denver, Colorado Copyright ©2023 Genesee Fire Rescue

DEDICATION To all the volunteers of America who put their lives on the line in the service of others.

D.R.

To my wife, Carol, and all the firefighter/EMS volunteers past and present, especially my father, Frank; grandfather, Pete; uncle, Doug; and Rowayton cousins, Gary and Bob. H.O.B.

“I have no ambition in this world but one, and that is to be a [firefighter]. The position may, in the eyes of some, appear to be a lowly one; but we who know the work which the [firefighter] has to do believe that [this] is a noble calling. Our proudest moment is to save lives. Under the impulse of such thoughts, the nobility of the occupation thrills us and stimulates us to deeds of daring, even of supreme sacrifice.”

Edward F. Croker

Chief, FDNY (1899-1911)

TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword: John Bales

15

Introduction

17

Authors’ Note

21

Incident Report: He Was Not a Very Nice Man

23

Section One: Origins

29

Incident Report: Man in the High-Top Shoes

30

Chapter One: The Fabric of America

35

Chapter Two: My Colorado Home: Genesee

43

Chapter Three: And That’s The Way It Was

53

Section Two: Emergency-Ready

67

Chapter One: The Call of Duty

69

Incident Report: Baby, It’s Cold Outside

77

Chapter Two: Wherever Flames May Rage

79

Chronicles: Fire Hydrants Every 500 Feet

85

Chapter Three: We Don’t Rise to the Level of Our Expectations, We Fall to the Level of Our Training

87

Incident Report: Like a Good Neighbor

101

Chapter Four: Generations of Pumpers, Aerials, Brush Trucks, and Fond Memories • A Primer on Firefighting Apparatus

103 107

Midsection Photos

116

Section Three: Chiefs 1973-2023

141

Chapter One: Sandy Schumacher: A Backup Call Girl Brian Kimmel: A Deadly 17,000 Volts James L. “Jim” Rumsey: Responding with Celerity and Expertise

143

11

Chapter Two:1980-2000 Joseph Robert “Bob” Troutman: No Place to Dunebuggy Loren Dennis “Denny” Schuler: A Single Wreck Good for Multiple Drills Michael A. “Mike” Cantwell: Ixnay the Beer Richard G. “Rich” Jones: “What’s That Liquid I Keep Smelling?”

Steven Allen “Steve” Harms: “We Are So Close to a 4 Rating” Timothy “Tim” John Collins: A Passionate, Driven, Enthusiastic Individual

151

Incident Report: Summon the Posse

152

Chronicles: All in the Family

161

Chapter Three: 2000-2008 William Aaron Easterling: The Face of Genesee Fire Frank W. Beebe: “The Reality is Just a Little Worse” Matthew L. Solano: The Man in the Middle Frederick G. “Fritz” Ihrig: “For God’s Sake, We Need to Look Like Firefighters”

169

Chronicles: A Wide Spectrum of Professionals

173

Chapter Four: 2008-2023 Scott G. Mefford: Thanks for Saving Our House John Carlton Babbs III: “It Was Easily the Most Pucker Moment of My Career” Roelof R. Snieder: “Give Somebody Your Confidence” John A. Seward: “You’re Getting Paid For This. I’m Not” Jason Richard Puffett: Lead From the Front

• Joe Auster: A Mentor, Friend, and Collaborator

185

Section Four: Backward Glance, Forward Vision

211

Chapter One: September 11th Forever Recast the Character of Genesee Fire Rescue

213

Chapter Two: The Challenges And Opportunities Ahead

223

203

Back of the Book Select Sources

227

Acknowledgements

229

About the Authors

230

Also Available From TJFR Press

232

Index

234

Library of Congress / Copyright / ISBN

247

FOREWORD Dedication and Service masterfully tells the story of Genesee Fire Rescue, a remarkable volunteer fire company in the foothills west of Denver.

The Genesee firefighters are professional in every sense of the word. They are always on duty, alert, disciplined, and willing to respond with the most modern and well-maintained equipment. Through perpetual training, outstanding leadership, and steadfast devotion to community service, the Genesee fire force has earned its place among the top volunteer departments in the state.

There are approximately 1.2 million firefighters in the United States, and 65% of them are volunteers. This book is an inspiring testament to the enduring spirit of American volunteerism, a beacon that continues to shine in towns and cities nationwide, often with little fanfare.

For half a century, the men and women of Genesee Fire Rescue have confronted perilous situations, combating wildfires, extinguishing home and commercial blazes, aiding and evacuating residents who become ill, and attending some of the worst imaginable motor vehicle accidents, all while placing themselves in life-threatening situations.

For their efforts, the volunteers have won the immeasurable gratitude of those they serve and the priceless satisfaction of knowing that what they give of themselves genuinely matters. This book is a tribute to those firefighters, past and present, and their dedicated work and personal sacrifices.

Dedication and Service is a poignant celebration of the heroes next door, those ordinary yet extraordinary individuals who show up for neighbors and strangers in their times of need, putting their lives on the line with each and every emergency they respond to.

The fire service is a family. I am extremely grateful and honored that Genesee Fire Rescue played an important role in my fire service career and my fire service family.

—John Bales

President, Colorado Fallen Firefighters Foundation

John Bales is one of the most respected firefighters in Colorado and revered nationwide. From 2001 to 2018, he was the fire chief for the City of Golden Fire Department.

A second-generation firefighter, Bales devoted a total of 50 years to the fire service in multiple capacities. His son, Steven, is an officer with the Denver Fire Department.

Bales has served as an adjunct instructor for the National Fire Academy. He is a past president of both the Colorado Fire Training Officers Association and the Denver Metro Fire Chiefs Association.

Portrait: John Bales Jon Rose Photography

15

INTRODUCTION T

his book is a celebration of a little volunteer engine company that could, and has, for five decades.

It also is intended to salute the tens of thousands of other volunteer and mostly volunteer fire departments throughout the nation that are dedicated to public service and safety.

Located 20 miles west of downtown Denver in the majestic foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the unincorporated community of Genesee sits on the southern edge of Interstate-70, across the highway from the regal Lookout Mountain. Both locations offer a cornucopia of awe-inspiring vistas, woodlands, mountain flowers, wild birds, and roaming game.

Genesee is home to approximately 4,000 residents. Its fire district comprises a four-square-mile area containing about 1,500 homes, 28 commercial buildings, and 1,200 acres of open space.

For 50 years, Genesee Fire Rescue (GFR) has recruited and trained resident volunteers to provide round-the-clock fire protection and emergency medical services. When not donning bunker or wildfire gear, its members hail from all walks of life: lawyers, physicians, pilots, bankers, engineers, professors, entrepreneurs, armed services members, FBI agents, homemakers, students, and retirees, included.

Genesee, begun as a mining community, became a high-altitude haven for Denverites seeking cooler, fresher summer air in the era before air conditioning. A smattering of cabins and modest homes, some lacking electricity and indoor plumbing, dotted the foothills landscape.

After years of legal wrangling, in the early 1970s a group of visionary commercial land developers began selling lots and constructing Genesee as one of the first planned mountain communities on the outskirts of Denver.

The newly built homes were spread out, nestled high among the Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir, often accessible only via narrow dirt roads. That posed a serious impediment — and risk — to the nearby mountain fire agencies that were originally responsible for answering emergency calls in Genesee. The task was especially daunting during the winter months when snow drifts buried Genesee’s rudimentary vehicle arteries.

Ultimately, the Genesee community developers had the good sense to form their own fire company, which became operational in 1973.

In its infancy, GFR’s “volunteers” were also paid employees of the Genesee Land Company. Their focus was on clearing trees and brush that posed a fire hazard. A pickup truck equipped with a water tank seated in its bed, a motor, and a oneinch line of hose functioned as GFR’s only “fire engine.”

The earliest volunteers were well-meaning but hardly qualified by today’s standards. In many respects, GFR began as a “boys club,” where neighborhood men gathered for camaraderie, sharing laughs and a few beers. A common quip heard around the firehouse was, “Come for the party, stay for the fire.”

Over time, however, Genesee’s fire department began to take itself more seriously and embarked on an unwavering and ongoing path of professional advancement.

17

Dedication and Service Today, despite its small size and continuing reliance on resident volunteers, GFR has evolved into a model of capable emergency response, community wildland prevention and suppression, innovative training academies, and the recruitment and promotion of female firefighters and officers. A half-dozen or so times annually, members of GFR join with companies from around the region and nation in battling federal wildfires as far away as Texas, California, and Oregon.

On initial impression, the men and women of GFR, like volunteer firefighters throughout the country, seem to be an enigma. Why do they do it?

They get paid nothing for the hundreds of hours that many of them dedicate each year to training and service. They put life and limb at risk. They witness injuries and tragedies that, once seen, can never be forgotten. They are on perpetual call, often summoned to the station in the dead of night, and in Colorado, at least, asked to perform in blizzards and sub-zero conditions.

These firefighters’ commitment to serving their communities and neighbors may not be uniquely American, but it is steeped in an American ethos that — while so much else has changed or vanished — has endured since Benjamin Franklin helped organize Philadelphia’s all-volunteer “Bucket Brigade” in 1736.

A sense of history and continuity is one intangible that equips each volunteer firefighter with a mission and an unassailable sense of pride.

The men and women of Genesee Fire Rescue have responded to thousands of calls over the decades — chimney and stove fires, auto accidents, medical traumas, and wildland flares — most of them imminently forgettable, as well as some that you’ll read about in this commemorative book that will never be forgotten.

There was the three-year-old kidnapped girl who was molested and dumped in a remote outhouse pit. GFR was an integral part of the team that rescued her after three horrid days.

There was the trucker whose rig lost its brakes on the steep Interstate-70 incline approaching Denver from the west. His body, after a sustained search, was finally located impaled on a fence at the bottom of a ravine.

There was the gas leak explosion in the garage of a Genesee home that almost cost two volunteers their lives.

And, in December 2021, there was the Marshall Fire, the most destructive wildfire in Colorado’s history. GFR joined with dozens of other fire companies to battle the blaze, which engulfed more than 1,000 structures and scorched more than 6,000 acres.

All in a day’s work for the volunteers.

While Dedication and Service relays the story of Genesee Fire Rescue, each and every member of today’s company is keenly aware that they are part of a larger “family” of firefighters that shares DNA with volunteer and paid firefighters throughout the country and across time.

It is telling that when retired members of GFR are asked to reflect on their fondest memories of their years on the job, without exception, they speak of the bonds they built with their fellow volunteers.

“You have your friends and your neighbors,” observes veteran firefighter John Bales, a one-time GFR trainer. “But fire folks, your close friends, they’re your family. You know their kids’ names. You know their wives’ birthdays. You know 18

Introduction things about them that they don’t tell anybody else.”

Bill Easterling, who spent 23 years with Genesee Fire Rescue, bristles at any suggestion that volunteer firefighters are, in any shape, manner, or form, amateurs or hobbyists.

“You’re going to be there when somebody’s having the worst day of their life. So don’t call yourself a volunteer anymore.

You’re not ‘just a volunteer.’ You’re a professional and you are volunteering your professional expertise to the community.”

And so it is.

The volunteers of Genesee Fire Rescue and members of the 23,000-plus other volunteer or mostly volunteer fire companies may not be compensated, but they are no less competent or dedicated.

That is well worth honoring and celebrating.

— Dean Rotbart Hank O’Brien September 2023

19

AUTHORS’ NOTE If one looks closely enough at the 50-year history of Genesee Fire Rescue, it’s not hard to find blemishes, even pronounced flaws.

The company has not been atypical when it comes to the foibles of human nature, and to tell GFRs history otherwise would airbrush the reality.

Across the decades, there were boors and egotists among the volunteers and leaders. Some members of the company could be crude, mocking their fellow volunteers to their face or — more often — behind their backs. Disagreements over the direction of the department occasionally split the volunteers down the middle.

Women on the force were valued and made impressive contributions. But sometimes, they were treated as less-than-equal members of the “fraternity” of firefighters.

Relations with nearby mountain fire departments were usually cordial but almost always competitive — and sometimes even nasty. More than one GFR officer quit prematurely out of pique.

By design, this text does not deny these defects, but it will not dwell on them either. After all, shortcomings are not exceptional to any group of co-workers who bring different backgrounds and values to the job. All the more so, volunteers.

To probe the imperfections is to miss the point.

What made — and makes — Genesee Fire Rescue’s members remarkable is that despite their different backgrounds, their internal and external conflicts, and their personality quirks, when the calls come in, the volunteers respond as one — dedicated to the centuries-old creed of volunteer firefighters: unselfish public service, courage, and duty.

21

Incident Report

Narrative:

Incident Name: Child Abduction

Incident Type: Rescue

Location: Stapleton Park

Date: August 1983

Personnel: Highland Rescue and Genesee Fire Rescue

Mutual Aid: Yes

He Was Not a Very Nice Man I go down there and there’s this man and a lady. I said, “How old is your child?” He said, “We’ve never seen this kid before.”

G

azing skyward, three-year-old Lori Poland, shivering and wearing only soiled panties, watched as day turned into night and back to day again. Three times.

Her legs and swollen feet were numb, no longer able to feel the chilly pool of fecal sludge and urine she was standing in.

Her rescuers would be nauseated by the stench, but mercifully, after only a few hours at the bottom of the outhouse pit, the blond-haired, blue-eyed child stopped noticing.

“Mommy,” she whimpered time and again. “Mommy.”

If Cynthia Gaulin, a tourist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, hadn’t needed to answer nature’s call, little Lori almost certainly would have died in that remote foothills hellhole.

Birdwatchers, Cynthia and her husband Steven were driving to a nearby mountain park hoping to spot the rare Williamson’s sapsucker when they got lost. The couple spotted a remote outhouse in Stapleton Park, just north of Interstate-70, near Genesee Park, and drove there.

Rising from under the wooden latrine seat came a soft cry.

“Mommy. I want some Kool-Aid.” Gaulin’s husband, Steven, retrieved a flashlight from the couple’s car and shone it down the darkened toilet hole.

There, 12 feet below, was little Lori.

“What are you doing there?” he asked.

(L-R) Joanne Greenberg, Lori Poland, and Alan Fletcher 23

Dedication and Service “I live here,” the confused child answered.

Lori had not fallen in, as if that would have been nightmare enough for any toddler.

Days earlier, witnesses told police, Lori had been sitting at the curb in front of her home in the Denver suburb of Sheridan, sucking on a Popsicle and playing with her 5-year-old brother and friends. A young, clean-shaven man approached Lori, ordered her to take off her pants, and lured her into his four-door, orange-brown 1972 Datsun 510 before speeding off.

Lori’s mother, Diane, was at work at the time. Her father, Richard, inside the home, didn’t witness the abduction.

Lori’s tormentor, 21-year-old Robert Paul Thiret, had demonstrated a predilection for sexual deviance since the age of 13. Court records unsealed in September 1984 in connection with his sentencing for his assault on Lori were sinister: three other children attacked, two attempts to abduct kids, two allegations involving women’s underwear, obscene phone calls, three thefts, and two burglaries. According to a press account, Thiret had also been accused of performing oral sex on two boys, aged three and four, and was suspected in two attempted child abductions the month before Lori was taken.

Thiret left Lori for dead and no doubt never imagined how justice — or at least what the judge and others would come to call “better than no justice” — finally dealt the reprobate a ten-year prison sentence. Thiret might have faced 48 years in jail for his crimes, but before the case went to trial, prosecutors allowed him to plea bargain away some counts due to concerns about the admissibility of certain evidence.

In the end, Thiret would only serve six of his ten-year sentence. He was subsequently incarcerated for an additional six months for telephone harassment.

Efforts by then-Colorado Governor Roy Romer to prevent Thiret’s release were unsuccessful. The 28-year-old, sporting a trim beard and shaggy hair, stepped out of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s jail and into an awaiting van on December 7, 1990. Lori Poland was ten years old.

Four decades after she was kidnapped on August 22, 1983, Lori Poland’s rescue stands as one of the most dramatic moments in the history of Genesee Fire Rescue. Her kidnapping and safe recovery, as well as the trial and sentencing of Thiret, generated global headlines.

Besides the invaluable role that fate played, the credit for Lori’s deliverance belongs to the Gaulins for summoning the Highland Rescue Team’s paramedics, and other nearby first responders who rushed to the scene.

As one prosecuting attorney later recounted, from the very first moment the authorities received word of the abduction, time became of the essence.

If she was alive, she wasn’t going to be alive much longer.

The pride Genesee Fire Rescue takes for its part in the rescue of Lori stems from its hand-in-glove working relationship with Highland Rescue, located on Lookout Mountain Road, three-and-a-half miles north of the GFR fire station. To this day, the two public safety crews almost always respond in tandem to local emergencies, and members of the two departments often turn up on each other’s rosters.

24

Incident Report: He Was Not a Very Nice Man Among the first responders to arrive at the outhouse was 50-year-old Joanne Greenberg, one of the early female volunteer firefighters who began responding to emergency calls in Denver’s foothills when the Genesee community still existed primarily on the architectural blueprints of the Genesee Land Company.

Like many public safety volunteers in those days, Greenberg had a Plectron in her home, a radio receiver that was a type of emergency alert system — later replaced by pagers.

I was sitting up here minding my own business and the box started going, “Kid down the commode.”

It was, she surmised, just another overly curious or mischievous youngster who had tumbled into the bowels of an outhouse.

I’ll throw the kid a rope and that’s it.

But as it turned out, Lori’s case was anything but another run-of-the-mill mishap.

I go down there and there’s this man and a lady. I said, “How old is your child?” He said, “We’ve never seen this kid before.”

In rapid succession, additional responders from area fire and ambulance companies arrived to help.

One, 31-year-old Stephen Bakker, volunteered to be lowered by rope into the pit to carry Lori out. According to witnesses who were on the scene, Bakker was the obvious choice because he was smaller in stature than the other male rescuers.

In those days, even though Greenberg and women in nearby fire and rescue companies had been on the job for years, they were rarely, if ever, allowed to expose themselves to the same potential risks as their male colleagues.

Bakker called down to Lori, asking a seemingly obvious question.

Do you want to come out?

“Yes,” the faint voice responded.

So down went Bakker. Slowly. Lower and lower, until he held frightened little Lori in his arms.

When Bakker resurfaced with the squinting Lori, she clung to him.

She didn’t want to let go. She was going to stay there and just hold on for a while.

Lori was rushed by ambulance to Denver’s St. Anthony Hospital, about 15 miles away. Greenberg rode along.

For a traumatized three-year-old who had spent three-plus days alone in a stinking, dark hole, Lori surprised Greenberg with her alertness.

We talked about grandpa. We talked about dad. We talked about pizza. We talked about them laying a new floor in the bathroom.

25

Dedication and Service The one thing Lori wouldn’t share with Greenberg was her name.

I think her mother said, “Don’t talk to strangers,” and Lori remembered that lesson despite her ordeal.

Halfway to St. Anthony, Lori confided in Greenberg.

He was not a very nice man.

In the hospital emergency room, Lori was finally reunited with her 25-year-old mother. Both of them wept.

We got her back, we got her back! She looks good, she’s a little bruised and scared, but she said, “I want a Popsicle.” Thank God she’s home.

On Lori’s way to the X-ray room, a nurse handed her a grape Popsicle.

Lori’s hospital room was flooded with gifts for the child, including 21 large stuffed animals. Frontier Airlines and First Financial Securities Corp. announced they’d pick up the entire tab for a Disneyland vacation for Lori, her parents, and her five-year-old brother.

The hospital said it would waive any fees for the Poland family.

Lori, herself, had only one plea, as she told her mother.

I don’t want to go back in that hole again.

Although Lori was still too young for preschool, she was able to single out Thiret from a police lineup. That both helped convict her abductor and gave his attorneys grounds to challenge the case against their client, questioning the ability of a child so young to serve as a credible witness.

Media reports at the time, based partly on statements from a hospital spokesman, said that Lori had not been sexually assaulted. That wasn’t accurate.

It’s likely that Lori’s parents and law enforcement officials misled the media to shield Lori from any possible stigma that would attach itself to her as a victim of a sex crime.

In part to spare Lori from having to testify at a trial — and to spare her loved ones from having the medical evidence of her rape publicly scrutinized — Littleton District Court Judge Charles Friedman agreed to drop the charges of kidnapping and child abuse against Thiret, in exchange for him pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a child and attempted first-degree murder.

During the one-hour court proceeding in September 1984, Richard and Diane Poland held hands and wept silently.

John Lawritson, their attorney, spoke to the media on behalf of the Polands.

I think Lori’s family is very disappointed that someone could snatch a three-year-old in front of her house and do what he wants with her for his own gratification and then throw her in a pit to die. I hope this will end a terrifying and devastating 26

Incident Report: He Was Not a Very Nice Man chapter in Lori Poland’s life and that of her family. We have a feeling some justice is better than no justice at all.

The most recent word on Robert Paul Thiret is that he is a transient living in Southern California, listed on the state’s Department of Justice sexual offenders registry. He turned 61 in June 2023.

Lori Poland turned 43 years old in July 2023.

To her parents’ enormous credit, as she explains in a biography on her website, they worked tirelessly to provide her with a normal childhood.

We didn’t move, we didn’t run, we went about our lives, trying to sludge through it. And together we were able to do so, not without a lot of struggles and pain. Yet we muddied through it all.

At age 15, Lori decided to dedicate her life to helping others. She earned a degree in counseling/psychology and, as a therapist, has worked with patients suffering from child abuse and neglect.

In December 2017, she and Dr. Richard Krugman, the former dean of the University of Colorado Medical School, launched The National Foundation to End Child Abuse and Neglect (EndCAN), a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness of the physical, mental, and public health impacts of abuse.

Dr. Krugman had been there back in 1983, heading the agency where Lori completed her forensic interview after her kidnapping.

Writes Lori: I can’t NOT do this work, for my children, for their friends, and for my-someday-grandchildren, if we can eliminate their pain and suffering, I am going to do everything I can to make that happen.

In late 2021, in anticipation of this volume, Lori was reunited at the GFR firehouse with Joanne Greenberg and Alan Fletcher, a GFR and Highland Rescue volunteer who was among those who worked to save her life 38 years earlier. The three were strangers, but forever bonded.

“I thought about reaching out many times,” Fletcher told Lori, a sentiment that Greenberg echoed.

You guys played a pretty big role [in my rescue]. Thank you.

27

SECTION ONE Origins

The Fire Within: Captain Neil Frame Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

29

Incident Report Incident Name:

Narrative:

Man in the High-Top Shoes

Incident Type: Vehicular Accident

Location: Interstate-70

Date: Unspecified

Personnel: Jim Andrews

Mutual Aid: Yes

Jim Andrews joined the others on the steep cliff side, searching for the nowhere-to-be-found driver whose bulky outline could be discerned through the shattered semi-truck windshield.

We looked all over for him.

The scene was otherworldly.

The big rig — its brakes having overheated on the steep decline that all drivers must negotiate on their descent to Denver from the towering mountains — had plowed through the highway’s feeble guardrail and plummeted all the way to the bottom of a ravine. The tractor and the trailer, which had been hauling old copper radiators, were wrenched apart, each boring deep gouges into the escarpment.

Radiator casings were strewn in jumbled clumps among the boulders and rocks. The force of the crash had compacted some of the coiled metal devices together.

Boy, that made a mess down there, a big mess.

Andrews was an early volunteer with Genesee Fire Rescue, dispatched to the crash site to lend a hand with the search and clean-up operations. It was apparent from the moment he arrived on the scene that “rescue” would be unnecessary.

Andrews had signed on with the Genesee Land Company in 1984 to do forestry work, primarily cutting trees, trimming brush, and lending a hand with other outdoor chores such as snow plowing.

Back then, the Genesee community was still sparsely populated, so out of necessity the developers enlisted Andrews and two other male employees to do double-duty as “volunteer” firefighters.

Andrews came from a mining background, having worked for six years for the Climax Molybdenum Company in Leadville, 85 miles to the southwest of Genesee. At one time, the company produced three-quarters of the world’s output of molybdenum, used to harden steel. The Leadville facility, when Andrews worked there, boasted the largest underground mine in the world.

At Climax, Andrews received basic training for fires and first response. Once on the payroll in Genesee, he shadowed his more experienced GFR colleagues to learn what they could teach him about community firefighting. But the GFR onboarding was more informal than formal.

The Genesee trio’s “firefighting” most often consisted of tending to area construction workers who were always getting hurt, often when using nail guns to install roofing.

30

I saw one [worker] shoot himself in the knee. I thought about getting a crowbar and pulling it out.

Obviously, Andrews was not steeped in the finer points of emergency medicine. Still, he did have the good sense to summon the nearby, well-trained Highland Rescue ambulance crew to step in and take responsibility for the injured man’s treatment.

The GFR firehouse was no firehouse at all. The firefighters operated out of the one-story, wood-paneled Oxley Homestead building, a vintage 1922 home that was repurposed as a maintenance shop and fire station.

Becoming a fire truck driver/operator is an assignment no longer entrusted to a rookie firefighter like Andrews. The job is too important.

About the worst-case scenario a fire department can envision is crashing its own vehicle on the way to an emergency call, putting the lives of its crew, others on the road, and those having an emergency at risk.

Speeding along the hilly, winding roads that fall within the Genesee fire district can be hazardous in good weather and downright perilous when the pavement is coated in ice and snow.

Nevertheless, early in his tenure, GFR handed Andrews the keys to its 1971 Dodge Power Wagon Brush 50, its only apparatus at the time.

While other GFR volunteers disliked the pickup truck, which was given to stalling out in cold weather and burning out its clutch, for Andrews, who had a personal wagon just like it, the Brush 50 behaved like a pussycat.

I was good with that truck, so they decided, “We need him [driving] that truck.”

Working maintenance and forestry for the Genesee Land Company, Andrews was on-site during the days and frequently could be found puttering around Oxley Homestead in the evening and at night. So he was a perfect addition to the fire force.

In its early days, Genesee Fire Rescue shared responsibility for responding to car accidents and runaway truck incidents along the strip of Interstate-70 closest to the emergent community. The highway, which spans 2,100 miles between Cove Fort, Utah, and the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland, features two exits in proximity to Genesee, #254 and #256.

The exits provide easy access not only to the Genesee community but also to popular tourist destinations, including Genesee Park, Lookout Mountain, the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, and Mother Cabrini Shrine.

So it was that Andrews and his GFR mates found themselves combing the bluff along Interstate-70 in search of the unfortunate truck driver.

And then, they came upon him.

There, racked on a fence at the bottom of the rocks, hung the motionless victim.

He was dead. He was the first dead person that I actually saw in person, and I just remember it vividly because… because I remember the shoes he had on.

They were high-top canvas tennis shoes, the kind that extend slightly above the ankle and were popularized by basketball players and grunge-wearing heavy metal artists who complemented their plaid tops and ripped jeans with Con31

verse-brand sneakers.

Truckers like high-tops because they offer all-day comfort with non-slip soles that allow them to sense the throttle, brake, and clutch.

Hefting the driver down from the fence and placing him on a tarp required a group effort.

I remember looking at him, helping move him around. He was a big guy, a real big guy, so it took a lot of us to move him around. I remember looking at him thinking, “Somebody’s going to get a phone call. What a horrible phone call they’re going to get.”

Over his 17 years with Genesee Fire Rescue, Andrews attended many accidents on Interstate-70 and innumerable medical and kitchen fire emergencies in Genesee. But none of them are seared into his memory like the truck driver with the high-top shoes.

Andrews retains many fond reflections of his years with GFR, especially the bonds he made with the other firefighters and the help they provided to people in need.

I met a lot of good people here.

Andrews’s service to GFR is all the more virtuous because he served all those years when firefighting was never really his passion. GFR needed help and he gave it, even long after the department was able to attract new recruits who felt the calling.

There’s a lot of commitment now to the department for volunteers. There is a lot of training. They’re here because they want to be. I don’t know if it was like that when I started if I would have stuck around. I would have probably found another job somewhere. But I did like working out in the woods, and that’s what I did. I was a tree cutter.

[Jim Andrews retired from Genesee Fire Rescue in 2001 and from the Genesee Land Company, which is now known as the Genesee Foundation, in the summer of 2022.]

32

33

CHAPTER ONE The Fabric of America

T

he volunteers — a physician, hospital director, jurist, craftsman, and merchants — served so long ago that their names are largely forgotten. Among them were Lloyd Zachary, Hugh Roberts, Edward Shippen, Philip Syng, William Plumsted, Samuel Powell Jr., and Joseph Turner.

From the beginning, the newly formed fire department was as focused on prevention as on extinguishing home and other structure fires, if not more so.

The first chief was an entrepreneur and altruist. He helped recruit thirty volunteers. Each man was asked to provide his own personal protection equipment and even basic firefighting tools.

The volunteers gathered on the last Monday evening of each month to socialize and talk fires. The chief believed that the regular meetings and practice would elevate the department’s competency.

Attendance at the meetings was mandatory, and those who failed to show up were fined. The monies raised from the penalties were used to purchase ladders, fire hooks, and other useful implements.

In 2012, Andy Marsh, a Pittsburgh-based fire safety officer and blogger, reflected on the first chief, stating that he had a sense of community and a “call to duty.”

Although amateurish by today’s standards, the early volunteers succeeded in extinguishing blazes that threatened the entire community.

The proud chief proclaimed, “I question whether there is a city in the world better provided with the means of putting a stop to beginning conflagrations.”

The city was Philadelphia, the year 1736, and the chief, Benjamin Franklin.

From the Lookout Mountain Exit 256 along Interstate-70, the winding Genesee Ridge Road passes directly by the paneled frontage of the Genesee Fire Rescue station, built in 1979.

If not for the red vinyl banner with white lettering hooked to the siding, the firehouse could be mistaken for a warehouse 35

Dedication and Service or a water treatment plant.

Yet that one sign, with its simple message “Volunteers Needed” and the GFR logo, has been one of the department’s best recruitment tools for decades, inspiring dozens of residents who eventually walked through the firehouse’s front door.

The powerful draw of the basic and artless sign says a great deal about the character of the men and women who are inspired to serve with GFR, where volunteerism runs in their veins. They desire not only to live in the majestic foothills of the Rocky Mountains but also to contribute to their community and neighbors.

Many of the GFR members gave freely of their time to other organizations before relocating to Genesee, such as mentoring students, constructing housing for the indigent, and preparing food bank meals. However, those activities don’t demand the physical exertion, extensive ongoing training, all-hours on-call availability, and real risk of injury or death that volunteer firefighting requires.

Most new GFR volunteers have never donned bunker coats or pants, much less a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). They’ve never driven a 75-foot aerial ladder truck through Genesee’s hilly, snowy roads, nor have they faced a wildland fire where the sky turns a surreal orange, ash rains down, and the wall of flames can climb one hundred feet or more high.

But Genesee Fire Rescue would not have lasted one year, much less fifty years, if its hearty volunteers were unwilling to step forward — drawn in by their commitment to duty and the simple appeal, “Volunteers Needed.”

Just shy of his 31st birthday, Benjamin Franklin organized Philadelphia’s Union Fire Company, the first all-volunteer department in the United States. While historical accounts differ on whether he formally served as chief, he is commonly credited with the role. A portrait of Franklin by Charles Washington Wright, dated 1850, and on display at the National Museum of American History, depicts Franklin wearing a chief’s fire helmet.

Even now, more than two centuries later, Franklin’s Union Fire Company continues to inspire citizen firefighters in Genesee and across the nation. Like their predecessors 237 years earlier, the volunteers of GFR pledged from Day One in 1973 to help fight fires outside of their district with the same commitment they would show if the blaze threatened their community.

The Union Fire Company of Philadelphia, originally formed on December 7, 1736, states in its charter: … as this association is intended for a general benefit, we do further agree, that whenever a FIRE breaks out in any part of the city, though none of our houses, goods or effects may be in apparent danger, we will nevertheless repair thither with our buckets and bags as before mentioned, and give our utmost assistance to such of our fellow-citizens as may stand in need of it, in the same manner as if they belonged to this company.

In 1710, Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister and prolific author, wrote a seminal volume on the obligation to give of oneself and help those in need. The book, Bonifacius — also commonly referred to as Essays to Do Good — inspired Franklin and many others to undertake and encourage humanitarian acts.

36

The Fabric of America As a protégé of Mather, Franklin’s dedication to improving the fortunes of his fellow citizens went well beyond the all-volunteer Union Fire Company. In 1730, Franklin was a founding member of the first Freemasons lodge in the United States. He organized a circulating library in 1731 to make access to books — which were then the exclusive province of the clergy and the wealthy — more widely available. And, in 1749, he recruited 24 men to serve as trustees of what would become the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin served as its first president.

When Franklin organized the Union Fire Company, its governing articles specifically stated that the size of the company “shall not consist of more than thirty members.”

Soon, however, the number of those wanting to volunteer swelled to far more than thirty. Franklin encouraged the overflow to form a second company, which they did. And then a third, and a fourth, and so on.

Jump ahead to today, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, counts 23,270 all-volunteer and mostly volunteer fire departments in its registry. Just shy of 677,000 volunteers currently participate in the fire service, including forty or so of those who donate their time and energies to Genesee Fire Rescue.

American volunteer fire companies were among the first organized aid agencies, forming prior to nationhood and contributing ever since to their communities and our country.

Today, a wide range of nonprofit organizations benefit from the efforts of volunteers. AmeriCorps, in collaboration with the U.S. Census Bureau, estimated that prior to the COVID-19 outbreak 78.5 million Americans volunteered some of their time each year through formal organizations. In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, as people focused on their own health and safety, that number dipped to 60.7 million, still approximately one-fifth of Americans.

Historians, economists, sociologists, labor experts, and other researchers — contributing to a 2006 collection of essays titled The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook (Second Edition) — credit nonprofit organizations and the volunteers who work on their behalf with being a bulwark of our democracy.

“From a civil society perspective, the nonprofit sector is regarded as the embodiment of certain values that are crucial to democracy and good government,” wrote professors Steven Rathgeb Smith and Kirsten A. Grøbjerg.

The two contributors pointed to Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political scientist and author of the four-volume study, Democracy in America (De La Démocratie en Amérique), for his forceful assertion that America’s democracy rested on its extensive network of voluntary associations. (Tocqueville spent nine months traveling the United States during 1831 and 1832.)

“To Tocqueville, voluntary associations were inherently positive for democracy; the more voluntary associations, the healthier are civil society and government performance,” wrote Smith and Grøbjerg.

The essayists credited nonprofits and volunteers with serving multiple societal goals, including “responsiveness, freedom, cooperation, legitimacy, individual and community responsibility, citizen participation, obligation, and social capital.”

Of the dozens of current and former Genesee Fire Rescue volunteers interviewed for this book, none spoke of their decision to join up in terms of the broad societal goals mentioned by Smith and Grøbjerg.

Yet, collectively, even if unknowingly, they have advanced those goals and other core democratic values.

37

Dedication and Service In its earliest days, the biggest draw GFR offered to recruits was the camaraderie of their neighbors, the annual Halloween and Christmas parties, and the free flow of beer. “Come for the party, stay for the fire” is how the early recruiters jokingly described their pitch.

That was, largely, unfair. From the very start, Genesee fire volunteers felt the same call to duty that stirred Franklin centuries earlier and experienced the satisfaction of being there for friends, neighbors, and strangers in need.

The resolve of Genesee’s volunteer firefighters would only deepen with the passing years.

Academics have spent decades trying to understand the mindset and motivations of volunteers.

They’ve yet to reach a consensus.

Laura Leete, an associate professor and director of the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Oregon, was one of the contributors to the 2006 edition of The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook. Dr. Leete, who earned her PhD in economics from Harvard University, reviewed the literature on volunteerism and shared her observations in the book’s compilation. Dr. Leete found that the various theories of why volunteers give of themselves overlap.

“Any one individual can be simultaneously motivated by a number of factors.”

For Alan Fletcher, it came down to watching his mother, then his father, sign up to volunteer with Genesee Fire Rescue.

In the early days, before the GFR station was even constructed, women in the community — stay-at-home moms mainly — were indispensable to the fire service because they were physically present during the daytime, when many of their husbands worked jobs in Golden, Denver, and other surrounding cities.

The women volunteers of Genesee were typically the first to receive notice of a fire or other emergency, and they would initiate a call tree to summon any available firefighters to respond. In many instances, especially when no men were available, the women would put on bunker gear — or what passed for firefighting protection wear — and drive the engine or ladder to the scene of the emergency. They formed a sisterhood, handling emergency calls by day and becoming the best of friends outside of the firehouse.

Fletcher’s mother loved the work she was doing for GFR and the friendships she was making. It was infectious. Although he was only 15 years old when he joined the fire service, Fletcher, too, was quickly addicted. Early on, he’d ride his moped from his parents’ home in Genesee to the station, soon becoming an invaluable member of the company.

On the opposite end of the age spectrum was Frederick G. Ihrig, who everyone called “Fritz.” Ihrig was 63 years old when he joined the GFR rookie training class in 2000. Semi-retired as an attorney, he would spend the next decade on the force, serving two years as chief, beginning in 2006.

In Ihrig’s training class of ten or eleven members, he recalled, was a tank commander in the First Gulf War and a commercial airline pilot who had served as a Navy helicopter pilot.

Over the decades, among Genesee Fire Rescue volunteers, patterns have emerged that mirror what Dr. Leete spotted nationwide. Among the commonalities, volunteers are highly, intrinsically motivated and act on values that are important to them. Volunteers, as a generality, are better educated and wealthier than the average American.

38

The Fabric of America “Higher wage individuals and those who work full-time, volunteer more, not less,” Dr. Leete wrote, citing Richard B. Freeman’s 1997 article, “Working for Nothing: The Supply of Volunteer Labor.”

Dr. Leete recognizes a distinction between what first motivates volunteers and what motivates them to remain committed.

Genesee’s Fletcher is a good example. As a teen, his inspiration to join the force had less to do with altruism and more with hanging out with his parents and their firefighting friends. It was more entertaining than video games. But over time, Fletcher was captivated by the immense satisfaction he felt helping others in need.

The teen grew into an adult at Genesee Fire Rescue and has dedicated his entire professional career to firefighting. Fletcher received a degree in the fire sciences from a local community college and remained with GFR until he was 29. Subsequently, he worked for several other area fire departments. From May 2013 to May 2023, Fletcher was chief of Fairmount Fire Rescue, a front-range district that employs two dozen career firefighters and more than fifty volunteers. Fairmount Fire serves 35,000 residents and commercial occupants from three stations; two located in Golden, Colorado, and one in Wheat Ridge.

As Dr. Leete makes clear in her essay, “It has long been understood that while volunteers are unpaid, they are not free.”

Indeed, Genesee Fire Rescue invests time and money in each recruit and veteran member of the company, paying for training, equipment, supplies, insurance, and, for those who remain with GFR long enough, small pensions.

Genesee volunteers “un-volunteer” for different reasons. Some find the time or physical demands are too great. Others relocate out of the district and are disqualified from serving. And, of course, some — like in almost every work setting — come to disagree with the way the organization is being run and vote with their feet.

What is undeniably impressive, however, is the number of Genesee Fire Rescue volunteers who remain active for a decade or even two decades. Likewise, at the annual GFR membership party, the chief or deputy chief recognizes the volunteer who put in the most training hours and the volunteer who responded to the most emergency calls during the just-completed year.

In 2022, both honors went to Lt. Robert “Bob” Dalton, a volunteer since 2018. Dalton, whose wife, Dorie, is also a GFR officer, is deputy regional mission director for the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency under the Department of Defense.

Despite being employed full-time, Dalton managed to go on 142 Genesee Fire Rescue calls in 2022 — more than half of all incidents, and spent 206 hours continuing his training. The year before, he put in nearly 440 training hours.

Bob and Dorie were married in 1991 and moved to Genesee in 2012, when he was transferred to the Denver Federal Center, located along 6th Avenue in Lakewood, Colorado.

“We were both interested in the opportunity to serve the community,” Bob explains. “We saw the sign and stopped in.”

Nationally, the number of individuals volunteering for the fire service is declining at an alarming rate. “Volunteer fire departments that the U.S. relies on are stretched dangerously thin,” warned National Public Radio in February 2022. It’s a headline that has been echoed many times over.

39

Dedication and Service Even before the coronavirus pandemic sapped recruitment levels, the number of volunteer firefighters had reached its lowest recorded level since the National Fire Protection Association began tracking it in 1983.

The National Volunteer Fire Council points to several reasons that fewer men and women are joining volunteer fire departments. They include the need for many potential volunteers to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, the increasingly demanding training regimens required by federal and state standards, and a decline in the number of employers willing to allow volunteers to leave work to respond to an emergency call.

In Genesee, the changing volunteer landscape is most acutely felt in the difficulty of attracting younger men and women.

The median age of the Genesee Fire Rescue force is rising, and the department will find it challenging to replace those who age out of service.

Given the population of Genesee of approximately 4,000 today (and many fewer in previous decades) combined with the Genesee Fire Protection District’s requirement that volunteers — with very few exceptions — live in Genesee, it’s remarkable that GFR has persevered for five decades.

True, there were instances in the early years where literally only one or two members of GFR responded to an emergency call. It’s one reason that GFR actively participates in mutual aid arrangements with nearby fire companies, each helping the other when they are short-handed or an incident overwhelms the capabilities of any single fire company.

However, surveying other volunteer fire companies in Colorado and throughout the country, there is no doubt that Genesee Fire Rescue has been blessed in its ability to attract and retain volunteers.

Dr. Leete, in her essay for The Nonprofit Sector, notes that one of the most effective methods to attract first-time volunteers is simply to ask. It has worked in Genesee dozens of times over.

One of GFR’s legendary “door knockers” was Roel Snieder, a Dutch native who moved to Colorado in March 2000 and served on the GFR force for 14 years.

I saw that sign [Volunteers Needed], and I thought long and hard for about three seconds. And I then told my wife, ‘This is what I’m going to do.’

Roel and his wife, Idske Hiemstra, purchased a home on Snowberry Drive, a tree-lined street that loops directly behind the Genesee firehouse. As a member of GFR, Roel took it upon himself to march up and down Snowberry Drive frequently, urging his able-bodied neighbors to join him on the force.

In 2004, John Seward, who had never been interested in becoming a firefighter even though both his father and grandfather had worn the helmet and badge, finally gave in to Snieder’s persistent requests.

I had a neighbor, Roel Snieder, who was determined to recruit me. Finally, I just told him that I would go ahead and join if he would leave me alone. That was the primary reason.

Seward was not the only one who succumbed to Snieder’s cajoling. At its peak, Snowberry Drive was home to more members of GFR than any other street in Genesee before or since.

40

The Fabric of America Confesses Snieder: I either enlisted all of them or we enlisted each other. Basically, when the moving truck moved in, we would knock on the door. Eventually, they decided it was less work to just sign up and volunteer than talk to us all the time.

The Snowberry Drive contingent at Genesee Fire became so prominent — breeding several future chiefs and department officers — that the inhabitants dubbed themselves “The Snowberry Mafia,” a nickname that carried a bit of extra status around the firehouse.

So much has changed since the first men formed Genesee Fire Rescue in 1973. Today’s volunteers, both women and men, have far superior training and equipment. The beer that once flowed freely at the station has long since been banished. Until 2017, every GFR chief was a volunteer. Now GFR is led by a paid professional who has continued to elevate the expertise of the entire company.

What remains constant is the community’s reliance on the goodwill of their neighbors to participate in the fire department and be on call for them when they need it most.

Once a year, in late summer, Genesee Fire Rescue hosts a community open house that draws hundreds of residents of all ages.

The annual event features free grilled burgers and hot dogs, a bouncy house for the kids, a mascot in costume, fire and emergency-response-related exhibits, and an always-popular landing and takeoff of a rescue helicopter.

People come for the party and stay for the fire — or, more precisely, for the firefighters — to express their appreciation for keeping them, their homes, and their businesses safe.

On Genesee Ridge Road, cars park along the gravel embankment for blocks and blocks. And there, hanging off the face of the fire station, facing the passing traffic, as ubiquitous as ever, is the sign.

Volunteers Needed.

41

CHAPTER TWO My Colorado Home: Genesee

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, And the deer and the antelope play; Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Oh give me the gleam of the swift mountain stream, And the place where no hurricanes blow; And give me the park with the prairie dog bark, And the mountains all covered with snow.

-Colorado Home: Prospectors’ Song Winter 1884-1885

T

he provenance of the song that came to be known as Home on the Range has been disputed, tracing as far back as 1935.

That year, William and Mary Goodwin of Tempe, Arizona, filed a $500,000 copyright infringement lawsuit claiming that their song, An Arizona Home, was the genuine original. It wasn’t.

Many others credited Crawford O. “Bob” Swartz, a prospector in Leadville, Colorado, and his friends who holed up in a shanty in the winter of 1884-1885. The miners, Swartz recalled some years later, sat around on soap boxes and their bunks, “all trying to make the lines rhyme so they sounded like poetry.” One of the gang, Bill McCabe, a tenor, would strum his banjo and lead the singing of the tune they titled Colorado Home.

Many years passed. The radio was invented. One day, listening to the wireless, Swartz heard Colorado Home — although with somewhat altered lyrics. He was gobsmacked.

To his dying day in March 1932, Swartz insisted he was the progenitor of Home on the Range. Subsequently, in response to the Goodwin lawsuit, a thorough investigation by New York attorney Samuel Moanfeldt — now considered the definitive word on the matter — traced the song’s origins to Smith Center, Kansas, circa 1873, written by Daniel E. Kelly with Left: Genesee Bison Herd Photo: Avital Romberg

43

Dedication and Service lyrics by Brewster M. Higley.

In 1933, Bing Crosby’s rendition of Home on the Range catapulted the song to the status of an American classic, attracting legions of fans, including the newly inaugurated president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who reportedly led guests at his Warm Springs, Georgia, retreat in singing it.

In 1947, Kansas adopted Home on the Range as its state song.

The Genesee community is located 85 miles northeast of Leadville and 20 miles west of downtown Denver. While the topography is mountainous (and not range), deer and antelope play, the crystal blue skies are spectacular, for months of the year the mountains are covered with snow, and nearby bison do roam.

Today, Genesee features some of the most remarkable residential sites in Colorado, if not the nation — blessed with unmatched views of the Rocky Mountain peaks to the west and south, unobstructed panoramas of Golden, Denver, and the plains to the East, and surrounded by Douglas fir, Blue spruce, Ponderosa pine, Aspen, and free-roaming herds of elk and deer.

Genesee is an hour’s drive, give or take, from the slopes of Breckenridge, Winter Park, Keystone, and Vail, and a short car ride to the museums and theater stages that comprise the cultural heart of the Mile High City.

To live in Genesee is to live the quintessential Colorado lifestyle.

It is also to reside in wildland fire country, where high winds, forests, and dry grass can rapidly ignite, threatening the gorgeous estates with their stilted patios and large display windows, condominiums and townhomes, commercial center, and offices located there.

Standing between the tranquil foothills environs and catastrophic infernos is Genesee Fire Rescue, a homegrown fire company that has evolved over the past five decades to become a national model of excellence and volunteerism.

From the department’s earliest days, Genesee Fire Rescue has been an integral and inseparable part of the fabric of Genesee, Colorado. To fully appreciate the history and role GFR serves, it helps to understand not only the agency’s origins but also the wellspring from which it arose.

Among the earliest arrivals in what is now Genesee, Colorado, were miners in search of copper — not gold, as Leadville’s Crawford Swartz and Bill McCabe had been.

Only two miles from the present location of the GFR fire station, at 7,700 feet of elevation, was the Malachite copper mine, whose first claim was filed on March 26, 1866 — more than a decade before Colorado statehood.

For nearly a century, the prospect of hitting a rich vein of ore attracted hearty dreamers willing to endure the high altitude, bone-chilling cold, lack of sanitation, and absence of roads to and from the 150-foot mine shaft.

Ownership of the property flipped more often than pancake dough on a miner’s hot greased griddle, and from all evi44

My Colorado Home: Genesee dence, collectively, the speculators poured far more money into the Malachite pit than they ever recovered. By 1950, little more than a decrepit bunkhouse, warehouse, and compressor house remained as evidence of what had been.

While the Malachite miners and investors struggled to eke out a profit, the Genesee area proved a boon for silver fox and mink breeders who flourished raising the caged animals on local farms and selling their pelts, for which there was a steady demand.

Prominent silver fox growers in Genesee, who competed nationally and often won recognition for their soft, thick, glossy pelts, included the Richie Fox Farm, Cherry Fur Farm, and Genesee Mountain Fur Farm.

As The Great Divide, a short-lived Denver newspaper, reported in January 1926: In the early days when wild fur was plentiful, fine furs vied with precious jewels in pride of possession. Fine furs no less today are highly prized.

While ore and pelts attracted early settlers to Genesee, by the early 20th century, recreation, too, proved a draw, with travelers heading west of Denver along what was then Mt. Vernon Canyon Road — to be known later as U.S. Route 40, taking notice of the scenic views afforded by nearby Genesee Mountain.

One of the biggest fans was Robert W. Speer, who, in his second term as Denver’s mayor, set in motion the creation of the Denver Mountain Parks system. The first parcels the city acquired were for the formation of Genesee Park, which was dedicated in May 1913. The park, located near the boundary of modern-day Genesee, is well known for the bison herd that can be spotted from westbound Interstate-70, and the panoramic views afforded in all directions from Genesee Mountain Summit, at an elevation of 8,284 feet.

Ski jumping, both soaring skyward and watching those who dared, proved a big draw in the Genesee area in the early 1920s.

Long before Aspen or Vail cleared and graded land for their first slopes, Colorado’s ski industry was spawned in Genesee, near the modern-day neighborhood of Chimney Creek.

Credit belongs to Denverite George E. Cranmer and some associates, who established a Genesee ski jump that attracted throngs of participants and watchers. Cranmer, who made his fortune running his own brokerage firm and fortuitously liquidated it prior to the Crash of 1929, subsequently served as manager of Denver’s parks and recreation system. In that capacity, he became a giant of Centennial State development — the driving force behind the establishment of the Red Rocks Amphitheater, Winter Park Ski Resort, Stapleton Airport, and other large-scale civic projects.

Among those attracted to the Genesee ski slope was Karl Frithjof Hovelsen, a Norwegian who emigrated to Colorado in 1905 and came to be known as Carl Howelsen, “The Flying Norseman.”

Howelsen had been a cross-country ski champion back in Norway. During a mega-snowstorm in December 1913, Cranmer was at work in his Denver office when out of his window he glimpsed Howelsen swooshing to and fro on long, narrow skis. As David E. Peri, a Colorado journalist who penned a history of Genesee Park, recounted, “George [Cranmer] ran out of his office and asked to be taught.”

Howelsen obliged, and the two winter sports enthusiasts became life-long friends, subsequently pairing to attract intermountain ski jumping competitions to Genesee Mountain. Peri uncovered Denver Police records from the time that 45

Dedication and Service showed the Genesee skiing competitions drew between 40,000 and 50,000 spectators to major jumping events — roughly the equivalent of a capacity crowd at Coors Field.

The farthest ski jump in the world then on record was established in Genesee in the 1920s. The jump ceased operations not long after, but in the 1950s it enjoyed a limited revival.

Wilhelm “Willy” Schaeffler, whose ski teams at the University of Denver were among the winningest intercollegiate skiers during his 22 years as their coach, conducted practice runs on the site.

Residential life in the Denver foothills in the first half of the 20th century arose haphazardly, with farms, summer homes, and timeworn cabins sprinkled among the outcroppings, often accessible only via uneven and bumpy ruts.

A few of Denver’s prominent families purchased large tracts and constructed ornate second homes in the greater Genesee area. Among them was Rancho Tranquilo, built in 1930 by Agnes Adelaide Reid Tammen, the widow of Harry Tammen.

Harry, along with Frederick Bonfils, purchased the Evening Post in 1895 and subsequently renamed it The Denver Post.

Tammen died in July 1924, aged 68.

Initially situated on an 80-acre spread on the doorstep of Genesee, Rancho Tranquilo was developed by Burnham Hoyt, the architect who designed the amphitheater at Red Rocks State Park. The Spanish Colonial-style lodge featured an imposing entrance gate, a guest house, an outdoor party pavilion, and immaculately terraced grounds.

The Tammens were childless. When Agnes passed in July 1942, aged 76, she bequeathed Rancho Tranquilo to her niece, Helen Crabs Rippey. Helen and her husband, Arthur G. Rippey Jr., a leading Denver advertising agency owner, ran a turkey ranch on the property. The couple donated the main Rancho Tranquilo homestead to Colorado Women’s College in 1960 but continued to use the old ranch house as a weekend retreat.

In time, the Rippeys’ weekend cottage, known as “Oxley House,” would be repurposed as the sales office for the Genesee Land Company, which developed the Genesee community. A compact, adjacent garage would serve as Genesee Fire Rescue’s first station house.

Modern Genesee is not the outgrowth of individual nature lovers moving to the vicinity or the result of urban sprawl slowly creeping up the highlands along the busy Interstate-70 corridor. Rather, it arose from the vision and fierce determination of two men: one, a Denver real estate and construction heavyweight who sparred many rounds with those who opposed his plans, and the second, a non-news executive at The Denver Post who sought and fought for his own slice of heaven in the foothills.

Alvin L. “Al” Cohen and Galen W. Knickel envisioned Genesee as a carefully planned hillside oasis. The two spent more than a decade painstakingly stitching together a quilt of land, water, and mineral rights to create a harmonious span of 2,040 acres running just south of Interstate-70, between Mt. Vernon Canyon and Bear Creek, near Genesee Mountain.

Independent of one another, Cohen and Knickel began purchasing patches of farm and grazing land in the early 1960s, each man recognizing the potential for the relatively undeveloped mountain acreage with the breathtaking views, plush woodlands, and proximity to Denver and the mountain ski resorts.

46

My Colorado Home: Genesee Of the two, Cohen was the power player.

There is not a statue of Al Cohen to be found in Genesee, nor is there a street named for him. But there should be.

In truth, all of present-day Genesee is an uncredited monument to Cohen, who not only carried the Genesee development from the drawing board to its actualization, but erected landmarks throughout Colorado and beyond.

Cohen, a World War II veteran, was born in 1921 and graduated from Denver’s East High School and the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. In 1952, he formed Al Cohen Construction Company, which grew to become one of the largest commercial builders in the state.

Among Cohen’s offspring are the 54-story Qwest Tower (now CenturyLink) at 1801 California Street in Denver; the restored Daniels & Fisher clock tower downtown at 16th and Arapahoe Street; the Inverness Business Park in Englewood; the SouthGlenn Mall in Littleton; and early parts of Vail Resort, including the upper and lower lift terminals, the lodge, and some of the first condominiums in the municipality.

In 1988, when New York Police Department detective John McClane (actor Bruce Willis) and German radical Hans Gruber (actor Alan Rickman) and his men shot up multiple floors in the fictional Nakatomi Tower, the actual location of the 34-story Die Hard building was Fox Plaza in Los Angeles, also constructed by Al Cohen.

Common cause brought Cohen and Galen Knickel together when they recognized that each had accumulated valuable tracts of land in the Genesee vicinity and that any cohesive new development would require both their properties and their backing.

Galen and Loraine Knickel built a home on Lookout Mountain in 1956 after relocating to Colorado from Chicago, where he had worked in magazine advertising sales.

We loved our mountain-top home on a flat lot with big pines, lilacs, a vegetable garden, grass for our two young boys to play on. Our clear views of both the city and snow-capped mountains were the best. We couldn’t see the TV towers. They were a mile away and screened by trees nearby. Wild flowers were everywhere. We didn’t have to wait for heaven. We were in the midst of it and we never wanted to leave.

That’s how Knickel recalled his early foothills experience in his authoritative History of Genesee, first written circa 1970 and published in a second, expanded edition in 2009.

The honeymoon didn’t last.

Unlike the Genesee community he would soon be instrumental in organizing, the residential and commercial developments on Lookout Mountain went largely unchecked. Restrictive covenants were in place, but no one paid them mind or enforced them.

Among the nuisances were the view-killing proliferation of overhead power lines, neighbors who plonked ugly propane fuel tanks in their yards, water quality that sucked, and packs of pet dogs freely chasing deer, elk, and other wildlife.

To preserve their city views, the Knickels had to purchase the lot in front of their homestead. And when local developers shirked their responsibility to provide residents with fire protection, Galen pitched in to create the Lookout Fire District, construct a firehouse, and equip the department with used apparatus.

47

Dedication and Service It wasn’t enough.

Galen and Loraine began the long-shot hunt for a mountain home that offered all of the advantages of their Lookout Mountain residence but none of the detriments.

I had some ideas of what I wanted, but where could I ever find a spot as beautiful as the one I had? And with the nicest land nearby selling for several thousand dollars an acre, how could I ever buy it?

Beginning in 1962, Galen was methodical in studying U.S. Geological Survey maps of the area on the south side of Mt. Vernon Canyon, as well as driving and hiking the fields and gravel roads throughout the expanse of acreage. His goal? To find parcels of land where he and Loraine could eventually relocate and to bank other properties as an investment.

The more I compared and walked the area, the more I came to realize what would become Genesee was much more than an idyllic woodland.

The huge, unspoiled landforms hung together as a single unit. It was not divided by deep canyons. It had many level ridges at different elevations. Each ridge was like a row of box seats offering superlative views of the mountains, canyons or city lights.

Unlike so many of the other parcels that might have a few view sites at the top of a hill or were too flat or had too much meadow to be interesting, or had too steep land that would be unusable, this Genesee land was all exquisite. Most of it had good exposure to the warming sun and was protected from the harsh northwest winds by Genesee Mountain Park.

No latter-day land planner could have shaped a more delightful or workable place. Here was an area that was millions of years in the making. It was mostly untouched. It deserved to be treated with care.

Unbeknownst to Knickel, Cohen had already reached the same conclusion and begun purchasing tracts in the area. With the planned construction of Interstate-70 running directly past Genesee and facilitating commutes from Denver to the ski resorts to the west, Cohen speculated that he could extract more real estate gold out of the territory than the Malachite miners could have ever dreamed.

Knickel staked his first real estate claim in 1964, striking an agreement with an initially reluctant rancher to purchase 800 acres of unimproved grazing land beginning roughly three miles south of modern-day Interstate-70. The rancher agreed to carry a note on the property at 6% interest and provide Knickel with the right to buy additional acreage in the future.

All of that was great, except that the property Knickel bought was not unencumbered. When the rancher originally acquired the land for $21.25 an acre in 1947, as Knickel detailed in History of Genesee, the seller retained the mineral rights and an option to repurchase a portion of the land for the same price he sold it.

Clearing full title to the 800 acres and other parcels that Knickel and Cohen would purchase individually and jointly in the ensuing years required deft research and negotiating skills, patience and persistence, and some creative horsetrading.

One parcel of 160 acres that Knickel was especially interested in acquiring was owned by the retired head of the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Bureau of Mines. J.H. East Jr. had owned the land for a half-century, and no one who knew East believed he’d ever let go of the property.

On their first meeting, East nearly slammed the door in Knickel’s face. But Knickel returned repeatedly and eventually 48

My Colorado Home: Genesee struck up a friendship with East.

In his book, Knickel confesses he doubted any landowner in the area would ever sell their piece of paradise. “What else could money buy that was better?” Knickel wondered.

As Knickel learned during his frequent meetings with East, the retiree’s son worked for a radio station in Leadville and dreamed of owning it. Knickel proposed a swap: He’d increase the mortgage on his Lookout Mountain home to offer top dollar for East’s property, and with the proceeds East could buy his son KBRR-AM. Done.

The Golden Daily Transcript, the paper of record for Jefferson County, described Al Cohen as indomitable. No matter how many obstacles the “quiet, unassuming, balding man” encountered acquiring tracts of land — and the accompanying water and mineral rights — or the regulatory and legal hurdles placed before him, he just kept charging.

Cohen formed Genesee Associates as the business entity to control and develop his Genesee assets, which included a majority of the land that Knickel acquired over the years and eventually sold to the Denver builder. Knickel, who knew Genesee better than anyone, signed on to Genesee Associates as its marketing director.

To help fund their rapidly advancing plans, Cohen brought in the investment division of Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company.

The counteroffensive began in earnest in early August 1971, when a grassroots group of approximately 200 Lookout Mountain area residents calling themselves the Hill and Dale Society (HADS) formed to oppose Cohen and his Genesee development.

HADS introduced a laundry list of objections. It would damage the environment. It would overtax water resources. It would bring traffic congestion. It would create overcrowding for local schools. And so on.

HADS gained momentum when two other opposition groups joined it, Protect Our Mountain Environment and Mountain Area Planning Council. The three piggybacked their crusade to the broader campaign to prevent Colorado from hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics.

The battle over Genesee was contentious.

Protesters and picketers turned out in numbers at Jefferson County public hearings to express their antipathy to Cohen’s request to rezone the land he had purchased to allow for residential and commercial development.

Each side presented rounds of expert witnesses to help make their cases.

In December 1971, the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners denied Cohen’s petition — a momentary victory for HADS and its allies.

Cohen retreated, only to return in July 1972 with a slightly modified rezoning application. If his petition was rejected this go-around, he issued a not-so-veiled threat to provide some of his land for use by the Denver Olympic Committee — a 49

Dedication and Service sacrilege in the eyes of area environmental groups.

A late November 1972 hearing on the rezoning petition before the three-member county board dragged on for almost eleven hours — the longest in the commission’s history.

Ping-pong-style lawsuits followed, with Genesee Associates and the HADS supporters taking turns as plaintiffs and the county board — and even individual commissioners — named as defendants.

On November 7, 1972, Colorado voters overwhelmingly rejected the 1976 Olympics.

On January 3, 1973, over all the objections, the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners approved Genesee Associates’ revised development plans.

And, on December 13, 1973, no objections arose when Jefferson County District Judge Daniel Shannon approved the creation of a new taxing authority, the Genesee Fire Protection District.

Genesee Fire Rescue was officially up and running.

50

51

CHAPTER THREE And That’s The Way It Was

Our maintenance crew cleaned the intersection of Genesee Ridge and Genesee Vista of the loose gravel by using the forceful stream of the Genesee Fire Department’s hose. While engaged in this project, the hose nozzle, valued at approximately $300, was stolen.

If you have any information regarding the nozzle, please contact Union Security or the Foundation office. No questions will be asked if the nozzle is returned.

— August 1987

T

he day-in, day-out activities of Genesee Fire Rescue over the past five decades consist of countless routine matters punctuated by the profound moments of responding to life-altering emergencies both near and far.

While the big stuff is readily recalled, the ordinary operations of the agency, as detailed in the community’s newsletter, Genescene, paint a more complete picture of life as a member of Genesee Fire Rescue.

The snippets that follow, reflecting the routine life of the department between 1977 and 1990, showcase many of the people and incidents that, incrementally, helped to shape the ethos and expertise of today’s Genesee fire department.

NOTICES Thank you to those who turned up at the Fire Meeting held on Thursday. It was a little disappointing that more didn’t attend, but we will be holding another one shortly.

Genescene — March 26, 1977

NOTICES Brian Kimmel requests that all children over the age of 5 years attend a FIRE MEETING this coming Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the clubhouse. This meeting will present fire prevention techniques, use of some pieces of fire-fighting equipment, and

53

Dedication and Service hopeful instill an awareness in fire hazards in our district. Parents also welcome.

Genescene — July 9, 1977

NOTICES The Genesee Fire Protection District continues to request that present and future residents seriously consider becoming volunteer firemen. Training re­quires only your interest and about five hours a month. Formation of the fire department will eventually result in reduced home insurance rates as well as first class fire protection for your residence.

Genescene — November 19, 1977

THE STATION On November 7th, the Genesee Fire District Board of Directors awarded the construction contract for the new fire station. Completion will be within the next six months.

Genescene — November 1, 1978

EQUIPMENT A new class “A” 1250 gpm pumper for our fire department has arrived. After passing all its specification tests it will be available for training. Unfortunately, we will not be able to house it in the District until the new fire station is completed.

Genescene — February 1, 1979

APPRECIATION The recent fire at the clubhouse indicated the need for a competent, well-trained fire department. The Genesee Fire Department responded with celerity and expertise that saved the Genesee clubhouse from sustaining major damage. We commend our firefighters, and we would like to encourage other residents to join them.

Genescene — April 1, 1979

INCIDENTS The clubhouse fire damage is being repaired. It should be reopened fully in a week or so. At this writing, no commitment has been made by the party concerned as to full payment for the restoration.

Genescene — May 1, 1979

FIRE STATION All Genesee property owners are invited to the Open House for the new firehouse on September 22nd, 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. at the corner of Currant Drive and Genesee Ridge Road. Refreshments will be served!

Since September 1st, our Genesee Volunteer Firefighters have been called out twice. First on September 5th at 3:45 a.m.

54

And That’s The Way It Was for a roll over of a security guard’s Bronco at Genesee Ridge Rd. and Genesee Vista. He was on his way to help another security guard at the new Recreation Center who was attacked by prowlers.

Firefighters were at both sites with firetrucks and first aid within three minutes of being alerted. Idledale Rescue responded in their usual dependable and efficient manner.

On September 8th at 7:30 a.m. Firefighters responded to a rolled over car in the creek off Genesee Ridge Road and Exit 256. Again Idledale responded with us.

Genescene — September 1, 1979

NOTICES The Fire Dept. requests any resident reporting an emergency at their home during the night, to please turn on their outside lights and leave [their] garage door open. This will help personnel to locate the residence.

Genescene — October 1, 1979

GFR MEMBERS New officers and staff have been elected to head up the firefighters department: Jim Rumsey — Fire Chief Bob Troutman — Assistant Chief Ken Burgess — Assistant Chief Tim Cameron — Daytime Assistant Chief Denny Schuler — Recruitment John Wake — Training Bud Collier — Watch Jim Bauer — First Aid Rescue George Pray — Squad Leader Genescene — January 1, 1980

GRATITUDE Ladies and Gentlemen: This letter is in appreciation of the fine and professional job the Genesee Fire Protection District did on the fire the afternoon of February 23, 1980. If it was not for the quickness an professionalism, the entire unit would have been totally destroyed.

Thanks from the Colorado Construction Group, Inc., Sunrise, and myself for your professional job.

Ed Hanlon Colorado Construction Group, Inc. 55

Dedication and Service GFR MEMBERS The Fire Department takes pride in recognizing its youngest member, Alan Fletcher. Alan is sixteen years old and has served as a firefighter for over a year.

During the past year, Alan has completed most of his training and attends all calls when in the area. Many extra duties he has done for the department have been on weekends, such as as washing the fire trucks, painting lines on the firehouse floor, printing letters on fire helmets, delivery of fire flyers, and inventory.

Alan is a junior at Green Mountain High.

Genescene — March 1, 1980

DONATIONS Jerry Neely, who is employed by IBM, sent an ambitious letter of request to his company and was able to obtain $1,500 for G.F.P.D. The money will be used to purchase 2 Handi Talkies and a projector for the department’s use.

Genescene — December 1, 1980

GFR MEMBERS The Department welcomes the following new volunteers: Jane Ballenger Jeanne Barbour Linda Bertelson Sue Earl Sheila Halstead Patti King Christie Mars Diane McDougall Sandy Schumacher Barb Shoes Janet Wenzel LOST & FOUND Lost — a rust fireman’s coat (large) belonging to Ken Burgess, 526-1021 Genescene — December 1, 1980

FUNDRAISERS Swing and sway the Genesee Way. All of Genesee is invited to attend the first-annual Fireman’s Ball. Genesee volunteer firefighters will be selling tickets door-to-door after 4:00 p.m., Sunday, March 15th.

56

And That’s The Way It Was Come and enjoy a lovely evening of dinner and dancing. Tickets will be $25.00 per person, with a cash bar. Remember, tickets are tax deductible!

Genescene — March 1, 1981

GFR MEMBERS Genesee Fire Protection District has accepted the resignation of Ken Burgess as assistant fire chief, due to his business demands. Jackie Myers has agreed to take on the responsibility of assistant fire chief. Her knowledge and dedication to the Department makes her well qualified for this position.

Genescene — January 1, 1982

LOST & FOUND I have a fire department jacket (orange) size “men’s small,” which inadvertently was switched with my size, “men’s medium.” If you have a “men’s medium” instead of “men’s small,” please call 526-1993.

Genescene — October 1, 1982

FUNDRAISERS Take your sweetheart to the Fireman’s Ball. Music by Steve Halpin.

Here is your opportunity to support your volunteer fire department. Tickets will be $35.00 per person and are tax deductible. There will be a cash bar.

Genescene — February 1, 1983

INCIDENTS The Fire Department responded to a dangerous gas leak recently. We were called several hours after Public Service [Denver] was called and did not come. Unfortunately, Public Service couldn’t find us. If anyone has a problem with a gas leak, the number to call is in Evergreen, 674-3361.

Genescene — October 1, 1983

GENESEE FOUNDATION In a continuing effort to familiarize the community with our Fire Department, we would like to explain what happens when we receive an emergency call.

Our Fire Department is a volunteer unit, and our firefighters are residents of Genesee. If smoke is seen, or if medical assistance is needed, one should call Jefferson County, 277-0211. Most members of the Fire Department wear pagers, and Jefferson County sends a message out to us. The newer members are notified by telephone.

After the message is received, the firefighters drive to the fire station on Currant Drive, put on their protective clothing, 57

Dedication and Service and get on the truck. If the call is fire-oriented, the large truck responds. Four firefighters are required to run this truck.

When the call is for medical assistance, the small red truck responds, which requires two firefighters.

The Fire Chief and the two Assistant Chiefs do not go to the fire station. They respond directly to the emergency scene. If there is a fire, they can be ready with a plan of attack when the truck arrives. As more firefighters report to the fire station, they are sent to the scene as needed.

INCIDENTS A very dangerous situation occurred in Genesee May 12, when a sewer line exploded. Fortunately no one was hurt. Thirteen firefighters, two trucks, and Highland Rescue responded.

The caps and collars on sewer manhole covers are very heavy, but if you had seen the distance those things flew, you would have been amazed. An arson investigation revealed that mineral spirits from painting materials were possibly dumped in the line.

Genescene — June 1, 1984

GFR MEMBERS Genesee Volunteer Fire Department has 25 firefighters and officers, including eight women. Their responsibility is to protect the community, to teach fire prevention, and to protect the firefighters through continual practice and training.

The people in the department are friends who enjoy relaxing together after practice as well as playing together at an occasional softball game.

Genescene — August 1, 1984

INCIDENTS In the first six months of this year, the GVFD has responded to 39 calls. They have assisted at gas leaks, lightning strikes, a car fire, and a sewer line explosion.

Genescene — August 1, 1984

CHIEFS Congratulations to Mike Cantwell, who was named Fire Chief on July 17. Many thanks from the F.D. and the community to retiring Chief Denny Schuler. Denny has spent two years as chief and countless hours in helping the F.D. move forward to keep up with the growth of Genesee.

Genescene — August 1, 1984

INCIDENTS 5/29/85 — 8:00 p.m. First aid. 2 trucks. 21 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

6/5/85 — 4:55 p.m. False alarm. Mutual aid to Idledale. 3 firefighters. 1 truck.

58

And That’s The Way It Was 6/15/85 — 5:37 p.m. False alarm. Mutual aid to Idledale. 6 firefighters. 1 truck.

6/15/85 — 6:15 p.m. First aid. 1 truck. 11 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

6/16/85 — 3:45 p.m. Smoke check. 1 truck. 2 firefighters.

6/17/85 — 3:40 p.m. First aid. 1 truck. 8 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

6/20/85 — 9:17 a.m. Auto fire. Mutual aid to Idledale. 2 trucks. 12 firefighters, Idledale and Highland Rescue.

6/24/85 — 7:06 p.m. False alarm. 2 trucks. 8 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

6/30/85 — 2:30 p.m. Grass fire. 2 trucks. 9 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

7/1/85 — 6:45 p.m. Grass fire. 1 truck. 10 firefighters.

7/1/85 — 8:00 p.m. First aid. 1 truck. 14 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

7/3/85 — 4:27 p.m. Auto fire. 1 truck. 13 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

7/9/85 — 4:40 a.m. First aid. 1 truck. 13 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

7/12/85 — 3:30 p.m. Grass/forest fire. 2 trucks. 25 firefighters and Highland Rescue. Jefferson County helicopter on standby.

7/12/85 — 4:22 p.m. Grass fire. 1 truck. 25 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

7/12/85 — 10:17 p.m. Structure fire. False alarm. 2 trucks. 12 firefighters.

7/12/85 — 10:25 p.m. First aid. 5 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

7/18/85 — 2:40 p.m. Structure fire. False alarm. 1 truck. 12 firefighters and Highland Rescue.

INCIDENTS Alert! Alert! Alert!

The Genesee Fire Department is greatly concerned that juveniles may have intentionally set four grass fires in Genesee during February. Three fires occurred at Genesee Ridge Road and Coneflower, and one near East Montane.

The department will be using the County K-9 dog team to investigate future arson ground fires.

Genescene — March 1, 1986

ELECTIONS The Board of Directors of the Genesee Fire Protection District has canvassed the returns of the Directors election held on May 6, 1986. The following votes were cast (4-Year Terms): Jim Bauer — 100 Jack Mackey — 100 Loren Schuler — 83 Rowan Cecil — 47 MITIGATION Have you seen on TV the terrible grass and forest fires in Oregon? Don’t let anything like this get started in Genesee. We are at that time of year when ground fire dangers are at their highest. Report any sighting or smoke concerns promptly to the emergency telephone number, 277-0211.

Genescene — September 1, 1986

59

Dedication and Service INCIDENTS “Good Job!” Genesee Fire Department folks. You really worked hard as you helped to bring under control the September 27th grass and forest fire west of Morrison. The Genesee Fire Department provided more personnel (19) than any of the neighboring departments.

The fire was a tough job in a rough location. The firefighters had to wade across a swift flowing stream, hike up an almost impassable rock canyon, and struggle up a very steep hillside to reach the burning grass and exploding juniper trees.

Our experience with this incident has surely helped the firefighters understand the danger, spread, and difficulty that such a fire would bring to our Genesee community.

Genescene — November 1, 1986

TRAINING Another fine group of community-spirited Genesee residents has begun training for service in the fire department. These folks are: Sid Brooks Peggy Hoffman Laura Lang Doug Lang Mark Mobley Mike Dodson Steve Boblak Hays Busch David Pfaff Training will include safety, fire behavior, ladders, ropes, hoses and streams, fire extinguishers, communications, search and rescue, breathing apparatus, ventilation, salvage and overhaul, basic drive experience, and more.

Genescene — November 1, 1986

INCIDENTS In the last month, the Genesee Fire Department responded to two very major, multi-car accidents on Interstate-70, caused by ground fog and lots of traffic going too fast for the conditions. Highland Rescue transported more than 40 persons to the hospital.

Genescene — May 1, 1987

GFR MEMBERS The following is a list of team members: Jim Bauer, self-employed, joined the team in 1980 60

And That’s The Way It Was Sue Boyd, EMT, RN, teaches nursing and first aid, joined the team in 1982 Nettie Calvi, RN, MSN, a pediatric pulmonary clinical nurse, joined the team in 1974 Mike Cantwell, a commercial real estate developer/mortgage banker, joined the team in 1980 Matt Cowell, RN, 2nd Lieutenant, stationed at Firzsimmons, joined the team in 1980 Hank Dykhuis, a chief pilot for United Airlines joined the team in 1987 Kitty Lamb, mother of five, joined the team in 1983 Michele Over, a nursing assistant working towards her RN, joined the team in 1986 Sharon Pierce, EMT, joined the team in 1987 Linda Nobel, team secretary, joined the team in 1984 Jane Rose, raises quartered horses, joined the team in 1977 Bill Topper, custom homes builder, joined the team in 1984 Dennis Wilkinson, in the computer business, joined the team in 1980 Alan Fletcher, assistant chief, joined the team in 1982 Genescene — August 1, 1987

LOST & FOUND Our maintenance crew cleaned the intersection of Genesee Ridge and Genesee Vista of the loose gravel by using the forceful stream of the Genesee Fire Department’s hose. While engaged in this project, the hose nozzle, valued at approximately $300, was stolen.

If you have any information regarding the nozzle, please contact Union Security or the Foundation office. No questions will be asked if the nozzle is returned.

Genescene — August 1, 1987

INCIDENTS The number of calls to which the Genesee Fire Department had dropped in the last three years: 103 in 1985, 96 in 1986, and 75 so far this year. Congratulations, folks. You are thinking safety. Don’t let down your diligence as we approach the holidays — safety in the kitchen, safety at the fireplace, safety with candles, safety around the Christmas tree, and safe driving.

Genescene — December 1, 1987

GRATITUDE We would like to thank Union Security, Genesee Fire Department, Highland Rescue Team, Flight for Life, neighbors, and wonderful friends who responded to our need during the loss of our grandson on December 20, 1987.

We cannot begin to tell you how much this all meant to us. We are so fortunate to live in such a loving and caring community.

Bob and Marleen Masse

61

Dedication and Service APPRECIATION The sweetheart award for February 1988 goes to Genesee youths for shoveling out our fire hydrants. Thanks!! Thanks!!

Thanks!!

GFR MEMBERS Your neighbors who have recently joined the Fire Department and are getting their initial training include: Robb Gair Garnet Gordon Bill Griffith Mike Kreuger Russ Shuler Char Smith Kevin Thomas Irene Van Woensel Cathy Yosha THE STATION The Genesee Fire Department plans to increase its emergency medical service to the community with the addition of an ambulance that will be permanently stationed at the Genesee fire station. The ambulance will be a Highland Rescue unit, valued at $55,000.

In order to provide space for the new ambulance, the Genesee Fire Protection District will add an additional bay to the building.

The remodeling and expansion is expected to cost $120,000, with work scheduled to begin this spring. Financing will come from existing department capital funds and a loan secured by our fire trucks. No bond issue is planned.

Genescene — May 1, 1989

TRAINING By the end of this year we should have approximately 25 state-certified firefighters, which means that Genesee will be one of the first volunteer fire departments in the state to have state certified trained personnel.

Genescene — July 1, 1989

MITIGATION I was recently at a party where the house had been hit by lightning. Someone stated that they had heard I was against lightning rods. This simply is not true.

I am always pro-prevention for fire or medical. Ben Franklin. would roll over in his grave if he thought that his invention, which has saved numerous houses and barns over the last 100 or so years, was being criticized. I feel the money spent on 62

And That’s The Way It Was lightning rods is a small amount of insurance to protect your largest investment.

Rich Jones, Fire Chief July 1989

THE STATION While the fire station was being remodeled, we had to leave our fire trucks out for about a week to let the concrete dry.

During this time, [I] had a few sleepless nights worrying about our half-million dollars worth of equipment sitting in the driveway.

On several occasions, I went to the fire station at different times during the night to check on our trucks, only to find that Genesee Security was sitting across the street or in the parking lot. I want to personally thank all of the members of our security for watching our equipment.

Rich Jones, Fire Chief September 1989

THE STATION In the two months that the [Highland Rescue] ambulance has resided at the Genesee Fire station, Highland Rescue has responded to seven medical calls and four trauma calls. In each case, the response time was less than five minutes.

Genescene — November 1, 1989

HELP WANTED The Genesee Fire Department is looking for a few dedicated volunteers (men and women) to join the ranks of one of the best volunteer fire departments on the front range. We will be starting our rookie class at the end of September, so if you are interested in joining, please contact Assistant Chief Fletcher at 526-1230, Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 pm. Our fire academy has some of the best training programs in the state.

Genescene — September 1, 1989

HELP WANTED It takes a special person to fill the boots of a volunteer firefighter… Someone with a desire to do something important for the community…Someone with courage and dedication, who isn’t afraid of hard work, and is willing to accept the challenge of a difficult job. It takes a person who considers respect and appreciation reward enough, and who is just glad to help. If you’re this kind of person, our next recruit class starts on April 19, 1990 at 6:30 p.m.

Orientation and classes will be three hours each Wednesday evening for approximately 18 weeks.

Rich Jones, Fire Chief April 1990

63

Dedication and Service GFR MEMBERS The Genesee Fire Department announces the retirement of long-time Assistant Chief Alan Fletcher. The Department and the community will certainly miss Alan, and thank him heartily for his twelve years of faithful service.

Alan has taken a position as Arson Investigator and Fire Prevention Officer with the Cunningham Fire Department. We are pleased at his good fortune, but his gain is our loss!

Alan has been a firefighter and an E.M.T., and was responsible for the operation of the Genesee ambulance during daytime hours. He has been credited for saving several houses on fire and numerous lives.

Genescene — July 1, 1990

INCIDENTS Congratulations to firefighter Aaron Sirbin and to Carolyn Sellmeyer for their lifesaving use of C.P.R. in the same week of November. Aaron saved the life of an adult and Carolyn a minor child.

Genescene — December 1, 1990

THE STATION As a result of a community request, Genesee Fire Rescue installed an emergency phone box outside of the station. The phone box is located just to the right of the main entrance to the fire station. The box is red and white with the words “EMERGENCY PHONE” in white letters on the phone box cover.

Ed Westergaard, Genesee Foundation Board of Directors March 2013

64

65

SECTION TWO Emergency-Ready

The Fire Within: Lieutenant Doug Barenburg Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

67

CHAPTER ONE The Call of Duty

We were on a four-lane road in the City of Superior, with flames licking across the road and dense smoke. I had no idea where the road was. I felt like we were driving over Berthoud Pass in the middle of the night in a blizzard, and my gut reaction was to slow down. Unfortunately, in a situation like this, you simply can’t slow down as you risk getting burned over [trapped by rapidly spreading flames.] My engine boss urged me on, saying, “I don’t care, follow the flashing lights on the engine in front of you.”

-Josh Boyles, Driver/Operator Genesee Fire Rescue

T

he scene was ordinary; one duplicated at dozens, perhaps hundreds of neighboring homes.

A Christmas wreath hung on the front door, and a string of festive holiday lights lined the facade.

On the kitchen counter sat a loaf of fresh bread and sandwich makings. Lunch would soon be served.

Only it never was.

“One moment they were making a sandwich, the next moment their home was gone,” reflects veteran Genesee firefighter Jason Puffett, who witnessed the scene through a gaping hole in the exterior of one of the many flaming southeastern Boulder County homes destined to be reduced to its foundation.

Puffett, who joined the force in 2010 and became its first paid chief in 2017, was one of four Genesee Fire Rescue crewmembers who joined with thousands of emergency personnel on December 30, 2021, to battle the record-breaking Marshall Fire.

Fueled by tall, dry grass, shrubs, and trees, and wind gusts of up to 115-mile-per-hour — strong enough to blow a FedEx truck and multiple tractor-trailers off the road — the flames quickly morphed from a brush fire to a structure fire, leaping a six-lane highway and blazing through residential neighborhoods and commercial properties in the cities of Louisville and Superior to inflict catastrophic damage.

The Fire Within: Engineer John Seward Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

69

Dedication and Service As detailed in a lengthy postmortem from the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, it took an average of only four to five minutes for the fire to propagate from one house to its neighbor, ultimately destroying more than 1,000 single-family homes and damaging more than one hundred others. Six thousand and eighty acres of land were scorched.

Two elderly residents perished.

Among the 35,000 people evacuated from the area were 46 patients and five infants in the neonatal intensive care unit at Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville. The landscaped islands in the parking lot of the Costco in Superior erupted in flames as shoppers fled the store amid thick smoke and flying debris. A Super Target in the same shopping center was so heavily damaged it would not reopen until August 2022.

All told, losses from the Marshall Fire surpassed a staggering $2 billion, making it Colorado’s most devastating fire ever and one of the costliest in U.S. history.

A little more than two hours after the first, seemingly harmless brush fire was reported in Boulder County at 10:10 on the morning of Thursday, December 30th, the smoke from the rapidly growing conflagration to the north could be seen darkening the sky from the elevated vistas in Genesee.

A local resident alerted Genesee Fire Rescue to the dark plumes at 12:24 p.m. After confirming that Genesee itself was in no imminent danger, Chief Puffett and other members of the company closely monitored the emergency radio alerts.

“The reports were sobering as [emergency responders] stated that entire neighborhoods were being abandoned,” Puffett would later write in a recap of GFR’s Marshall Fire experience.

The original brush fire was doused without difficulty. But two subsequent wildfires called in at 10:27 a.m. and 11:06 a.m., respectively, quickly flared, generating flames eight feet high or higher and racing from grasslands and farms toward residential and commercial areas a short distance away.

Firefighters know that once the flares from a fire exceed four feet in height, they become far more dangerous and difficult to extinguish.

Fire hoses shooting high-pressure streams of water at the flames will no longer deaden the fire.

As a raging fire rises from ground level, it feeds on the upper portions of trees — leaves, branches, and bark — and treats neighboring foliage up and down the street like an all-you-can-eat buffet line. In firefighting parlance, such behavior is known as “crowning.”

When fires crown, they generate life-threatening radiant heat. They also produce what’s known as “spotting,” wherein a tsunami of embers — carried by strong winds — can ignite new blazes blocks and even miles away from the fire origin.

GFR volunteer Josh Boyles, who owns a second home in Winter Park, was skiing with his family when word reached him that a fire had broken out in Boulder County. Something about it felt ominous.

Boyles left the slopes and returned to his vacation home to monitor developments on his emergency response scanners.

It got to the point where I said, “They’re going to need help.”

70

Call of Duty Without being summoned, the seven-year GFR veteran got in his car and made the one-hour drive back to the Genesee fire station. He wasn’t the only GFR volunteer who sensed the need. Firefighters Bob Dalton and Peter Greenstone also reported for possible assignment without being asked.

“We all had the same thought,” Boyles says. “This thing is going to blow up.”

Which, indeed, it most certainly did.

At this point, Boyles, Dalton, and Greenstone, joined by Chief Puffett, began prepping GFRs Engine 932, a pumper capable of off-road duty, should they be asked to help combat what they still believed was an out-of-control wildland fire.

[As the morning wore on, other GFR volunteers arrived at the fire station, wanting to help. However, for them to participate would have required the department to send a second apparatus, which could have left their district without adequate equipment and personnel in the event of a serious local emergency.]

GFR is an all-hazard department charged with handling a wide variety of incidents, including medical emergencies, car accidents, toxic spills, flooding, and, of course, wildland and structure fires.

Depending on the nature of the event they are responding to, the GFR firefighters will load or offload equipment from the engine they dispatch to fit the circumstances.

In a wildland fire, such as the one they thought was unfolding in Boulder County, ladders and indoor self-contained breathing apparatus are mostly superfluous. So the dispatched fire crew will limit those and other structure-fire tools and personal protection equipment, augmenting the clothing, hand tools, potable drinking water, and other resources more appropriate for battling grassland and forest fires.

The call from the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control came in at 2:20 p.m. Genesee Fire Rescue’s help would be needed. More than 125 other fire trucks would also respond.

Engine 932 immediately rolled, with Boyles behind the wheel, Chief Puffett with him in the front seat, and Dalton and Greenstone in the rear.

It would be a “career fire,” the type many firefighters encounter only once in their tenure, if that.

After staging briefly in the Macy’s parking lot at the FlatIron Crossing shopping center in Broomfield, Genesee Engine 932 and crew headed to their first Marshall Fire assignment.

Boyles recounted the harrowing experience.

We were on a four-lane road in the City of Superior, with flames licking across the road and dense smoke. I had no idea where the road was. I felt like we were driving over Berthoud Pass in the middle of the night in a blizzard, and my gut reaction was to slow down. Unfortunately, in a situation like this, you simply can’t slow down as you risk getting burned over [trapped by rapidly spreading flames.] My engine boss [Chief Puffett] urged me on, saying, “I don’t care, follow the flashing lights on the engine in front of you.”

Which is precisely what Boyles did.

71

Dedication and Service Hellfires were erupting in every direction, raining embers like flaming snowflakes and turning the mid-afternoon sky black. Hundreds of flashing red and blue lights, like a Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza, reflected off the hovering smoke clouds.

Initially, Engine 932, one of eight engines assigned to a grouping of apparatus, was tasked with preventing fires along the intersection of Coalton Road and South Indiana Street in Superior, a little more than one mile west of FlatIron Crossing.

The asphalt roadways were dotted with small fires sparked by dry pine needles and leaves, spitting smoldering ash skyward.

As Chief Puffett wrote: Embers were carried by the air currents and eddied and swirled around homes, decks, and fences. Most landed harmlessly, but those that landed on tarps, patio furniture, gutters, and the like ignited those materials and spread quickly to the home unless extinguished.

Facing a blaze as volatile and massive as the Marshall Fire makes it tricky for the incident and task force commanders to know where to allocate personnel and equipment for the greatest effect.

As Boyles recalls, he felt GFR’s efforts at Coalton and South Indiana were, at best, ancillary to more pressing needs.

We battled that for a while. It seemed rather ineffective when there were larger problems we could deal with and more actionable ways to slow this fire.

Jeff Tasker, a South Metro Fire Rescue district chief, saw it the same way. A Marshall Fire task force leader with almost three decades of firefighting experience, Tasker reassigned Engine 932 to the Rock Creek neighborhood in Superior, where a row of beautiful homes — less than ten feet separating one house from another — was in danger of igniting domino-style.

“I would drive by a house that was burning. Sitting inside the engine, we could feel the radiant heat, and it was like ‘keep moving, it’s too hot to be here,’” Boyles remembers. “That we didn’t peel the paint off the truck was amazing.”

Firefighters, whether in Genesee or anywhere, are trained to use all of their resources to extinguish fires and save homes.

Anything short of that they consider a failure.

During the Marshall Fire, such “failures” were often the only option.

In Genesee Fire Rescue’s 50 years of existence, its volunteers had attended other large wildfires — both in Colorado and federal wildland blazes as far away as California and Oregon.

But none compared to what Boyles, Dalton, Greenstone, and Puffett experienced during the 16-hour overnight shift they worked in Superior and Louisville. It was apocalyptic.

The four Genesee firefighters left their station believing they’d be needed to repel a rapidly spreading wildfire. The Genesee crew had plenty of familiarity with the nature of wildfires and knowledge of how to combat them.

Establishing so-called “fuel breaks” to help contain wildfires is common. The idea is to starve a spreading wildfire of combustible materials by removing the “fuel” — grass, shrubs, trees, and other vegetation. Among the various methods is prescribed burns.

72

Call of Duty During the Marshall Fire, crewmembers needed to subdue their every instinct and deliberately let some homes burn — as fuel breaks — to prevent other houses from catching on fire.

“Normally, we wouldn’t call [intentionally allowing a fire to gut a home] a success,” Boyles notes. “But in this situation, once we got into the mindset that some homes were fuel, we were successful; we saved a bunch of houses.”

Greenstone, now a GFR captain, earns his living creating 3D animation and other creative content for television series, feature films, and video games. It’s a desk job that requires long hours seated in front of computer screens.

In Marshall Fire photos snapped by a fellow GFR crewmember, Greenstone might well have been a character in one of his own video animations.

As I made my way into the backyard, a blizzard of embers blew past me directly toward the house. It rushed up and around the roof and sides and under the eaves and the decks like a torrent, and every little thing that could catch fire around the house was on fire.

It’s nighttime. The sky is glowing orange. Off to his left, eight multiple-story homes are engulfed in flames. Greenstone is decked out in full bunker gear. He’s hosing down the house owned by Rick and Ann Dixon at 1382 Eldorado Drive. They are away skiing at Eldora.

An intense beam from Greenstone’s headlamp illuminates the water stream from his hose. It looks like a Star Wars lightsaber.

“The garage and roof above were burning with such intensity that our water streams seemed to have little effect,” Greenstone recollects.

Paired with GFR’s Dalton, his goal is not to save the home — it’s too late for that. Their mission is to cool the burning home sufficiently so that the radiant heat coming off it doesn’t ignite the house next door.

We were told to stop the fire from getting past this house. We made a stand there.

With fires as enormous and searing as the Marshall Fire, spontaneous combustion of surrounding structures is a genuine concern.

Greenstone describes another photo taken at the Dixon’s home.

Bob [Dalton] is on the nozzle. The interior of the house is on fire, and flames are shooting through the roof. We are spraying water up into the soffit vents to try to at least cool down the fire in the attic so that the entire side of the house doesn’t erupt in flames all at once and ignite the house next door just ten feet or so away. Direct access to the fire was limited, but we just needed to slow it down. The chain reaction of house after house burning down this stretch of Eldorado was stopped.

The next photo, taken about a block away, captures Greenstone and Dalton on the roof of an intact home. Dalton, who first volunteered with GFR in 2018, has worked for more than three decades for the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency under the Department of Defense.

Bob and I laddered the roof of the house next door to get a better angle with our hose stream on the fire burning throughout the roof structure. It also gave us a good angle to get water down into the basement through the opening in the side of the 73

Dedication and Service house and the collapsed dining room floor. Unfortunately, we had no way to really get to the seat of the basement fire, and it continued to reignite over and over again for hours. The house was a total loss even though it remained mostly standing.

We could see that it was the home of an older couple with their photos on the wall and a lot of things they had collected during their life together. I don’t know what they were able to salvage, if anything.

An image burned into Boyles’s memory is of yet another estate lost.

I went to open the front door. I could see the kitchen and the carpet, but there was no structure underneath it. While the outside looked salvageable, the fire had eaten most of the entire inside of the house. You couldn’t go in there. You’re going to fall into the basement.

A Christmas-time wildfire defies the mistaken impression that grassland and forest fires occur only during “dry” seasons, especially the summer. Fortunately, when preparing Engine 932 ahead of their departure from Genesee, the team knew from prior experience that winter occurrences do arise, and despite the heat of the flames, the temperatures can be bone-chilling. Indeed, the nighttime readings in Louisville and Superior dipped below freezing.

Smartly, rather than dress in the lightweight, breathable gear typically worn to warm-weather wildfires, the Genesee crew arrived in Boulder County equipped with the heavy turnout gear — coats and pants — typically used in structure fires.

It proved to be a frigid and exhausting night.

In the early hours of December 31st, after battling the flames and cold nonstop, the four Genesee firefighters briefly took refuge back in the cabin of Engine 932.

Boyles remembers: We were parked on a street somewhere. We were sitting there, babysitting if you will. If the fire moved, we would have eyes on it and chase that fire. I remember waking up. I don’t remember the going to sleep part. I’m sitting in my seat, upright, steering wheel in hand, and I was asleep.

When dawn finally broke, as the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control wrote in its postmortem: The extent of the damage was shocking. Entire subdivisions were lost, with nothing remaining but charred foundations.

The fire damaged utilities, leaving the area without water, heat, or power. Responders experienced freezing temperatures on day two, continuing to work in cold, wet gear and trying to prevent heavy fire engines from sliding on the ice.

The Dixon home at 1382 Eldorado Drive was a total loss. Charred wooden beams were strewn throughout the front yard.

Much of the roof was gone. Shards of glass in otherwise empty panes were the only remnants of lovely street-facing windows. The attached garage was but a structural skeleton, a large, four-door white SUV buried under the rubble. And with the exterior wall on the right side of the home collapsed, the upstairs bathroom was visible. There, a towel hung on the door, and the shower curtain remained in place.

Next door, at 1392 Eldorado, the residence Greenstone, Dalton, and their GFR crewmates hoped to save by cooling the Dixons’ house, stood unscathed.

At 7:00 on New Year’s Eve morning, the GFR crew was relieved by the next shift and returned home.

74

Call of Duty “We know that our community is very high risk for wildfires and that an incident will inevitably occur in Genesee or the surrounding mountain communities,” Chief Puffett wrote in a formal action review after his return from the Marshall Fire.

“Ninety percent of the homes destroyed by wildfires are a result of embers,” he noted. “You don’t have to live in a forested area to lose your home to a wildfire.”

As much as anything, the Marshall Fire reinforced the fact that each group of homes is only as strong as its weakest link.

With his son’s lacrosse team playing a mile or so away and the embers long since cooled, Chief Puffett made a short detour to drive the blocks that he and the three other members of Genesee Fire Rescue firefighters had worked during the Marshall Fire.

It was sad to see the devastation, but it was also rewarding to see how much was saved. It was really interesting how ember showers picked houses in the middle of the block. A house or a row of houses were lost among dozens of others untouched.

Reflecting further on his squad’s trial-by-fire and the fresh insights they brought back that apply to Genesee, Chief Puffett observed: Operationally, we were well prepared. The crew performed incredibly well.

It was the extent of the damage and the personal connection that one could not help but have with those that lost everything that changed our perspective on fighting wildfires, mitigation, evacuation, and community preparedness.

It was, Chief Puffett says, “strangely emotional.”

U.S. Army Air Corps Lieutenant William C. Popovich, a bombardier, was shot down in May 1944 over Giessen, Germany. He remained a POW until the war ended.

Lt. Popovich eventually returned to the States, storing his uniform and other memorabilia in a foot locker with his name etched into the lid.

After he passed away in 1989, the contents of his trunk were distributed to various family members.

His daughter, Ann, kept the chest in an upstairs bedroom. Inside the foot locker, Ann stored a binder with her dad’s military card and a hand-written journal.

As she recounted to Denver’s 9News, KUSA: This journal told basically what he ate each day, what each day was like. There’s a lot of poetry in there. So my dad had given me the hand-written journal probably the last time, one of the last times I had seen him.

Ann cherished the irreplaceable diary.

She married Rick Dixon, and when the couple’s home burned to a crisp in the Marshall Fire, among all their belongings — most of them replaceable — Ann’s thoughts turned to her father’s trunk and journal.

75

Dedication and Service Could it have survived?

In the days that followed the Marshall Fire, members of Loveland Fire Rescue Authority were putting out still-smoldering debris in the Rock Creek neighborhood.

As 9News reported, Ann asked one of the Loveland firefighters if he would check upstairs to see the fate of her father’s trunk.

One of them put his hand over his heart and said, “I’m honored to do this for you.”

In the video shot by the television news crew, there are four firefighters: two on adjoining ladders leaning against the second-floor window frame where all the glass was gone, and two other firefighters stabilizing the ladders.

The two at the top can be seen pulling out a worse-for-the-wear trunk, its shell coated in ash but its lock, key, and two side leather handles intact.

Oh, my gosh, I had tears in my eyes.

It’s pure conjecture, of course, whether the efforts of Greenstone, Dalton, and their GFR crewmates not only saved the homes of the Dixons’ neighbors but also kept Lt. Popovich’s foot locker from being consumed in the fire.

But it’s nice to imagine that even though they couldn’t save the Dixon home, the GFR team helped preserve the stories of a man who served his country with honor.

76

Incident Report

Narrative:

Incident Name: Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Incident Type: Rescue

Location: Genesee

Date: March 2003

Personnel: Josh Meneses

Mutual Aid: No

Neither rain nor sleet nor almost seven feet of snow will deter Genesee Fire Rescue volunteers from responding to their neighbors in need.

In March 2003, a historic blizzard pummeled metro Denver and the foothills. The snow and wind brought much of the region to a complete standstill for three days, closing roadways, stranding people in their homes, and ripping a 40-foot gash in the tent-like roof of Denver International Airport.

It was the worst storm to hit the area since December 1913.

Josh Meneses was a 21-year-old rookie with GFR when the storm hit, having relocated to Genesee from Rancho Cucamonga, California, two years earlier. On the day the big snowstorm arrived, Rancho Cucamonga was experiencing light rain and mist, with temperatures hovering in the high 50s and low 60s.

Like most Genesee homeowners, GFR firefighters could not dig their engines out from under the avalanche of snow.

Recalls Meneses, who lived downhill from the station: I came up the hill, and I could get to the station, and that was about as far as I could get.

So off came the bunker boots, replaced by snowshoes that Meneses and the other intrepid volunteers who made it to the station strapped on. Without being called, the volunteers anticipated they’d be needed either in Genesee or to deal with accidents and stranded motorists on nearby Interstate-70.

Sure enough, just because almost everything else came to a standstill, the need for emergency assistance did not.

We hiked people out of houses that needed to get to the hospital.

Once clear of the snow drifts, Meneses and the other volunteers helped their ailing neighbors make their way to the nearby Interstate-70 overpass, where they passed off the patients to crews from Highland Rescue.

It was all in a day’s volunteer service.

77

CHAPTER TWO Wherever Flames May Rage

The things you see on these fires are just mind-boggling. I remember driving through neighborhoods and you see the houses; you see skeletons. You know, there’s the charred washer and dryer. There’s the kid’s tricycle sitting there with the tires burned off. And it’s all charred. You see all these things.

-William “Bill” Easterling Genesee Fire Rescue 1994-2017

L

ike heavyweight boxing champions, a succession of Colorado wildfires over many decades have earned the crown “Worst in the State’s History,” only to cede the distinction — sometimes within weeks — to a more devastating conflagration.

As of this writing, the Marshall Fire remains the titleholder. In terms of homes and buildings obliterated, infrastructure and utilities damaged, and lives upended, it would seem that the two-day firestorm that raced through Louisville and Superior at the end of 2021 will reign for generations as the Centennial State’s very worst.

But history, and a gnawing feeling in the stomachs of many experienced Mountain West firefighters, tell a different story.

Jason Puffett, chief of Genesee Fire Rescue, recalls a conversation that he had with a veteran member of his department in the aftermath of the Marshall Fire.

I asked him whether he thought that was a career fire or if we could expect many more. And he said something along the lines of, “When I started fighting wildfires, a 100-acre fire was a career fire. Then it was 1,000 acres, and now 100,000 acres isn’t uncommon.”

The Congressional Research Service reported in March 2023 that since 2000, 254 wildfires have exceeded 100,000 acres and 16 consumed more than 500,000 acres.

Nearly nine out of ten wildfires are human-caused. Common culprits include carelessly discarded cigarettes, downed power lines, embers spread from backyard clean-ups, sparks emitted from cars and trucks, and deliberately set prescribed The Fire Within: Lieutenant Dorie Dalton Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

79

Dedication and Service burns — intended to prevent wildland fires — that get out of hand. Lighting strikes are responsible for almost all non-human-caused wildland blazes.

The historically forested landscape that attracted Al Cohen, Galen Knickel, and the other developers of Genesee, Colorado in the first place also bears the seeds of the community’s potential devastation.

There is a term that describes the confluence of land in its natural state and human development — “wildland urban interface,” or WUI. The U.S. Fire Administration reports that WUI areas in the United States continue to expand by two million acres a year, driven mainly by the sprawl of new housing.

More than 60,000 communities nationwide are vulnerable to brush, grass, and forest fires, with Genesee among the most exposed.

The wildfire risk to Genesee homes and businesses is greater than 97% of communities in the state, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Examples of ruinous Colorado wildland fires abound: • • • • • • • • • •

Buffalo Creek Fire (Began May 18, 1996) — 10,000 acres, 18 homes and buildings Hi Meadow Fire (Began June 12, 2000) — 11,480 acres and 58 structures Hayman Fire (Began June 8, 2002) — 138,000 acres, 133 homes and 433 outbuildings Fourmile Canyon Fire (Began September 6, 2010) — 6,180 acres and 169 homes High Park Fire (Began June 9, 2012) — 87,000 acres and 259 homes Waldo Canyon Fire (Began on June 23, 2012) — 18,000 acres, 346 homes and buildings Black Forest Fire (Began June 11, 2013) — 14,280 acres and 489 homes Cameron Peak Fire (Began August 13, 2020) — 209,000 acres, 469 homes and structures East Troublesome Fire (Began October 14, 2020) — 194,000 acres, 366 homes and buildings Marshall Fire (Began December 30, 2021) — 6,080 acres and 1,084 homes

How many rounds remain in the deadly Colorado wildfire version of Russian roulette before the cylinder lands on Genesee?

It’s a question that worries Chief Puffett and has troubled each of his predecessors.

While GFR has seen its share of home and building blazes, responded to innumerable auto accidents and health crises, and trained in anticipation of hazardous leaks and even school shootings, nothing has been more front-of-mind for GFR’s volunteers than preventing wildfires and studying their nature.

From its earliest days, Genesee Fire Rescue has dispatched personnel outside its district to join with other firefighters to tackle wildland fires. Doing so is consistent with the classic “Firefighter’s Prayer” — original authorship unknown.

When I am called to duty, God, wherever flames may rage, Give me the strength to save a life, whatever be its age.

Help me to embrace a little child before it’s too late, Or save an older person from the horror of that fate.

Enable me to be alert and hear the weakest shout, And quickly and efficiently put the fire out.

80

Wherever Falmes May Rage I want to fill my calling and give the best in me, To guard my every neighbor and protect their property.

And if, according to my fate, I am to lose my life, Please bless with your protecting hand my children and my [spouse].

When it comes to being prepared for the eventuality of a serious Genesee wildfire, nothing is as valuable as experience.

Until 2017, GFR only sent volunteers — not apparatus — to participate in out-of-district incidents. Chief Puffett then made the decision to dispatch an engine along with the department’s crews. Thanks to the size and quality of its fleet, GFR can afford to send an apparatus to an away fire — gaining knowledge of how its own engines perform during a conflagration — without compromising its ability to respond effectively within the Genesee Fire Protection District should the need arise. Explains the chief: We have been expanding our deployment program, which included training, enlarging our fleet for these assignments while having apparatus that could handle in-district incidents, and building toward having people with the necessary experience and qualifications for federal engine assignments.

Wildfires occur more frequently than most people imagine.

From 2013 to 2022, an annual average of 61,410 U.S. wildfires have burned an average of 7.2 million acres, according to the Congressional Research Service. Only about 1% of wildland fires grow into raging, destructive infernos, most of which occur on federal lands overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service and the Department of the Interior.

Such fires can burn for weeks, even months. When they break out, the government typically turns to fire departments from throughout the country to contribute personnel, engines, tanker trucks, and aircraft to suppress the blaze.

Assignments are meted out through regional coordinating centers, which maintain lists of companies and individuals with the necessary resources and qualifications to assist. Genesee Fire Rescue is registered nationally via the Pueblo (Colorado) Interagency Dispatch Center.

Federal engine assignments typically require an on-site commitment of 14 days, not counting travel to and from the incident. The government compensates both the fire agencies and their crews for participation.

In 2022 alone, GFR dispatched a team and apparatus to the Moose Fire in Salmon-Challis National Forest, Idaho; the Pipeline Fire, north of Flagstaff, Arizona; and the Black Fire, spanning three counties northeast of Silver City, New Mexico.

In September 2022, a three-person crew drove GFR’s Engine 932 — the same apparatus it sent to the Marshall Fire — to the Sierra Nevada foothills northeast of Sacramento, California, to join in the campaign to extinguish the Mosquito Fire, which rapidly became the state’s largest blaze of the 2022 season.

Joining Chief Puffett and Josh Boyles, both veterans of the Marshall Fire, was Dorie Dalton, a former elementary school teacher who, since January 2021, has worked full-time as GFR’s wildland specialist. In that role, she educates the Genesee community — including making hundreds of door-to-door neighborhood visits — on ways to reduce the likelihood they will inadvertently spark a wildfire or lose their home should a large fire erupt nearby. Additionally, Dalton regularly joins GFR volunteers responding to fires and other incidents near and far.

81

Dedication and Service If Dalton’s former colleagues and students at Dora Moore — an early childhood education to eighth-grade Denver public school — had witnessed her at the Mosquito Fire, they undoubtedly would not have recognized her.

A photo of Dalton shows smoke swirling around her and flames rising from the forest bed, nipping at the trunks of tall trees less than 25 feet away. She is shooting a stream of water from a fire hose, soaking a gangly Douglas fir, which is as yet untouched by the blaze.

Head to toe, Dalton is enshrouded in firefighting gear: Her shoulder-length blond hair is secured in a bun under a large yellow helmet, dusted with ash. A black, heat-resistant shield covers her entire face and neck, except for her eyes, which are protected by goggles. She’s wearing leather gloves, heavy-duty boots, a fire-protective shirt and pants, and a backpack — known in firefighting parlance as a line pack — containing personal gear, including snacks, extra gloves, socks, and a first aid kit. She carries a fire blanket, also known as a fire shelter, that she can crawl into, lying face down, to create a barrier between heat and flames should a situation arise where she has no other escape route.

“As far as fighting wildfires, I can hold my own,” she says.

Boyles details his Mosquito Fire clothing, equipment, and accessories: I’m wearing Nomex [heat and flame resistant] shirt and pants. My leather gloves are in my cargo pocket. National Fire Protection Association-compliant helmet and safety glasses. I don’t usually wear the glasses, but there were enough flying embers I needed them this day.

In the side pocket, I have fuses for backburning. Also in the pocket is an orange panel I use for directing helicopter water drops. In the line pack, I carry extra socks, warmer shirt, extra gloves, water, food, facemask for very smoky times, sunglasses, fireline handbook, lighter, batteries, extra boot laces, extra helmet strap, multitool, flashlight, headlamp, poncho, sunscreen, bug spray, and beanie.

Pinned to Boyles’s shoulder strap was a microphone connected to a VHF radio in his pack. Dalton also has one, allowing them to transmit and receive communications from others, particularly Chief Puffett, who, as their task force leader, was responsible for ensuring their group was following assignments and adhering to the well-establish wildland fire protocol — Lookout, Communication, Escape Routes, and Safety Zones — referred to as LCES. It is a system designed to prevent, or at least reduce, the odds that the firefighters will suffer serious injury.

Lookouts, or scouts, maintain their distance from the working crew. Their task is to simultaneously monitor the behavior of wildland fires and alert the engaged responders should they need to retreat when the blaze is advancing toward them.

Communication, as it sounds, requires the firefighters to be in frequent touch with the lookout as well as each other. Twoway radios generally make this possible, only in the wilderness, with blowing winds and the roar of the flames, sometimes the only effective means of delivering updates and warnings is by word of mouth, passed along the fire perimeter.

Identifying more than one escape route is considered essential, as wildland fires are volatile and can rapidly close off an emergency escapeway with potentially fatal consequences. One example, frequently cited in wildland fire courses throughout the country, was western Colorado’s Battlement Creek Fire in 1976, when three firefighters died and a fourth was badly burned after flames and heavy smoke blocked their single escape route.

Safety Zones are the wildland firefighters’ shelter from the storm. It is the location, or locations, where those working the fireline can fall back if their well-being is threatened.

82

Wherever Falmes May Rage The wildland protocols that apply for out-of-state wildfires are no different when the firestorms are in Colorado. The list of in-state fires GFR has helped combat is long, including Mt. Vernon, Beaver Brook, and Cherokee Ranch (2003); Pine Valley (2006), Indian Gulch and Lefthand Canyon (2011); Lime Gulch (2013); and South Table Mountain (2017).

Between 2020 and the close of 2022, Genesee sent crews and an engine to in-state wildland fires, including Cameron Peak, Black Mountain, Sylvan, High Park, and, as detailed in the previous chapter, the Marshall Fire.

“The experiences and investment in equipment and personnel have truly been a game changer for our district in terms of our capabilities,” Chief Puffett says. “Those with national [and regional] wildfire experience bring back tremendous knowledge and experience.”

That is the main reason why, when it came to assembling a crew to attend the Marshall Fire, Chief Puffett tapped Boyles, Bob Dalton, and Peter Greenstone. As the chief explains, the decision comes down to trust and experience.

This was a “career fire” due to the level of devastation and danger to both the public and first responders, so the engine boss (me on that incident) is responsible for choosing the crew. That decision is not always popular, but it’s critical. It comes down to who has experience on complex fires and who can be trusted to know what to do and what not to do. It wasn’t a time to learn. It was a time to get the job done. We were going into a very dangerous situation that night, and crew continuity mattered more than ever.

To state that GFR volunteers put their lives on the line in the service of others is no exaggeration.

While battling a lightning-caused wildfire near Prescott, Arizona, in June 2013, 19 firefighters — members of the Prescott Fire Department’s interagency Granite Mountain Hotshots — died when flames overtook them in a box canyon. As the Associated Press reported, “the fire was too intense and moving too quickly for their [fire] shelters to protect them.”

William “Bill” Easterling, who served 23 years with Genesee Fire Rescue beginning in 1994 — including a stint as fire marshal and one as chief — was on the scene of more wildfires than any other GFR firefighter before or after him.

Knock on wood, I was never unfortunate enough to be on a fire that had a firefighter fatality. I’ve had them with firefighter injuries but never a firefighter fatality.

Fifteen years on, however, Easterling hasn’t forgotten the fates of John Schwartz and Terry DeVore, two firefighters with the Ordway Volunteer Fire Department, located about 50 miles east of Pueblo, in Crowley County.

In April 2008, more than two dozen buildings caught fire, and nearly 9,000 acres around the tiny community burned after flames from two controlled burns of trash and hay got out of control.

Schwartz and DeVore lost their lives when a wooden bridge along U.S. Highway 96 collapsed, sending the pair and their fire truck plummeting into a ravine.

Easterling, now in his early seventies and living in Aiken, South Carolina, has forgotten few of the fires he fought or the colleagues he fought them with, dating back almost three decades.

The things you see on these fires are just mind-boggling. I remember driving through neighborhoods and you see the houses; you see skeletons. You know, there’s the charred washer and dryer. There’s the kid’s tricycle sitting there with the tires burned off. And it’s all charred. You see all these things.

83

Dedication and Service Fifteen miles west of Fort Collins, the High Park Fire required more than 1,900 firefighters to contain it in June 2012, including Easterling, who served as a crew chief.

At the time, High Park was the second-largest fire in Colorado history, based on the more than 118 square miles burned.

The blaze consumed 259 homes and killed a 62-year-old woman.

At one point, Easterling ordered his team to withdraw to the safety zone.

We could hear the fire blowing down the canyon and coming toward us. We’re standing in the meadow, and the fire sounds like 747s taking off over our heads. It’s just roaring through the trees.

We’re in this kind of tunnel with the fire going around us, and the air actually glowed orange. We’d also hear the occasional explosion of a transformer. The propane tanks would heat to a boil and then they’d explode. This lasted for about a half hour. It’s a very eerie feeling. It’s almost like you’re on another planet.

In February 1999, fed by extremely dry conditions, a fire broke out in the 2000 block of Montane Drive in Genesee.

Whipped by 25-to-35-mile-per-hour winds, the blaze quickly spread to the southern face of nearby Lininger Mountain.

Initially, both Genesee Fire Rescue and Foothills Fire & Rescue responded, attacking the blaze with six engines and two tankers. But it wasn’t enough, so the call went out seeking additional help.

“We had engines and people from every fire department in Jefferson County,” Easterling remembers. Specifically, 219 firefighters from 18 different agencies joined the campaign, including a county helicopter that dropped water and provided a clear picture of the fire’s bearing to the incident commander.

By subsequent standards, the Lininger Mountain Fire was a nursling, consuming only 35 acres. But it was too close to home for comfort, coming within 50 yards of one home and threatening 21 other houses in the Genesee and Lininger Mountain areas.

That was 24 years ago, two-plus decades since Genesee was at imminent risk for a potentially catastrophic wildfire tearing through its homes and commercial spaces. Since then, a new generation of GFR volunteers have absorbed the lessons learned by their predecessors and gained their own experience battling dozens of wildland fires in other people’s neighborhoods and backyards.

Not one of them hopes they’ll ever need to put their knowledge and skills to use in their own district. But should the need ever arise, they are well prepared.

84

Fire Hydrants Every 500 Feet With its spectacular views of Mt. Evans to the south and the Denver plains to the east, Genesee was envisioned by local resident Galen W. Knickel and Denver developer Alvin L. “Al” Cohen as a mountain oasis.

The two men painstakingly acquired the land, as well as the water and mineral rights, securing the necessary regulatory approval and designing one of Colorado’s first planned mountain communities.

Knickel and Cohen sweated every detail, from the platting of individual lots to the underground placement of utilities and the installation of fire hydrants every 500 feet. Even before the first homesites were sold in 1973, Knickel and Cohen’s Genesee Land Company cajoled members of its staff to “volunteer” as the community’s first firefighters. Their main task was clearing trees and brush that posed a fire hazard.

It took more than a decade, including lengthy and costly legal brawls, but in April 1975, 38 lots, priced from $25,000 to $45,000, went on sale. Within a month, eleven parcels had sold or were under contract.

85

CHAPTER THREE We Don’t Rise to the Level of Our Expectations, We Fall to the Level of Our Training — Archilochus c. 650 BCE

Watching the rookies with that apprehension and that little fear or whatever in their eyes and their faces and getting ready, and when they go into the burn building, and they go through that first burn, and they come out, and then peel the mask off. Their shoulders are back, and they have a big grin on their face. It’s like, “I met the monster and I beat him.”

T

hey came to be known as the “Dirty Dozen.”

In the summer of 1989, twelve members of Genesee Fire Rescue — eight men and four women — completed the requirements to be credentialed at the “Firefighter 1” level, a statewide competency standard that applies to paid and volunteer firefighters alike.

Previously, GFR had provided its members with limited, informal training, a mix of once-a-month weekend classes, mentorship, and plenty of trial-by-error.

Witness the recollection of John Bales, a captain with the Thornton, Colorado, fire department at the time. GFR recruited Bales, who worked in his agency’s training division, to run the inaugural Genesee Firefighter 1 course.

I’ll tell you about an incident here in Genesee. It was a training incident, one that scared the living daylights out of me.

We were doing hose drills one night. I had two ladies on a hose line, and they charged that line and kicked the pressure so high that it took both ladies off their feet. I swear to God, I thought we critically injured them.

The two volunteers, Kathy Harms and Sue Barrowman, sustained bumps and bruises, and were treated on-site.

I remember just how I felt, feeling so bad. We injure, and we kill firefighters on fires and calls. We shouldn’t be injuring anybody in training, ever. That was a huge mistake that was made.

It was also one that was never repeated.

Bales, joined by a good friend of his, Robert G. Tade, a senior officer with the Denver Fire Department, put the Genesee volunteers through their paces.

The Fire Within: Ryan Babcock — 2008 to 2023 Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

87

Dedication and Service We did everything scenario-based, and we could knock out three, four, or five things in a scenario-driven session. It might be getting on the apparatus, air packs, pulling a line, setting a ladder, making a rescue, whatever.

For the first time since Genesee Fire Rescue’s formation 16 years earlier, the department included state-certified trained personnel, one of the first Colorado volunteer fire agencies to accomplish that.

After months of study and preparation, the Dirty Dozen took the required courses, and every volunteer passed the necessary exams — 100 written questions and a four-hour practical test.

The first class of the “Genesee Fire Training Academy,” consisted of Chief Rich Jones, Assistant Chief Alan Fletcher, Captain Sandy Schumacher, Lieutenants Pete Rogerson and Dave Rossback, and Firefighters Bob Fuchs, Robb Gair, Garnet Gordon, Mike Krueger, Pete McLellan, Angela Schulthess, and Irene Van Woensel.

With their certificates came the recognition and satisfaction that they were no longer amateurs but professional firefighters. Five members of the 1989 Academy remained on the force long enough to draw a pension, a minimum of ten years.

From that point onward, Chief Jones, who led the department from 1986 to 1992, required all recruits to pass their Firefighter I certification, a requisite that remains in place to this day.

As significant an improvement as was the Academy taught by Bales and Tade over the less formal training that preceded it, measured by today’s standards, it was still short on depth and breadth.

“We had no requirement about physical conditioning,” recalls Gair, one of the Dirty Dozen. “They were happy to have pretty much anybody who would walk through the door just because we didn’t have a large group.”

Also missing from the curriculum and requirements in the Academy’s early years was basic EMS training, wildland fire tactics, hazmat preparation, and other subjects that today are core topics covered in GFR’s 10-week Firefighter 1 Training Academy, and an additional four weeks of hazmat training and three weeks of wildland instruction.

When Jim Andrews, a Genesee Foundation employee, was conscripted to join Genesee Fire Rescue in December 1984, his only training consisted of mentoring by Denny Schuler, an early chief, and a fellow volunteer, Rich Greenstreet. Says Andrews: There’s a lot of commitment now to the department for volunteers. There is a lot of training, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean that in a good way. They’re here because they want to be. Otherwise, they wouldn’t take the time to make that commitment.

I don’t know if it was like that when I started. If I would’ve stuck around, I would’ve probably found another job somewhere.

The training for Andrews and other early Genesee firefighters resembled a college fraternity prepping for an intramural touch football match. The volunteers gathered on a Saturday morning at a local soccer field and engaged in some gentile calisthenics before decamping to share beers and gossip.

“Training was really a way to meet people,” recalls Mike Cantwell, a commercial mortgage banker who joined the force in 1980 and became its chief in July 1984.

88

We Don’t Rise to the Level of Our Expectations, We Fall to the Level of Our Training My wife signed up first. She said, “Hey, this is a pretty good little social club. You should join it, too.” And so I went one day and signed up. The volunteers did a lot outside of the training in the way of social activities with parties and what have you.

To be fair, in the early years, not much was needed from the volunteers, as the department — focused on wildfire mitigation — received fewer than ten emergency calls annually. In one year, they handled a meager two calls.

Even as late as 1986, as Genesee grew and the fire department responded to an increasing number of so-called “mutual aid” requests from neighboring communities, GFR still averaged fewer than two incidents a week.

To their credit, Cantwell as chief, and Jones, who succeeded him, recognized the need to get serious about training and preparedness. Says Cantwell: I recall one of my early weeks as fire chief, we had a simulated call, and the [fire engine] rolled up to the site where we were having a simulated event, and the water was charged into the pre-connect hoses before they were out of the bay.

So we had spaghetti flying all over the place. Nobody knew what their assignment was. There was a lot of running around with no purpose. Sitting back and watching that all evolve made me a true believer in pushing the whole concept of professional training.

Cantwell tapped two veterans from the Fort Collins Fire Department, Glen Levy and Randy Bruegman, to fill the Grand Canyon-sized gaps in GFR’s training regiment. The two veterans remained instructors for most of Cantwell’s nearly three years as chief.

“We didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Cantwell explains.

We literally had them start from the very beginning, and they went through what an evolution [a coordinated sequence of actions or procedures] would look like on a truck, and each seat in the truck, whether it was the engine or the truck, each seat had an assignment, which was something new. And then, from there, we learned how to use the equipment properly that was on the truck, and all the breathing apparatuses.

For practice, members of Genesee Fire Rescue would make the short drive down to Golden, where Coors Brewing maintained advanced simulators and a so-called “burn house,” which provided a life-like experience for firefighters.

Here is how Genescene, the community newsletter, described one early Saturday morning GFR visit to Coors.

Men and women firefighters entered two at a time pitch-dark, smoke-filled rooms. They had full air packs on and had to locate a specific object. They then proceeded up a ladder to the roof, across the roof, and down a ladder.

The next obstacle was a gas fire contained by a fire team. They proceeded to push the fire back away from the ruptured gas pipe in order to turn off the proper valve.

The third exercise was to contain an oil fire. Two hoses are used under the direction of one commander.

The firefighters returned to the Genesee firehouse for a chili lunch and dessert. This event was topped off by some brew made from Rocky Mountain spring water!

89

Dedication and Service To supplement their instruction, early Genesee Fire volunteers attended one-off classes, such as first aid — taught by Nettie Calvi, an Idledale Fire Rescue volunteer.

Chuck Zoril of the Lookout Mountain Fire Department brought his company’s extrication truck to the Genesee fire station and explained how to use the equipment in the event of motor vehicle accidents.

Saturday morning, March 1, 1986, was a spectacular early spring day in Genesee. The air was crisp, the sky crystal blue and the mountain views boundless.

At precisely 7:00 a.m., Genesee Fire members arrived on the scene. A dozen-plus years after the formation of the fire company, the volunteers experienced their first “home fire.”

Firefighter Arthur “Art” Morse recounted the milestone in Genescene: We laid hoses, ventilated the roof, put on air packs, and entered the smoke-filled rooms of the house, searching for… victims. We put out actual fires with fog and straight water streams. The house was eventually burned to the ground. What an inferno it became.

Ten hours later, their work done, the volunteers packed up and returned to their homes to recount the day’s adventure.

To those who participated, it didn’t matter that it was all a training exercise or that the department itself set fire to the old home that was scheduled for demolition.

“It was a real first-hand experience with lots of smoke, fire and heat,” Morse wrote. “Our chiefs, Mike Cantwell and Alan Fletcher planned the activity really well — stressing safety at all times.”

Since there are a limited number of old homes for firefighters to practice extinguishing after they’ve set them blazing, over the decades, fire departments across the country have constructed so-called “burn buildings” or “burn towers” — often utilized by multiple agencies — to simulate real-world structure fires.

As noted earlier in this chapter, many years ago, Coors Brewing allowed Genesee and other regional companies to use its fire training installation, and currently, in the greater Denver area, there are several fire demonstration buildings and towers, including ones run by the Fairmount Fire Protection District, West Metro Fire Protection District, and Evergreen Fire Protection District.

In general, these purpose-built training facilities are constructed of concrete and consist of multiple rooms on several levels. To increase the realism, often the structures are outfitted with home furnishings or, when mocking up commercial or industrial spaces, with desks, filing cabinets, pallets, inventory, and old tires — a reliable source of roaring black smoke when inflamed.

Trainees entering burn buildings experience heat and smoke akin to uncontrolled fires and have the opportunity to practice utilizing their breathing apparatus, fire suppression, search and rescue, and the safe application of all equipment, including axes and ladders.

90

We Don’t Rise to the Level of Our Expectations, We Fall to the Level of Our Training “When you first go in there, and the room is heating up, and you’re at six, seven, 800 degrees and you’re seeing rollover [a visible wave of flames that rolls across the ceiling or upper level of a room] for the first time. You think about how hot you cook a pizza, and it’s hotter than that by twice as much,” explains Ryan Babcock, who prepared many Genesee volunteers for their first burn-building exercise.

To emerge from the burn structures looking worse for wear was a sign of honor, recalls Scott Mefford, who joined GFR in 1994.

You came out of there with your mask melted and covered with black stuff. Then you didn’t wash your bunker gear for the next six months because you had the cool black stuff.

Modern burn buildings rely on controlled gas-fired burners to generate flames and smoke, specifically designed to limit the risk to the firefighters from burns and the inhalation of carcinogens.

It wasn’t always that way.

Bill Easterling, who spent 23 years with Genesee Fire Rescue, recalls the early iterations of burn structure training.

One of my favorite times was watching the rookies do the burn building for the first time because I used to love to look at their faces.

Back in the earlier days, it’s a lot different than the burn buildings are now. When you have a guy taking a two-pound coffee can full of diesel fuel and slinging it up over the ceiling and watching the whole room light up, and the fire just roars over you. I mean, he would go to prison if he did that today.

But watching the rookies with that apprehension and that little fear or whatever in their eyes and their faces and getting ready, and when they go into the burn building, and they go through that first burn, and they come out, and then peel the mask off. Their shoulders are back, and they have a big grin on their face. It’s like, “I met the monster and I beat him.”

Easterling, like most of the tenured members of Genesee Fire Rescue over the decades, especially chiefs, regularly mentored recruits and newer members of the company.

Once the Genesee Fire Training Academy was formally established in 1989, however, the responsibility for preparing recruits to qualify for their various fire certifications, as well as keeping established members sharp and current on the latest fire service techniques and equipment, fell to designated training chiefs and their guest instructors.

Bales’s time prepping the Dirty Dozen and others who followed began before he formally joined Genesee Fire Rescue in 1990. He continued instructing for nearly two years after that, during which he served as the department’s assistant chief, handling accounts receivable, purchasing, and interactions with the Genesee Fire Protection District board.

A second-generation firefighter who first suited up at age 18 in Wichita, Kansas, Bales is a revered figure in Colorado and national firefighting circles. His career spanned a full half-century — 1968 to 2018, including serving as an adjunct instructor for the National Fire Academy, where he taught firefighter safety and survival.

Bales’s time as a full-fledged member of GFR was brief. But he continued to help train Genesee volunteers when he moved 91

Dedication and Service on to serve in leadership posts at other Colorado fire departments, notably for 17 years as chief of Golden Fire.

On his retirement, Bales became a director of the Colorado Fallen Firefighters Foundation, recruiting GFR’s current chief, Jason Puffett, to the group’s board.

The next two Genesee Fire Rescue training chiefs — Aaron Sirbin and Ryan Babcock — are the ones who, more than anyone, are credited with elevating the professionalism of the volunteers.

Sirbin was much beloved, despite his direct, sometimes brusque, manner.

The volunteers called him “Mongo,” sometimes even to his face, because they thought he resembled the character in Mel Brooks’s 1974 comedy, Blazing Saddles, best remembered for punching a horse unconscious. In the film, Mongo was played by Alex Karras, the 6 -foot-2-inch four-time Pro Bowl tackle for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League.

Sirbin, born in Colorado Springs and raised in Northglenn, was an outdoorsman at heart, hunting, fly fishing, and camping. In high school, he rode bulls, played football, and earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

“Aaron had a photographic mind,” says his wife of 28 years, Jane Sirbin. “He only had to do something once and he became very good at it.”

Sirbin’s father was an electrician, and Aaron leveraged what he learned by watching his dad undertake odd jobs in construction, landscaping, and maintenance.

“Aaron could build a house from the ground up,” Jane recalls.

Since 1984, Jim Andrews had been doing forestry work and snowplowing for Genesee Land Company, the developer of the planned Genesee community. Needing “volunteers” to clear fire hazards and attend the occasional emergency call, the Foundation made joining the fledgling Genesee fire department an unofficial job requirement.

In 1990, Andrews recruited Sirbin to help with maintenance and, by extension, to join GFR. Sirbin’s faculty as a quick study allowed him to take on the role of firefighter effortlessly. Plus, he loved everything about the department, especially the camaraderie.

“He just fell into it,” Jane recounts. “And he always said that he wished he’d been a firefighter from the very beginning.”

Just how fast Aaron caught on is evidenced by the fact that within four years from the day he first donned his bunker gear, volunteering only part-time, GFR asked him to take on the formal role of training chief.

“Aaron had a passion for teaching. He took ownership of the Academy,” says Carlton Babbs, a future GFR chief whose rookie class in 2003 was run by Sirbin. During Sirbin’s time leading the Academy, recruits from nearby departments, including Foothills and Clear Creek, trained alongside the volunteers from Genesee.

Aaron was an amazing instructor because he would challenge you. Not in a bad way. In a way that would inspire you. In a way that you wanted to give your best and work extra hard.

92

We Don’t Rise to the Level of Our Expectations, We Fall to the Level of Our Training That sometimes included plunking volunteers on their helmets with a flashlight if they were looking down when they should have been looking up at a slide or other classroom visual.

Aaron had us doing things you’ve never done before, doing things where you wonder, “Can I do that?” Doing things that scare you, but where you had to trust your equipment, trust your training, trust your buddies.

In Snieder’s rookie year, Easterling, who also was trained by Sirbin, was the Genesee fire chief, with Sirbin serving as Easterling’s training chief. As Snieder remembers: I was going through the Firefighter 1 Academy, and we were doing a search in the bay. I was wearing a SCBA for about the first time. It made me really claustrophobic, so in like three minutes, I shook the bottle dry. I mean, I was just hyperventilating. And then I came out, and there was this friendly guy talking to me. And then I asked him, I said, “Are you also with the department?” And this was Bill Easterling, and he says, “Well, actually, I’m your chief.”

I was so nervous going through the first burn building that when I walked out of the door to my car, I threw up on the driveway.

The Academy was physically very demanding for me. I think I’ve never been as muscular as at the end of the rookie class.

Piloting a speeding fire engine through the winding, hilly, and often icy mountain roads of Genesee and its outskirts is arguably more likely to lead to firefighter injuries and even deaths than area structure or wildland fires. Weighing in at as much as 50,000 pounds fully loaded, a ladder truck is about as heavy as a large dump truck or concrete mixer.

Before Sirbin put a stop to it, often the first volunteer to arrive at the Genesee station in response to an emergency call grabbed the keys to a fire truck and took the wheel.

At four-foot, eight inches, Joan Solano was anything but the prototypical firefighter. Like other women who joined the department in the early 1980s, she was home during the day when many husbands were at work in Golden, Denver, or other away locations.

Solano and several of the other stay-at-home volunteers were provided pagers. When the beepers alerted them to an emergency, they’d initiate a call tree to track down any firefighters — primarily men — who were available to respond.

But on those occasions when Solano and the other women couldn’t find enough available volunteers to respond, they would make their way to the station, gear up, and head out by themselves.

One time, Solano found herself, untrained and uncertified as a driver/operator, at the wheel of Genesee’s ladder truck.

She managed the driving without incident and helped extinguish gas storage tanks that had erupted in flames.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” Solano realized, and self-selected herself out of the department.

Matt, Joan Solano’s husband, who joined the department in 1992, after she did, but while Bales was still an instructor, could relate to her nerve-racking experience.

My first weekend watch was with John Bales. Things were still pretty loose. It was a day with a lot of ice and snow on the 93

Dedication and Service road on a Saturday. He says, “Okay, we got to drive this.” And we had a Seagrave Quint for our ladder truck. And so, he said, “Well, you’re going to drive.” I said, “What?” He says, “You’re going to drive.”

So, I get behind the wheel, and we go down Foothills and back, and we’re going down the hill, it’s basically a ridge as you’re going down, and he says, “Now, whatever you do, don’t touch the brakes.”

As training chief, Sirbin buried the “I was here first, so I’ll drive” system, which only required the so-called driver/operator, or D/O, to sit through a couple of classes before being entrusted with the responsibility of getting the firefighters safely to and from an incident.

“Aaron comes along and he says, “Well, we should really do more training than that.” So he pushed the driver/operator stuff,” Matt Solano says.

When Matt became a Genesee Fire Rescue officer, he worked with Sirbin to mandate that every driver of an engine pass a state-certified exam before allowing them behind the wheel. To this day, most Genesee volunteers obtain their D/O certification early in their tenure.

The way Sirbin ran the Academy during his years with Genesee Fire Rescue could serve as a business school case study on management and how “tough love” is sometimes the best method of mentoring and instilling loyalty.

“He was hard on his trainees and they respected him for it,” his wife, Jane, says.

Sirbin had a rationale for his hard outer shell.

He wanted to make sure that they knew what they were doing before they went to a fire.

Despite Sirbin’s stern classroom demeanor, his volunteers seemed to sense that he had a heart of gold. Recalls Jane: He had a way of making friends. People were just drawn to him. I can’t explain why. It’s just that he had a personality that everybody liked. He’d give the shirt off his back. He would help you in any way if you [struggled]. He would work extra with you.

Sirbin, age 48, was still the training chief in 2008 when the six-foot-two-inch former bull rider suffered a crippling stroke.

He was in the hospital for three months, and there were times when we didn’t think he was going to make it.

Sirbin lost function in his right arm, had difficulty speaking and walking, and required almost four additional months of rehab before he could finally come home. He never did return to duty in Genesee.

Jane, an accounts payable staffer with Forest Oil, worked remotely while she cared for Sirbin. Her employer was very supportive.

After years of therapy, Sirbin showed some improvement but not much. He would attend GFR events occasionally, such as its annual After-Christmas party. A few members of the department stayed in touch with Jane and him, although their numbers dwindled over the years.

In February 2019, at age 58, Sirbin passed, leaving behind Jane, a brother, three sisters, and many nieces, nephews, and 94

We Don’t Rise to the Level of Our Expectations, We Fall to the Level of Our Training cousins. He and Jane never had children of their own.

John Bales, who had remained in contact with the Sirbins, gave the eulogy at a small service held for those who knew Aaron or came to know him by reputation.

“I wasn’t going to do a memorial,” Jane says. “I changed my mind thinking that my husband would be disappointed and so would the department if I didn’t.”

Ryan Babcock was in the final Academy class run by Aaron Sirbin before his stroke in 2008. At the time, the rookie had no idea that less than a decade later, he would become GFR’s highly regarded training chief, preparing a new generation of volunteers for the rigors of firefighting.

Like Sirbin, Babcock came to Genesee Fire Rescue by way of the Genesee Foundation, which hired him in May 2000 as its open space operations manager. Working for the homeowners association, not the fire department, Babcock’s focus was on wildfire prevention. He would survey Genesee’s hundreds of acres of woodlands, removing dead and downed trees, overgrown grass, and other vegetation that could fuel wildland fires.

Babcock would also meet one-on-one with homeowners — much like Lieutenant Dorie Dalton, who GFR hired in January 2021 to be its full-time wildland specialist. His assignment was to educate residents on how to create a “defensible space,” a buffer zone around their homes intended to decrease the likelihood of a wildfire spreading to or from their properties.

From the time he was in his early 20s, Babcock was drawn to the prospect of becoming a wildland firefighter, challenging himself mentally and physically as part of a team that worked long hours — often in remote and rugged terrain — to protect lives, communities, and natural resources.

On several occasions between 2002 and 2004, Babcock asked to become a GFR volunteer.

“I just wanted to do wildland,” without having to undergo the training and testing requirements for structure fires and hazmat, he recalls. “So they said, ‘no.’”

Babcock recognized the dissonance of educating homeowners on wildfire mitigation without ever having actually fought one.

I’d talk fire all the time, knew it, read about it, but I didn’t really experience it.

Finally, in 2008, he relented, enrolling in GFR’s fire academy and accepting that he would have to learn to fight structure fires and undergo hazmat instruction if he was ever going to get the opportunity to battle wildland fires.

After Sirbin took ill, one of Babcock’s burn-building experiences was conducted by Dave Geralds, who at the time was the training officer for Foothills Fire. As of mid-2023, Geralds is a full-time captain with Fairmount Fire Rescue, serving as a trainer and the department’s volunteer coordinator. He also remains a GFR volunteer, with the rank of captain.

Babcock recounts the “firefighter down” drill, part of the search and rescue training that Geralds conducted for GFR, running him and other volunteers through a maze course that Geralds had designed in a confined, smoke-filled space.

95

Dedication and Service He didn’t take it easy on us. He would throw trash cans, knock you off your feet, and just basically beat you up.

“Firefighter down” required you to pull a firefighter out of the maze. I was with this 300-pounder; he was my buddy and a big dude. I remember that vividly because I actually left my partner because I was running low on air. I left him in the building.

And when I got out, I got my ass chewed by Dave. He got right in my face. “What are you doing? Where’s your partner?”

I just got reamed. If I were older, I probably would have died from a heart attack. I was that tired. But I swapped my (air) bottle and went right back at it.

Babcock, like Sirbin, was a quick learner. In time, he got his wish to join wildfire crews, and he also proved adept at mastering the skills required for fighting structure fires, conducting medical evacuations, doing vehicle extrications, and even addressing hazmat exposures.

Although Genesee Fire Rescue has always required its members to live in the district, a poorly kept secret is that both Sirbin and Babcock — who were not required to live in Genesee when they worked for the Foundation — never became Genesee residents once they joined the fire service. (Sirbin commuted daily from his home in Lakewood, driving a beat-up orange Dodge pickup truck that the volunteers dubbed the “Orange Beast.”) Both trainers proved so valuable that their chiefs simply ignored the requirement.

A watershed event occurred in the summer of 2017 when Bill Easterling, who had been with Genesee Fire Rescue since 1994, and many members considered indispensable, retired.

In the wake of Easterling’s planned departure, the Genesee Fire Protection District Board asked Jason Puffett, the incumbent volunteer chief, to become the department’s first full-time paid leader.

One of Puffett’s conditions for accepting the job was that he could also hire a full-time paid training chief.

As Babcock recalls: I was a captain at the time. Chief Puffett invited me over to his house for lunch. I was still working at the foundation (in addition to volunteering for GFR). He asked me, “Where do you see yourself going with the department? What would it take in order to get you to move over here?”

It didn’t take much. In fact, Babcock, who, after more than 16 years with the Genesee Foundation had been looking for a fresh career opportunity, took a pay cut to accept the job as GFR’s new training chief.

GFR was already more professional than most volunteer companies in Colorado when Babcock was hired. He raised GFR’s standards several notches.

I keep up with current fire techniques. It’s not all wildland. It’s engineering, wildland, and the structured piece. Just our familiarity and capability with our equipment. Being able to move hose efficiently, get it off the engine, into the door, our forced entries, and search and rescue, our vertical vent and horizontal. I mean, every skill that a firefighter has to do, it’s hammered in training. And I think at a level that it never was before. And I continue to bring in folks that know more than me, which is a lot of people.

Even so, Babcock confesses concerns about the competency of GFR’s volunteers, and avoiding complacency, sometimes 96

We Don’t Rise to the Level of Our Expectations, We Fall to the Level of Our Training kept him awake at night.

Among other improvements he implemented was a significant revision to the 10-week Firefighting 1 Academy, detailing its curriculum hour-by-hour.

We haven’t had anybody fail since I started.

Babcock initiated an Engineer Academy, an advanced course designed to certify a firefighter’s knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of each apparatus and the equipment that it carries.

Prior to me starting, basically, engineer training was showing up and just pumping engines.

Although the lay public doesn’t recognize recordkeeping as a vital firefighting tool, it is.

Tracking the training and certifications of each firefighter is essential to operating safely and within parameters mandated by state and federal regulators. It’s one of the accomplishments Babcock is particularly proud of.

A little more than a year after the Dirty Dozen passed their Firefighting 1 exams, in the fall of 1990, the first five members of Genesee Fire Rescue received their Incident Qualification Card, commonly known as a “Red Card.” As Rich Jones wrote in Genescene: I am proud to announce that we now have five Red Card members on the Fire Department, which means that we have five federally certified forest firefighters. Each Red Card member is qualified to respond to any forest fire in the United States and be paid by the federal government to fight that fire.

Jones was quick to add, “not that any of our Red Card members will be traveling to fight a fire someplace else.”

Perhaps not in 1990, but soon enough, attaining a Red Card and traveling hundreds, even thousands of miles from Genesee to join multi-state wildfire crews became a vital training experience for Genesee Fire, which came to embrace the notion that it is better to gain experience fighting wildfires in someone else’s backyard.

Bill Easterling was one of the early GFR members to embrace the opportunities presented by combatting remote wildfires.

That’s one thing I was very thankful to the [Genesee Fire Protection District] board and the department supporting me in that, going out and getting that experiencing and bringing it back to the department, going on a lot of wildfires, going on a lot of incidents, going to hurricanes and blizzards and floods and tornadoes and stuff. That was huge, and I think it helped the department because I saw how other departments operated. I saw things they did. I brought that stuff back. I brought that experience back to my training.

Today, roughly four out of every five GFR volunteers are Red Card-certified, and the department sends members and an apparatus to an “away” fire a half-dozen or more times annually.

Experiences, such as those gained at federal wildfires, are often the best instructors, for better and worse.

Babcock, like Bales and the other trainers who preceded him, gleaned some of his most valuable lessons from the mistakes 97

Dedication and Service he made. One, in particular, still vexes Babcock.

We had an outdoor home gas leak. It was a mutual aid call. I was the company officer, and we sent two firefighters into the garage to unplug a gas heater that was likely the ignition source for this gas leak. Since the power connection was in there, they shut down the utilities.

The garage blew up.

We didn’t have a gas meter on those firefighters. I’m positive that if we had, the gas meter would have been saying, “Get the f&#k out of here. We’re at our explosive limits.”

I wasn’t the incident commander, but I was the training officer, and I was right there. I didn’t recognize this, and I could have killed two firefighters on that call.

In the spring of 2023, to the dismay of many GFR volunteers, Babcock informed Chief Puffett that he was leaving the department after a combined 15 years on the force to take a firefighting job with Aurora Fire. (GFR had yet to fill the vacancy when this book went to press.)

“With Ryan’s leadership, we have produced some of the best recruits we’ve ever had,” Puffett says.

One anecdote, in particular, illustrates how rapidly the professionalism of Genesee Fire Rescue grew under the tutelage of Babcock, Sirbin and those who preceded them. As recounted by Bill Easterling: Every year, the training got better and better, and our academy got longer and longer as you put more and more stuff into it and more requirements.

Two of our top-notch volunteers, [a husband and wife], got an assignment and moved to Nevada for five or six years. And then they moved back to Genesee, and they came by one day.

I said, “Oh, this is great. You guys are going to come back.”

The state had just introduced a new requirement for the burn building, where instead of just going in and getting really hot and smoky and playing a little bit, you actually had to do specific tasks and evolutions.

Their firefighter credentials had expired. But I knew both of them were very smart people.

I said, “I’m sure you can look at the book and pass the test, but you’ve also got to do these practicals. And we just happen to have one coming up this weekend.”

So we outfitted them with bunker gear, and they went to the burn building that weekend, and they were totally lost. I mean, they were so far behind just from the five or six years that they had been gone.

Afterward, I talked to them. They said, “We’re so far behind we’re just going to pass.”

98

We Don’t Rise to the Level of Our Expectations, We Fall to the Level of Our Training And they never came back to the fire department.

Assessing just how competent the volunteers of Genesee Fire Rescue have become is less a function of how many members of the department have advanced firefighting certifications — which many do — and more about how they actually perform in training and on the job.

“Genesee is a standout from all the departments that I’ve worked with and been a part of and helped teach,” says Josh Meneses, a member of Colorado’s South Metro Fire Rescue since 2008.

The core organization here and the value that they put on training and equipment, and being organized, and the leadership is far and away better than a lot of the departments I have encountered.

I’ve met a lot of people from smaller departments that have come to work with South Metro, and [when I hear about their training] I’m like, “Wow, that is night and day” compared with Genesee.

Meneses got his start as a firefighter in Genesee in 2003 at age 19, after moving to the community from Rancho Cucamonga, California, two years earlier.

I was just taking some general ed classes at Red Rocks Community College and hadn’t really found a calling yet. I didn’t really have any interest in anything.

Meneses scooped ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery and worked overnight at Target. He thought perhaps he’d eventually join the Coast Guard. All that changed when he spotted a flier seeking GFR volunteers on the door of his grandmother’s Genesee home.

Meneses filled out an application and met with Easterling the same day.

I was still just figuring out what I want to do with my life, and it kind of just hit me right in the face, and I’ve been doing it ever since.

The teen volunteer loved the work and eventually led the department in the number of incidents he responded to.

When I was on weekend watch, I would just stay at the firehouse even though we didn’t have any dorms or anything. I would just stay here on a cot in the gym. Even when I moved down the hill to Lakewood, when I stayed on as a volunteer, I would stay in the gym.

Meneses is one of a group of former GFR volunteers, dating back decades, who moved on to responsible roles with other fire companies, but who, like guests at the Eagles’ fictitious Hotel California, discovered that they can check out anytime they’d like but they can never leave.

Although Meneses relocated and became a paid firefighter with Littleton Fire (which was merged into South Metro in 2017), he remains a Genesee volunteer, in his 20th year with GFR, returning to train members and recruits.

I feel like when I come up here, and I volunteer, and help out, and pass on knowledge and information and help anywhere I can, there’s still a sense of pride that comes with being a volunteer that you don’t get from being paid to do it.

99

Dedication and Service

Genesee Fire Rescue Squad — 2002 (L-R): Matt Solano, Bill Easterling, Kevin Hord, Fritz Ihrig, David Moser, Roel Snieder, Jim Spurlin, Tim Collins, Alisa Ramey, Kathy Steer, Nick Kolios, Aimee Battaglia, Robb Gair, John Montgomery, Jan Keating, Carol von Michaelis, George Hylinger, Unidentified, Scott Mefford

100

Incident Report

Narrative:

Incident Name: Like a Good Neighbor

Incident Type: Medical

Location: Genesee

Date: Unspecified

Personnel: Robb Gair

Mutual Aid: No

Robb Gair, one of the “Dirty Dozen” volunteers who were the first Genesee Fire Rescue members to receive their Firefighter 1 certifications in 1989, remembers a call he responded to some years later when he was a captain with the department.

He arrived on scene first. It turned out to be the home of a friend with whom Gair used to play tennis. His friend’s elderly father was visiting and suffered a stroke.

I remember walking in the door and my friend looking at me and saying, “Oh, thank God you are here. It’s somebody I know.”

Gair counts that and similar experiences during his ten years on the force as one of the significant advantages offered by volunteer fire departments compared with paid, professional companies.

The value is immense with a volunteer fire department because you are welcome in a lot of homes rather than [coming across as] an invader. Afterwards, you can go back home and say, “I’m not sure he’s going to make it, but we helped.”

It was one of the most heartwarming things for me.

101

CHAPTER FOUR Generations of Pumpers, Aerials, Brush Trucks, and Fond Memories

W

ith each new arrival, there is a buzz of activity at the firehouse. The proud parents greet well-wishers and offer them a peek at the newborn.

A lucky few members of the company get to hold the baby in their hands, well, at least the neonate’s steering wheel. After a gestation period that can extend to two years or more, the latest vehicle in the Genesee Fire Rescue fleet has finally arrived.

Fire apparatus — pumpers, aerials, and brush trucks — are much more than transportation. Each is equipped with very distinct capabilities, designed to protect their occupants, arrive on the scene — be it a medical emergency, wildfire, or structure fire — carry the appropriate gear and hoses, and when no hydrants are available to battle a blaze, to utilize their own load of water from giant holding tanks.

Ladders and engines are carefully specced well in advance, requiring expenditure approval from the Genesee Fire Protection District Board before an order is placed. Then, the truck body and chassis are customized by specialty shops — primarily located out of state — that sweat the details down to each nut and bolt.

When the new vehicle is ready, a proud delegation from GFR — usually three or so select individuals — have the honor of flying to take delivery of their new apparatus and driving it back to Genesee.

Like actual childbirth, the blessed event sometimes brings complications.

In 2008, three GFR officers — Scott Mefford, Carlton Babbs, and John Seward, each of whom would eventually serve as a chief, made their way to Fairmount, Indiana, 55 miles northeast of Indianapolis. Fairmount, with a population even smaller than that of Genesee, earned its dot on the map as the childhood home of actor James Dean, who graduated from Fairmount High School in 1945.

But Mefford, Babbs, and Seward were not in Fairmount to visit the James Dean Museum or attend the annual James Dean Festival. To them and other firefighters across the country, Fairmount was known as the home of S&S Fire Apparatus, which in its day was a leading manufacturer of stainless and fiber-composite brush trucks. S&S’s top buyer was the federal Bureau of Land Management.

The three GFR emissaries toured the S&S factory and were on hand when their newborn, the Brush 954, built on a Ford chassis, rolled off the assembly line.

103

Dedication and Service Seward remembers he was particularly impressed with the variety of brush trucks S&S had in production, including several Unimogs that were being customized. Unimogs are the beasts of wildland fire apparatus, built by Mercedes-Benz, the boxy truck is renowned for its high ground clearance, large all-terrain tires, and its ability to perform under the worst imaginable turf and weather conditions.

The three Genesee volunteers spent several hours inspecting their new fire truck, including operating its pump and testing the pressure, intakes, and outlets. Late that afternoon, they set off on their return journey. It was supposed to be a 16-hour drive along Interstate-70.

The first leg of their trip back brought them to Kansas City, where they spent the night. Early the next morning, with Carlton Babbs behind the wheel, they proceeded.

It was a smooth ride. The volunteers took turns driving and resting. Like a car just off the dealer’s lot, the truck’s cabin had that newly minted scent.

As Seward recounted: After three or four hours driving, Carlton needed a rest and I resumed the drive west while Carlton laid down in the back seat and Scott in the passenger seat.

Not long after I began driving, Carlton awoke and told me that we needed to refuel.

Just ahead, a road sign indicated that diesel fuel was available at the next exit. But Seward reasoned they could push on a little while longer, with the Brush 954’s mileage indicator showing they had another 50 miles or so until the tank was empty.

The gauge lied.

I told Carlton to go back to sleep. About five miles past that exit, we ran out of gas on the highway.

Firefighters often razz one another over all variety of incidents, from the trivial — flooding a burger with ketchup because the bottle top popped off — to the potentially serious, such as when a GFR volunteer accidentally stabbed himself in the buttocks when he sat on the open blade of a knife he was carrying.

Running out of gas on the way home fell somewhere in between.

Seward didn’t see any humor in the situation. After spending the past couple days sharing a room and being cooped together for long hours in the cab of the fire truck, he need a break from his colleagues. So Seward took matters into his own hands, or more accurately, one hand and a thumb.

It’s not clear whether it was Babbs or Mefford who snapped the photo of Seward, standing on the shoulder of the road alongside the Brush 954, with his thumb up hitchhiking in pursuit of fuel. (Mefford can see that photo clearly in his mind, although the actual print appears to have been lost to the jumble of time.)

Roughly five miles outside of Flagler, Colorado, an agricultural community located 120 miles east of Denver, a kindly gentleman driving an older Chevy pickup who had been out bird hunting with his dog, pulled off and gave Seward a lift into town, waited for him to fill a can with diesel, then drove him back to his companions.

104

Generations of Pumpers, Aerials, Brush Trucks, and Fond Memories Whether he deserved it or not, Seward got the ribbing from the other two and their colleagues back at the station as the one responsible for the mishap.

An annual Genesee Fire Rescue tradition is to give a “Golden Door” tongue-in-cheek award to a deserving volunteer who had an accident or damaged an apparatus during the previous year. In 2008, there were no eligible members, i.e. no such incidents.

But, as Seward recounts, the the GFR wags found a suitable replacement for the “Golden Door” distinction.

Unfortunately, I was the recipient of a new award, the “Golden Gas Can Award.” This award was presented to me at the annual membership event. Thankfully, the Golden Gas Can is the only dubious or unwanted award I have received in my twenty-plus-year career at GFR.

Another example of fire truck “labor pains” arose in the mid-1980s, when Genesee Fire Rescue ordered its first ladder truck. The GFR team that configured it approached the opportunity like kids set free at an ice cream bar.

“We had a pretty strong tax base at the time, and we knew we had some money we could spend,” recalls Mike Cantwell, a senior volunteer officer at the time.

So the GFR design team laddled on all variety of extras: four-wheel drive, a 6000-watt generator, six air packs, six extension ladders, and lots of fire hoses.

The jewel of what came to be called “Genesee 79” — technically a combination pumper-ladder — was a telescoping aerial ladder that could extend to 75 feet and came equipped with a remote-controlled high capacity “deck gun” capable of blasting a stream of water over a long distance from atop the apparatus.

The price tag for Genesee 79 came to $300,000, the equivalent of about $810,000 in today’s dollars.

After 200 days in production, Seagrave Fire Apparatus, the truck’s builder, summoned Genesee Fire to its headquarters in early November 1986 to take possession of their new beauty. Cantwell and two others made the trip to Clintonville, Wisconsin, a tiny speck of a town 42 miles west of Green Bay. We got into the big manufacturing facility, and here comes the truck off the assembly line, and it, more or less, stopped. And there was a lot of chitter-chatter going on among the engineers and manufacturing people.

And they came back over to us and said, “I’m sorry, but we can’t let this truck go. Quite frankly, we’ve never built one that has everything on it. Your truck has everything possible on it. And it weighs more than the wheels are rated.”

Before the team at Seagrave would release the apparatus, they had to import and install heavy-duty wheels.

So they gave us an airline ticket, and we flew back.

Three weeks passed. Seagrave phoned again.

Come on back and pick up the truck. We’ve got the new wheels on it.

105

Dedication and Service Back to Clintonville, Cantwell and his two colleagues went.

The return drive to Genesee was memorable. The morning they departed, a local farmer invited the crew to milk some of his cows, a first for the three of them. In return, he sent them on their way with a supply of scrumptious Dairy State cheese.

At truck stops along the route, people came out in numbers to admire the gleaming vehicle. The three firefighters, ceremonially, purchased a souvenir at each stop and taped it to the outer cab. They also crowned the fire truck with several Christmas wreaths and a couple freshly cut trees that they brought along the way.

It was about nine o’clock at night in early December when the triumphant trio arrived at the Genesee firehouse, their siren blaring in celebration.

“Everybody came down and looked at the truck. ‘Oohs and ahs,’” Cantwell remembers.

It would have made for the perfect ‘welcome home,’ but for one minor annoyance.

With the new wheels and all the equipment and accessories added to the base model, Genesee 79 was too tall to fit under the garage door. Oops.

To shelter their spotless new apparatus in its designated firehouse bay, the volunteers had no choice but to let enough air out of the tires to slip it past the station’s maximum clearance height.

And there, Genesee 79 remained immobile for a few weeks until the firefighters figured a way to raise the entryway portal.

Ultimately, Genesee 79 remained in service for 18 years, retiring well after every one of the volunteers who turned out to greet it on its arrival in late 1986.

Compared to today’s state-of-the-art fire trucks, Gregg Sheehan, who joined Genesee Fire Rescue in 2012, recalls his first apparatus was quite basic.

Classic red, with a durable steel frame, rubber tires, and shiny chrome hub caps, it featured a steering system that allowed the vehicle to control and maneuver around paved and off-road hazards. The truck’s fuel economy was unmatched, and to add a touch of nostalgia, the rig’s hood featured a silver anchor bell.

As a driver/operator, Sheehan liked to put the pedals to the metal. What would you expect of a four-year-old boy tooling around his parents’ ranch outside of Ponca City, Oklahoma, in his foot-powered, single-seat, toy fire truck?

The fascination many volunteer firefighters exhibit with fire apparatus has its origins in childhood.

Neil Frame, a veteran GFR volunteer, traces his love for the roaring engines, sirens, colorful strobes, ladders, and hoses back to his boyhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The best friend of Frame’s father was a senior member of the city’s fire department. Frame would often tag along to visit “Uncle Jim,” and his reward was a ride on one of Summit City’s engines.

(Continued) 106

A PRIMER ON FIREFIGHTING APPARAa TUS “Jeffcom, Genesee 971, en route to 866 Lookout Mountain Road.”

It’s a terse two-way radio transmission, but it alerts the regional emergency dispatcher, Jeffcom, based in Golden, and the Foothills Fire and Rescue incident commander on the scene, that Genesee Fire Rescue’s 75-foot ladder truck is en route to provide mutual aid in battling a structure fire blazing less than a half-mile from the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave.

If the so-called “tone,” or radio alert from Jeffcom, had indicated that a wildfire was in progress, the response from GFR would likely have been, “Jeffcom, Genesee 954 en route” or “Jeffcom, Genesee 932 en route,” depending upon the availability of the GFR apparatus and the location of the fire.

Those numbers — 971, 954, 932 — are more than just random designations. They are part of the so-called “Century” number system, used in many parts of the country to convey the specific type of apparatus and which fire company is responding to an emergency call. Within Jefferson County, Colorado — the fourth-most populous county in the state — the “9” is assigned specifically to Genesee Fire Rescue. Apparatus from Foothills Fire and Rescue are identified with a “5” followed by two numbers; Evergreen’s apparatus numbers begin with a “2.”

The second-number in the three-digit sequence refers to the type of vehicle: A “7” is a ladder truck, also referred to as an aerial; a “5” indicates a brush truck, also known as a grass rig or wildland fire truck; and a “3” represents an engine, which is commonly called a pumper.

The third number in the “Century” configuration is less universal in its adaptation, and often relevant primarily to the fleet owner.

In Genesee, for example, 931 designates the department’s Type 1 engine — which primarily responds to structure fires, while 932, identifies its second pumper, a Type 3 engine — used for both structure and wildland blazes. Those distinctions help determine which of the two engines GFR will send to an incident. However, when GFR responds to a request for mutual aid from a nearby fire agency, all that the remote dispatcher and incident commander need to know is that “a 93_” is on its way.

For its size, today GFR’s assemblage of apparatus is the envy of many comparably sized fire agencies.

Notably, when Genesee Fire Rescue decides to replace one of its aging apparatus with a newer model — often after a decade or more of service — other fire agencies with fewer resources are eager to acquire the used vehicles.

Sitting in the four bays at the GFR station (three out front and one on the side), parked on the firehouse apron, or responding to emergency calls in the foothills area, the six shiny, red Genesee Fire Rescue vehicles — sporting a white, wrap-around band and traditional Maltese Cross firefighter’s emblem symbolizing protection, service, and courage — are a familiar sight to area residents.

In addition to the four response apparatus mentioned above — the 971, 954, 932 and 931 — the GFR fleet, as of January 2023, includes two command utility vehicles, designated 921 and 923. Both are enhanced pickup trucks, outfitted with two-way radios, emergency lighting and medical supplies.

107

Commonly, the GFR chief or a senior department officer arrives on scene in a command vehicle before the larger apparatus, allowing the officers to make an early assessment of the situation and notify those back at the station or en route what to expect.

Less familiar to those unaffiliated with Genesee Fire Rescue is the distinct function that each GFR vehicle serves and its unique origin story.

For example, Engine 932, built by Boise Mobile Equipment (BME) and put into service in 2019, looks like a shorter version of its sibling, Engine 931. But there are other functional differences.

Pumpers, such as the 931 — known as Type 1 engines, are intended to extinguish structure fires — homes, offices, retail outlets, storage units, etc. Type 1 apparatus are considered “on-road” vehicles.

Pumpers carry their own tanks, which in the case of the 931, can hold 750 gallons of water — enough to initiate firefighting operations.

But that liquid load is a pittance of what is needed to douse most structure fires.

As such, pumpers like the 931 are designed to connect to a hydrant, which, using 5-inch large diameter hoses, can release a sustained output of over 1,000 gallons of flame-drenching water a minute.

However, unlike the 932, the 931, built by Pierce Manufacturing and added to the GFR fleet in 2017, has three significant limitations when it comes to battling certain common blazes.

First, the 931, more or less, must remain tethered to a hydrant — either directly or through a so-called “relay,” in which a chain of hoses are linked from engine to engine, stretching from a hydrant to the flames beyond the reach of any single fire hose.

Second, pumpers such as the 931, are stationary apparatus. They can drive or they can pump. They can’t do both simultaneously.

On the 931, multiple components — known as the drivetrain — work together to transfer power from the engine to the axles and wheels, allowing the apparatus to move. When the truck is pumping, however, that power is diverted to the pump’s impeller, a rotating disk that uses centrifugal force to pressurize the water and transfer it to the hose outlet. As a result, the wheels on the truck won’t go round and round.

A third limiting characteristic of most pumpers is their weight. An engine such as the 931, with a full water tank and complement of firefighters, would tip the scales at approximately 51,000 pounds. That poses a significant risk of getting bogged down in soft gravel or mud if the truck leaves the paved streets to fight an off-road structure blaze, such as a barn, or wildland fire.

With decades of institutional experience under their belt, the officers of Genesee Fire Rescue and members of the Genesee Fire Protection District Board — which must allocate the funds to purchase all vehicles — custom order each new apparatus to take into account the unique topography, weather, residential and commercial parcels, and wilderness that comprise their service area.

Genesee’s 932, a Type 3 engine, is a pumper like the 931 but with the capability of driving and pumping at the same time. Even before the 932 reaches the fireground, it can spray water from its pump as it drives along the path, creating a so-called “wet line.”

108

Such saturated containment barriers can slow or altogether halt an advancing fire.

Unlike most pumpers, the 932 engine has dual-purpose, on-road and off-road capabilities. Although technically not a brush truck, the 932 can navigate its way — over gravel, grass, and dirt — arriving where few pumpers have gone before.

Weighing in at 8.34 pounds per unit, each gallon of water contained in a firetruck’s reservoir slows the vehicle, reduces its stability, and increases its likelihood of stalling off-road.

Logic would dictate that GFR’s 932, which is designed to operate much like a brush truck — distant from hydrants — carry an even larger tank than the 931’s 750-gallon container. But that’s not the case.

The 932 has a maximum load of 500-gallons of water. The reduced haulage is necessary to keep the 932’s overall weight down — weighing in with a full tank at only 32,600 pounds.

In the field, the 932’s onboard tank would run dry in less than a minute of pumping water at full force.

So it, like other off-road brush trucks, will rely for its water supply on what are known as “tenders,” specialized tanker trucks that are able to draw water from remote hydrants or natural bodies of water, such as lakes and rivers, and transfer the load to apparatus working the fireground. Tenders vary in capacity, but can deliver 2,500 to 5,000 gallons of water, before shuttling back to the source to reload.

The need for Genesee Fire Rescue to utilize tenders arises primarily when the department is asked to provide assistance to other agencies battling wildfires or large structure fires outside of the Genesee fire protection district, which includes the communities of Genesee, Genesee Village, and Chimney Creek, and the Genesee Business District and Genesee Town Center.

As one of Colorado’s first planned mountain communities, Genesee was designed to include firefighting infrastructure that isn’t available to residents of the nearby foothills neighborhoods that arose spontaneously and haphazardly over decades. The designers, architects, and investors who organized the original Genesee community in the late 1960s and early 1970s were farsighted enough to recognize the new homes and businesses would be surrounded by woodlands and grasslands that pose a special fire danger.

Even before the first new residences were constructed, the Genesee Land Company engineers installed a grid of fire hydrants. Today, that network — fed by two large mountain reservoirs — positions fire hydrants within 500 feet of virtually every home and business in the district. Furthermore, Genesee’s geographic location, downhill from the Genesee Water & Sanitation District’s reservoirs, ensures that the community’s water pressure, whether for feeding fire hoses or household uses, is consistently strong.

109

Dedication and Service (Continued from page 106) What I remember most vividly was how big it was, the open cab, and the wind blowing in my face. My face hurt from smiling for so long.

Genesee Fire Rescue’s first fire truck, the Brush 50, was not a fire truck. It was a 1971 Dodge Power Wagon that the developers at the Genesee Land Company conscripted at GFR’s launch in 1973 to serve as a wildfire-fighting and prevention vehicle.

The non-fire truck was housed in a non-firehouse, a small garage just southwest of the one-story, wood-paneled Oxley Homestead building, a vintage 1922 residence. The garage, never intended as a fire station, had a clearance of only eight inches on each side.

When the principals of Genesee Land Company set about transforming the undeveloped land into an upscale community, they assumed that nearby Idledale Fire District, Mount Vernon Fire Protection District, or Lookout Mountain Fire District — each well-established — would incorporate Genesee into their service areas. They assumed wrongly.

Considering the steep, winding, and plentiful unpaved roads in the Genesee district, and the challenges and costs associated with annexing Genesee to their existing boundaries, the nearby fire districts encouraged Genesee Land Company to form its own department.

The developers had no choice.

They equipped the Brush 50 bed with a motor, a one-inch hose line, and a 300-gallon Luverne water tank capable of pumping 250 gallons a minute. The truck, technically a mini-pumper, earned the vehicle the nickname “Luverne and Shirley.”

The Brush 50 was an unwieldy beast, given to burning out its clutch. Originally, the Chrysler Corporation manufactured its Power Wagon solely for military use. The first civilian versions did not hit the market until 1945, with the heavy-duty W-300 owned by GFR — dubbed a “Power Giant” — making its debut circa 1957.

The 440 carburetor on the Brush 50 contained a phenolic resin — essentially plastic — that didn’t let it warm up quickly on cold days. It thus stalled out if the driver was impatient on ignition or failed to operate the mechanical pull choke correctly.

“You had to pop the clutch,” says volunteer Scott Mefford, who remembers the Brush 50 was still in service more than two decades later when he joined the force.

I remember taking it to a fire on Waynes Way, and we couldn’t get as close to the fire as we wanted because we had to park the engine on a hill so that we could [roll it downhill in neutral to] get it started when we went to leave.

Nevertheless, an entire generation of GFR volunteers trained on the Brush 50, which responded to more incidents during its years of service — being the only apparatus for a time and then serving as an ancillary vehicle — than the other, far more sophisticated engines and brush trucks that succeeded it.

110

Generations of Pumpers, Aerials, Brush Trucks, and Fond Memories The ink hardly had a chance to dry on 16-year-old Alan Fletcher’s driver’s license when, in 1979, Chief Brian Kimmel handed the teen the keys to the Brush 50 and initiated Fletcher’s training.

The incidents that arose with Fletcher behind the wheel in Genesee were a far cry from the emergencies depicted on the television show Emergency, a mid-1970s NBC drama set in the fictional Los Angeles County Fire Station 51.

The series’ lead characters were young firefighter-paramedics Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto, who regularly dropped their station routines — maintenance, cooking, sleeping — to race off to a fire, car accident, or other medical emergency.

More than four decades later, Fletcher still thinks about Fire Station 51 and how when he was starting out, he imagined himself the Colorado incarnation of Johnny and Roy. “I was too young to be scared,” Fletcher says. “It was the ultimate in cool and responsibility.”

By contrast to Fletcher, Paul Benson climbed aboard his first rolling fire truck in August 2020 as a 59-year-old new GFR volunteer.

I remember being very nervous. It was a similar feeling of butterflies you get prior to running a big race or competing in a big game.

Benson, who remains an active member of the force as of 2023, confesses that his first time, he focused less on the moving apparatus and more on whether he had suited up correctly.

Telling tales, some factual, many fanciful, is one way fire department volunteers keep one another entertained at the station and returning from an incident. Quite often, even when the stories are exaggerated, they become an ingrained part of the company lore.

One of the more popular yarns that endures at Genesee Fire Rescue is how the department supposedly came to sell one of its trucks to members of a Mexican Drug Cartel.

The apparatus at the heart of the saga was a 1998 H1 Hummer that GFR purchased and retrofitted as a brush truck.

From the start, the purchase of the Hummer was contentious, with some GFR members arguing that the rugged sports utility vehicle — the civilian version of the military’s Humvee — was better qualified as a flashy attraction at an auto or truck show than a truly capable firefighting rig.

It didn’t help, of course, that other nearby fire departments mocked GFR for its purchase.

“We got so much s##t from our neighboring departments for buying that truck,” recalls Carlton Babbs. “Everyone thought it was a parade truck. It was not a real fire truck.”

Nevertheless, after having extra seating installed and a 200-gallon water tank in what was otherwise the back seat, Genesee Fire Rescue put the Hummer into service.

It was, to be kind, a mistake.

111

Dedication and Service The Hummer “looked like it could do anything and it couldn’t do crap,” says Frederick G. “Fritz” Ihrig, who had the distinct displeasure of serving a two-year stint as GFR chief before the department was able to unload the bucket of bolts.

Time and again, the little engine that could, couldn’t.

There was the terrible storm when a GFR volunteer was snowed in, and GFR dispatched a crew in the Hummer to help extricate the firefighter’s Chevrolet Suburban. Instead, the Hummer got stuck and later had to be towed.

When GFR responded to a fire on neighboring Green Mountain, battling the blaze alongside firefighters from the much larger West Metro Fire Rescue, all the apparatus returned to their stations without incident. Only the GFR Hummer got stuck.

“They had to pull it out,” Babbs remembers, inviting even more ridicule from their firefighting peers.

In June 2000, the Hi Meadow Fire scorched 11,480 acres in Jefferson and Park Counties, Colorado, destroying 58 structures and causing more than $15 million in damages. GFR was one of the responding companies, joining 600 firefighters from as far away as California and Oregon.

The GFR Hummer attracted a lot of attention, with members of other fire companies coming over to have their pictures taken in front of the distinct-looking engine.

But the amusement quickly turned perilous when the Hummer conked out as the wildfire advanced on the truck.

“A bunch of us were up there and the Hummer just died on us right in the middle of the fire,” recalls Mefford, who joined GFR before the Hummer acquisition and remains a volunteer three decades later. “The fires were burning all around us and the engine died and we couldn’t get it going.”

Fortunately, Mefford and the other GFR volunteers were able to keep the flames at bay — thanks to their fortuitous location near a pond and a reservoir — until they were able to restart the brush truck.

The Hummer’s electronics proved to be a persistent problem. The truck’s alternator — which should have been capable of powering the vehicle’s elaborate electronics with direct current — hadn’t been sufficiently configured for the task.

The Wyoming company that GFR relied on to retrofit the Hummer for use as a brush truck had never undertaken a similar conversation. And it showed.

Particularly irksome and dangerous was the fact that the Hummer’s water tank wasn’t equipped with a baffle, which would have prevented the sloshing of the liquid contents when the truck made a sharp turn or was speeding down the highway.

“We overloaded it so heavily that it didn’t function as we thought it should,” Mefford says. “It kind of waddled down the road like a duck.”

Eventually, even the Hummer fans among the GFR volunteers agreed the truck had to go. Babbs and Bill Easterling listed the Hummer for sale on a website that was a clearinghouse for used apparatus.

To their astonishment, the two got a quick bite from a man in Monterrey, Mexico, who agreed to buy the Hummer, at full price, sight unseen.

112

Generations of Pumpers, Aerials, Brush Trucks, and Fond Memories “We were skeptical, until these three guys got on an airplane in Monterrey, Mexico, and flew to Denver and showed up to buy the truck,” Babbs says.

Another surprise was that two of the three Mexicans said they were very familiar with Colorado because their families owned homes in Vail.

“Which, again, was another of those, ‘Okay, wait a minute. You’re firefighters in Monterrey, Mexico, but your families have homes in Vail?’” Babbs remembers thinking.

After lunch with the prospective buyers at a nearby restaurant, Babbs had planned to do a bit of Hummer razzle-dazzle.

“I was going to teach them. I was going to drive it with them, teach them how to pump it, and go through the whole entire truck.”

But the Mexican buyers weren’t interested. They simply wanted to pay and drive off with the vehicle.

Sitting at a table in the GFR station, one of the three men began filling out a check for the full price of the Hummer; only the draft was one of those temporary counter checks that banks provide when their customers don’t have their regular checkbooks available. It had no company name or address pre-printed on it.

“No, we’re not going to do this. You’re not going to scratch the check like that and drive away with our fire truck,” Babbs told the checkwriter. “I was like, ‘Look, this is not going to work. We need guaranteed funds.’”

“Okay, no problem,” the Mexican replied calmly.

As much as the other odd circumstances of how these three strangers showed up in Genesee, ready to buy the Hummer, what followed clearly rocket-fueled the apocryphal story that these men were not simply Monterrey firefighters, but members of some sort of cartel.

The checkwriter made a single phone call, in mid-afternoon, and before the close of business that day, 100% of the funds had been wired to the GFR bank account.

“Who gets money transferred at 3:00 in the afternoon from Mexico to Colorado with just a phone call?” Babbs wonders to this day. Regardless, once the funds arrived, Babbs handed the men the keys, and off they drove in the Hummer.

For the volunteers of GFR, it remains engrossing to speculate that the three Mexican men were not ordinary firefighters, like them, but members of a criminal family who had nefarious aims for the used brush truck.

No matter that some months after the original sale, a photo arrived in Genesee from Monterrey showing their former engine all dressed up with lights and other decorations, part of a benign Christmas parade.

What’s no longer in doubt, however, is that in the end, the Hummer finally found a role it could fulfill without flaw: Serving as a photo backdrop.

Developing an attachment to a personal car, SUV, or pickup truck is not uncommon. Individuals and families spend a healthy chunk of their days, and for some, nights, commuting here and there in their vehicles.

113

Dedication and Service Some owners take special pride in their vehicles, frequently washing them, polishing them, changing their oil, replacing their filters, and vacuuming their interiors.

The relationship firefighters have to their engines, aerials, and brush trucks runs much deeper. As in Old West movies where the cowboys and cowgirls depend on their reliable steeds to get them to where they are going and, more importantly, to get them out of trouble when it arises, so, too, do the GFR volunteers form a bond with their trucks.

While the names, faces, and contributions of dozens of GFR volunteers over the decades may be unknown to many of today’s members, the institutional memory of each departed apparatus survives.

Stillwater, Oklahoma, is less than an hour’s drive south of Gregg Sheehan’s childhood home, a ranch just east of Ponca City. It was in Stillwater that Sheehan’s maternal grandfather, Max Peery, served as fire chief from 1966 to 1975.

Peery joined the department when they were still pulling fire engines with horses. Sheehan, born in September 1970, was captivated by fire apparatus from his first memories. Unlike Sam, his older brother who was into G.I. Joe action figures, Gregg played with every toy fire truck he could get his hands on.

Chief Peery doted on his youngest “recruit,” letting four-year-old Gregg ride along in his command vehicle to actual fires.

It was a white sedan with a red siren from the 1960s or maybe the early 70s.

There was a barn that was on fire about 15 miles north of Stillwater. He took me out there with him, and he made me sit in the car. The barn’s foundation and sidewalls were stone, and the top was wood.

I remember standing up in the passenger side seat, hanging on to the seatbelt, and watching out the front window.

From then onward, Sheehan always had the desire to become a firefighter. Chief Peery died when Sheehan was only seven years old, but the urge to take after him never did.

Chief Peery used to teach in the fire science program at Oklahoma State University. No similar programs existed when Sheehan enrolled in college in Colorado in 1990.

Had there been a track for me to do that, I definitely would have. The desire was always there. I just didn’t know how to make it work.

Unbeknownst to Sheehan, many volunteer fire departments, including Genesee’s, did not and still do not require special education or prior experience to volunteer. They provide both components to eligible recruits.

Only when Sheehan was in his early 40s, working as a high school administrator in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, and living in Genesee, did he stop by the GFR station to volunteer. His rookie Academy was in 2012, and his first year as a certified firefighter came in 2013 — 36 years after Chief Peery’s passing.

It turns out the little boy who raced around his family’s ranch on the outskirts of Ponca City in a pedal car and stood in awe as the Stillwater Fire Department’s volunteers battled a barn blaze was born for the task.

114

Generations of Pumpers, Aerials, Brush Trucks, and Fond Memories Sheehan rose rapidly through the ranks of the Genesee Fire Rescue volunteers, becoming a lieutenant, bypassing the rank of captain, and rising to deputy chief, a post he held from 2017 to 2019.

Around the time he first joined Genesee Fire Rescue, Sheehan developed a fire science program at Highlands Ranch High School, where he was an assistant principal. And in 2021, he started a high-school-level EMT program affiliated with Red Rocks Community College and Arapahoe Community College. Some of the graduates of that program walk out of high school and into $80,000-first-year careers.

In keeping with GFR’s practice of rotating its senior officers, as of 2023, Gregg Sheehan, marking a decade of service, returned to the rank-and-file, wearing a helmet sporting the driver/operator emblem.

Like a bolt out of the blue Fate steps in and sees you through When you wish upon a star Your dreams come true -When You Wish Upon a Star Song by Cliff Edwards

115

Genesee Fire Rescue Squad — 1979

116

117

118

119

120

121

Genesee Fire Rescue Band — April 1992

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

2022 Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service: (L-R) Jason Puffett, Paul Benson, Mark Villa, and Neil Frame

136

137

THE MARSHALL FIRE - DECEMBER 2021

138

139

SECTION THREE Chiefs: 1973-2023

The Fire Within: Chief Jason Puffett Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

141

CHAPTER ONE Sandy Schumacher: A Backup Call Girl Brian Kimmel: A Deadly 17,000 Volts James L. “Jim” Rumsey: Responding with Celerity and Expertise

Rich Jones let it be known that he was going to be stepping down in about six months. So we had to find a new chief.

I remember the night that we sat at an officers’ meeting, and about seven of us went around the table, and everybody had a legitimate reason why there was no way they could take over as chief; every one of them.

And they looked at me, and I went, “I don’t want to be chief.”

—Sandy Schumacher, GFR Chief 1992 to 1994

T

here were benefits to be had as one of the volunteer Genesee Fire Rescue chiefs over the past five decades: the satisfaction of serving your neighbors and community, the many new friendships, and the respect that accompanies the “white hat.”

The weight of responsibility, however, was far greater.

For Genesee’s chiefs, safety has always been Job #1: protecting the volunteers, the residents, their properties, and the wildlands that enclose and beautify their community.

Add to that an endless list of other tasks: recruiting, training, funding, budgeting, maintenance, insurance, facilities, inter-agency relationships, liaising with the Genesee Fire Protection District (GFPD) Board, and community relations among them.

Annually, there are several local events — most notably the July 4th parade and festival and the fall Open House — that Genesee Fire Rescue organizes and helps staff.

“That’s not necessarily what our job is, but the community looks to us as leaders,” explains Jason Puffett, who has been GFR’s chief since July 2015, and its full-time paid chief beginning in 2017.

Because Genesee has no mayor, no city council, no town hall, and no dedicated police force, residents often turn to the The Fire Within: Lieutenant Bob Dalton Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

143

Dedication and Service fire chief with complaints and civic matters.

Is it our responsibility? Technically, no. But we have a moral responsibility to do what’s right by this community.

That, as much as any explanation, is at the crux of not only why chiefs accept the pivotal job but also what brings every volunteer onto the force: a sense of duty and honor.

The official Genesee Fire Rescue organizational chart positions the job of “Chief” at the top of the pyramid. That is only partly accurate.

Yes, the volunteers and the couple of paid employees working for the department do, ultimately, take their direction from and answer to the individual whose helmet bears the Fire Chief’s insignia.

But a more rigorous examination of the role of the Genesee commanders over the years reveals that they are more intermediaries and mediators than kingpins.

In Genesee, the chiefs report to the voter-elected members of the district board, who approve (or sometimes don’t) the department’s requested budget and any significant changes to the administration of the fire company. It falls to the chiefs to ascertain what funds will be needed to run the company and try to convince the board — or the voters through mill levies — to provide the department with resources.

While nominally, the GFPD board selects each chief, when a vacancy arises, it is the volunteers who nominate the candidate.

Effectively, chiefs answer to the board and the volunteers and rely on the goodwill of the community for their authority.

To be successful, chiefs not only have to be knowledgeable and experienced firefighters, they must be top-flight people managers, peacemakers, politicos, negotiators, and regulatory compliance officers.

That’s a big ask for the volunteer chiefs who served between 1973 and 2017, given that almost every one of them also had a paid career outside of the department.

Yet eighteen Genesee residents to date have accepted the assignment, aided by paid administrators who handled the bulk of GFR’s paperwork, bookkeeping, and other clerical tasks.

In all candor, not every chief over the past five decades handled the responsibilities well. Inter-department squabbles were not uncommon. Relations between past chiefs and the GFPD board, likewise, became rancorous at times. At least one former chief resigned in frustration before the end of his designated term, and no doubt others seriously considered withdrawing.

During more than one administration, the paid administrators — who were supposed to tend to managerial matters — took on the de facto role of chief to compensate for the inadequacies of their bosses.

But, amazingly and without exception, each of the chiefs saw to it that the residents and businesses of Genesee received quality fire and emergency medical services, and each of the chiefs contributed ideas and policies that advanced the pro144

Schumacher • Kimmel • Rumsey fessionalism of the department and continue to have a positive influence to this day.

“I tell people I started out as a backup call girl,” says Sandy Schumacher, GFR’s first and only female chief.

No need to alert the vice squad.

“Call girls,” a pejorative label, was a term some of the female GFR volunteers applied jokingly to themselves in the early years. Tending to home and children during the day while their husbands went off to work, these volunteer GFR members carried pagers and would phone a list of other volunteers — primarily men — when the need arose.

Impressively, the call girls dropped their domestic duties and would climb aboard — or pilot — a responding engine when not enough men responded to their telephonic summonses.

“Women kept dimes in their purses so [if they were not at home] they could stop at a payphone and call in volunteers,” Schumacher remembers.

Whether the department was enlightened or just short-handed (likely some of both), GFR welcomed women on the force from early on.

Schumacher moved to Genesee in 1978 and signed on to the fire department during the Open House for the new fire station in September 1979, at age 44. Her husband worked as a doctor, and she was a stay-at-home mom, active as a Girl Scout leader and in the non-denominational Mountain Christian Fellowship.

Her interest was piqued by friends in the department and a sister in California who was a volunteer firefighter. Schumacher began attending Genesee’s once-a-month Saturday firefighter training sessions. Eventually, she worked her way to becoming an official member of the force.

My husband was a physician and had carried a pager all the time. Now I was the one carrying a pager. It was interesting.

Instead of him getting up in the middle of the night and going off to the hospital, I headed to the station.

Schumacher would remain on the Genesee fire force for 17 years. She arrived after the department’s first chief, Brian Kimmel, had already stepped down, but trained under and worked alongside the next five chiefs: Jim Rumsey, Bob Troutman, Denny Schuler, Mike Cantwell, and Rich Jones.

Sometime late in Troutman’s term, which ended in May 1982, or early in Schuler’s term, which succeeded his, Schumacher recounts the fire department established the officer ranks of lieutenant and captain.

Surprisingly, they made me captain right off the bat.

Actually, her appointment made a lot of sense. Because she was in Genesee during the day, as a firefighter, Schumacher responded to most of the calls that came in, giving her invaluable experience. Moreover, she took her role seriously, soaking in the training and mentoring she received.

Being a captain was one thing; taking on the duties of chief, was an entirely different proposition.

145

Dedication and Service I never aspired to wear a white coat. I never thought I would ever take that role.

Schumacher’s selection in 1991 as chief-in-waiting was not an affirmative action pick but more like a scene from the movies where recruits, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a single-file line, are asked to step forward to take on a challenging assignment and all but one “volunteer” take a step backward. She recalls: Rich Jones let it be known that he was going to be stepping down in about six months. So we had to find a new chief.

I remember the night that we sat at an officers’ meeting, and about seven of us went around the table, and everybody had a legitimate reason why there was no way they could take over as chief; every one of them.

And they looked at me, and I went, “I don’t want to be chief.”

Her objection, of course, was overruled.

Schumacher spent a half-year as Jones’s understudy, carrying the title of assistant chief. Then she became one of the first women, possibly the very first, to lead a Colorado fire company.

Taking directions from Schumacher annoyed some of the male volunteers.

The president of the board at the time was also a [GFR] firefighter. It was very awkward because he was my boss and I was his. There was a situation on a call where I had to dress him down, and that was very awkward.

For the most part, however, Schumacher not only earned the respect and confidence of her crew but also of the outsiders with whom she interacted regularly.

I was the liaison between our department and the outside world. I went to monthly meetings with the other district chiefs.

I went to the Jefferson County Fire Council for over two years. I was very involved in that as the secretary for that time. I went to the state chief’s meetings. I went to the Genesee board meetings.

To her credit, Schumacher was comfortable admitting what she didn’t know and finding others to fill the gaps.

For example, operating the pumper on the department’s nearly decade-old Brush Truck presented a challenge.

It was pretty primitive, and I’m not that mechanically inclined, so it was always a struggle for me. I tended to do other things that I felt more comfortable with at a scene.

In May 1992, she hired Grover Cleveland “Cleve” Joiner as her paid administrator. Joiner, a veteran firefighter and paramedic, handled much of the training, truck maintenance, and regulatory paperwork, freeing Schumacher to focus on areas aligned with her strengths.

I considered myself kind of like Queen Elizabeth, the head of the department. But Cleve ran it.

Joiner set a high bar for the department administrators who followed, including Bill Easterling — a future chief, Adam Petro — who served the department from 1995 to 2002; and Lisa Pine — who began in the role in 2012 and went on to be named the state training section director at the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control.

146

Schumacher • Kimmel • Rumsey Scott Mefford is a current member of the Genesee Fire Protection District Board. He joined the fire department in 1994 under Schumacher, when Joiner was first whipping the agency into shape. From then on, Mefford, who retired from active duty in 2013, observed up close the importance of the consecutive administrators to the agency’s operations: The administration is a big part of the department. If the volunteer chief has to do all of that, all of the budget stuff, all of the personnel stuff, it doesn’t leave the chief much time to oversee the training, to oversee the responses, to do the PR stuff that you need to do, and to work with the other area departments. Having a strong administrative chief to take care of a lot of that allowed this process to work.

Joiner did such an effective job as the department’s administrator that by 1996 — roughly two years after Schumacher stepped down and her successor as chief, Steve Harms, was nearing the end of his two-year term — many of the volunteers felt Joiner had earned the right to lead not only Genesee Fire Rescue but also three neighboring fire agencies.

Joiner advocated for GFR to combine its operations with the Mount Vernon, Idledale, and Lookout Mountain fire districts, creating a mega department that he presumably would head as a super chief.

There were credible pros and cons on each side of the proposal. The obvious strengths included eliminating duplicative training, overhead and administrative costs. For Genesee members who opposed the combination, the two biggest disadvantages were the comparatively poor financial conditions of the other three departments and the risk of losing Genesee’s distinct culture.

Mefford remembers the debate: We got all the volunteers together, and we had this big power meeting. Everybody that was a volunteer jammed into the [firehouse] room that’s now the kitchen, and everybody got a vote to decide whether we were going to elect Cleve or we were going to stay with the existing system. And it came down to, like, one vote.

Not long after, Joiner left GFR, which remained independent. On January 1, 1997, Mount Vernon, Idledale, and Lookout Mountain combined to create the Foothills Fire Protection District.

Brian Kimmel’s expertise was horticulture, not fire science. Nevertheless, he became Genesee Fire Rescue’s first chief in 1973, the department’s inaugural year.

Kimmel joined the Peace Corps in the late 1960s, still in his twenties, then moved to Genesee in the early 1970s. He was recruited by the Genesee Land Company for his knowledge of forests and vegetation.

Initially, Kimmel knew far more about forest management, landscaping, and mountain pine beetles than he did about fire suppression, personal protective equipment, and emergency medical procedures.

His job with the community’s developer entailed responsibility for, as he puts it, “everything outside the walls” of the homes and structures that were gradually popping up.

That included removing infected trees, thinning wildland vegetation, pest management, road repair, and snowplowing.

The developers, Kimmel recalls, believed that providing a community-based fire force would be a selling point to potential 147

Dedication and Service residential lot buyers, and about a year after he began working for the land company, its leaders asked him to form and take charge of a fire department.

“There were probably only a couple dozen houses when we started,” Kimmel says, so the fire volunteers — who, like him, were pretty much enlisted from the ranks of the land company employees — gained their experience primarily by responding to mutual aid requests from other mountain agencies and assisting medical teams responding to vehicle accidents on nearby Interstate-70.

We never had a full-blown house fire. [Once,] the whole house smelled like it was about to go off. We smelled a lot of smoke, but it turned out to be a burning outlet, which was easily handled.

Two incidents, both fatal, stand out in Kimmel’s memory.

The first involved the search for a missing Genesee resident.

“We patrolled every damn road,” looking for the man, Kimmel recalls. “He went off the road [landing in a gorge that was not easily spotted]. We didn’t find him for three or four days. One day, one of the guys said, ‘There’s a car down there.’

He was dead.”

The second death hit much closer to home.

“We had a horrible accident where one of my (Genesee Land Company) crew grabbed a wire” while clearing land that was formerly used as a fox farm, Kimmel recounts.

Public Service said there weren’t any hot wires over there. There was a line hanging down, and he grabbed it to pull himself uphill. It was still live, and he got 17,000 volts. He died on the spot.

Of all the chiefs who have dedicated their time and energies to the Genesee fire department over the past fifty years, James L. “Jim” Rumsey holds the dubious distinction of being the least well-remembered.

It is a glaring oversight.

Rumsey was a 45-year-old finance executive who worked in the oil and gas industry. He was the company’s second chief, taking the reins from Brian Kimmel in 1978 and continuing through May 1980, approximately two-and-a-half years.

Rumsey’s tenure coincided with a consequential period in the fire department’s evolution.

On Rumsey’s watch, Genesee Fire Rescue designed, built, and relocated to its present state-of-the-art firehouse, cutting loose from the incommodious, makeshift fire garage that had been its headquarters since the department’s founding.

Rumsey was also responsible for the addition of GFR’s very first “genuine” fire engine, a Class A pumper — the Genesee 60, a.k.a. Engine #1 — capable of delivering 1,250 gallons of water per minute to suppress structure fires. Until the Seagrave engine’s arrival, the fire department had relied on a single, retrofitted 1971 Dodge Power Wagon — the Brush 50 — that had been donated by the community’s developers and was equipped to combat wildfires.

148

Schumacher • Kimmel • Rumsey Although GFR’s shiny new slime green pumper arrived in early 1979 and was available for the volunteers to train on, it was not housed in Genesee until the new fire station was completed in August.

Rumsey, with his wife and three children, was among the earliest residents to move to the new Genesee development in the 1970s.

Whereas Kimmel had undertaken the fire chief’s role while simultaneously serving as an employee of the Genesee Land Company, Rumsey accepted the unpaid post as a pure act of community service. Paralleling his time with the fire department, in May 1978 Rumsey was elected to the board of the Genesee Water and Sanitation District — which occupied a bay in the new firehouse — along with Galen Knickel, Ramon E. Alonso, and Robert Erickson, principals of the Genesee Land Company.

Rumsey’s son, Robert, who was about 11 years old when his father became chief, recalls his dad actively mentoring GFR officers and recruiting new volunteers to the force. (At the time of this writing, Jim Rumsey, 91, lives in an assisted care facility in Colorado.)

Rumsey’s department leaders were Assistant Chiefs Bob Troutman, Ken Burgess, and Tim Cameron (days only); Denny Schuler, Recruitment; John Wake, Training; Bud Collier, Watch; Jim Bauer, First Aid Rescue, and George Pray, Squad Leader.

Troutman would succeed Rumsey as chief in June 1980. Schuler became the next chief in 1982.

Bauer, who moved to Genesee in 1978 and shortly after volunteered with Rumsey, spent seven months taking courses to qualify as an Emergency Medical Technician, a valuable but scarce department resource. The majority of GFR calls — then, as now — involve health-related crises.

A large contingent of women signed on to help GFR during Rumsey’s tenure. Among them were future chief Sandy Schumacher, as well as Jane Ballenger, Jeanne Barbour, Linda Bertelson, Sue Earl, Sheila Halstead, Patti King, Christie Mars, Diane McDougall, Judy Neely (along with her husband, Jerry), Barb Sholes, Mary Smaldone, and Janet Wenzel.

Rumsey held organizational meetings on the last Tuesday of every month, hoping to entice recruits. While the training he conducted was not sophisticated, the chief did make arrangements with the Coors Brewing Company in Golden to allow GFR volunteers to access its firefighting simulators and navigate its challenging burn-building course.

Perhaps the most notable incident during Rumsey’s term was when a fire broke out in the community’s clubhouse, where GFR held monthly meetings. The nature of the fire is unknown. But the community newsletter, Genescene, recounted the incident in April 1979, writing: “The Genesee Fire Department responded with celerity and expertise that saved the Genesee clubhouse from sustaining major damage.”

In another incident, recalls Rumsey’s son, his father spotted construction workers on a project underway behind the community’s new clubhouse. The workers were using an open fire to cook and perhaps to keep warm. It was careless, given the abundance of nearby flammable materials. To get the workers to fall in line, the chief wound up summoning a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy.

Why Rumsey’s service as chief has not been better acknowledged is unclear. In October 1988, the Genescene newsletter, recounting the 15-year history of the fire department, mentioned early chiefs Kimmel, Troutman, Schuler, Mike Cantwell, and Rich Jones. Rumsey’s role was omitted.

149

Dedication and Service Robert Rumsey, now in his mid-50s, speculates that his family’s short tenancy in Genesee is to blame. Not long after his father passed the chief’s baton to Troutman, the Rumseys relocated away from the foothills community.

“One of the reasons people don’t remember us is we were only there for three-and-a-half years,” Robert says.

Maybe. But Rumsey is only one of the dozens of “forgotten” Genesee volunteers, men and women whose names surface in a yellowing record here or a dated newsletter brief there but whose presence on the force has vanished into history.

It is consistent with the observations made by Hank O’Brien, a current company lieutenant, unofficial GFR historian, and co-author of this volume: When you look across the 50 years and the couple hundred people who have been through this department, everybody was important. When they move on [and are no longer recalled], what they did becomes part of this institution. It lives on for the next generation.

150

CHAPTER TWO: 1980-2000 Joseph Robert “Bob” Troutman: No Place to Dunebuggy Loren Dennis “Denny” Schuler: A Single Wreck Good for Multiple Drills Michael A. “Mike” Cantwell: Ixnay the Beer Richard G. “Rich” Jones: “What’s That Liquid I Keep Smelling?”

Steven Allen “Steve” Harms: “We Are So Close to a 4 Rating” Timothy “Tim” John Collins: A Passionate, Driven, Enthusiastic Individual

151

Dedication and Service

Joseph Robert “Bob” Troutman No Place to Dunebuggy Bob Troutman served as Genesee’s third fire chief from June 1980 to May 1982.

He and his wife, Maudie, natives of California, packed their household goods and skedaddled back to California practically the day his term as chief ended.

Troutman was one of the first six volunteers to join the fire department and served as Jim Rumsey’s assistant chief, one of three, before assuming the top post.

What brought the Troutmans to Genesee from their Manhattan Beach home in 1977 is unknown.

It might have been a job opportunity.

Bob, an antique car collector, worked as district manager for the parts and service division of Ford Motor Company. He owned a 1956 Ford Victoria, a 1965 Ford Mustang, and a 1957 Ford Thunderbird.

By the time Troutman became chief, Genesee Fire Rescue had grown to 30-plus volunteers, who met once a month for training and rotated a weekend watch every six weeks.

In the fall of 1978, Troutman was appointed to the board of the Genesee Fire Protection District to fill a vacancy. Subsequently, he was elected to a two-year term, and in early May 1982, to a four-year term.

(Years later, the board changed its policies to preclude active GFR volunteers from serving on the oversight panel.)

Only weeks after he was re-elected to the board, Troutman resigned and moved back to California.

The Genescene community newsletter remembered Troutman for the parties he organized, such as the annual Halloween bash, which ostensibly were meant as “tension-releasing” activities for the firefighters.

The newsletter also praised the Troutmans for “their great comradery, sense of humor, and zest for life.”

Bob skis, plays racquetball, and is always on the lookout to find someone to help him build a beach here in Genesee. He loves to dunebuggy!

152

Incident Report

Narrative:

Incident Name: Summon the Posse

Incident Type: Vehicular Accident

Location: Interstate-70

Date: Unspecified

Personnel: Unspecified

Mutual Aid: Yes

When the volunteers from Genesee Fire Rescue arrived on the scene, what greeted them was otherworldly — a landscape worthy of Dante.

In the shadowy 3:00 a.m. gloom, beasts with raised ears and flicking tails could be seen pawing at the pavement, emitting hollow, screeching cries.

Blood, animal guts, and dung were strewn in every direction, resembling a slaughterhouse killing floor.

The stench was indescribable. The clothing the volunteers wore that night would eventually be laundered and sanitized, but the memory of the vile smells would never be forgotten.

An 18-wheel cattle truck had overturned on Interstate-70 just west of Exit 259, near Morrison. Approaching 100 miles per hour, it blasted through Mount Vernon Canyon, coursing a seven-mile, 6.5% grade downslope toward the perilous bend known as “Dead Man’s Curve.”

Most of the 50 or so cows being transported in the cattle truck died or were gravely injured.

When the volunteers from GFR arrived at the crash site, called to assist by Evergreen Fire Rescue, the hood of the big rig was still spewing smoke and flames, its brakes on fire.

It’s common for mountain-area first responders to disregard jurisdictional boundaries to lend so-called “mutual aid” to one another.

Each of the volunteers from Genesee was accustomed to working alongside their counterparts from neighboring departments when a structure fire, wildland fire, or multiple casualty incident required additional hands or equipment.

However, as if the unfolding goings-on couldn’t get more bizarre, Jefferson County Dispatch — which was responsible for assigning incoming emergency calls to the appropriate nearby responders — summoned not only additional fire engines or a water tanker but a genuine “posse” to provide mutual aid.

Sure enough, the cowboys arrived promptly on horseback, wrangling the petrified cows that had survived and were wandering the highway into a makeshift corral constructed impromptu using fire hoses wrapped around the cluster of flashing fire engines. The few animals that sprinted from the wreck were eventually lassoed, rodeo style.

The drama inside the tractor-trailer’s animal cabin was straight out of a Wes Craven horror movie. When the truck landed on its side, the legs of some of the cows were trapped in the slots that ran the length of the ventilated cab. The wailing moos were ear-shattering.

Like people, cows shed tears when in pain or distress, and these helpless creatures were weeping puddles of sorrow.

(Continued)

153

This was not the first roadway animal massacre that the team at Jefferson County Dispatch managed. Only a few years earlier, when a livestock hauler failed to maintain control of his vehicle as it arrived at Dead Man’s Curve, 40 horses died.

Along with the cowboys, Dispatch reached out to a team of livestock veterinarians who euthanized those animals that could not be saved, injecting them with a barbiturate anesthetic that quickly ended their suffering.

Among the gory tasks undertaken by the Genesee crew was pulling the dead cattle from the back of the rig. In some cases, to extract the carcasses, the firefighters — who by day mainly worked in air-conditioned offices or at blue-collar jobs — needed to use the jaws of life to cut off the cows’ legs.

When, at last, dawn broke and it seemed the nightmare was finally over, Dispatch radioed again.

No one had noticed, but buried underneath the wreckage of the tractor-trailer was a car, and trapped inside of it was a badly injured driver who had been lying there for hours, no doubt overwhelmed by pain, fear, noise, and the revolting smell of spilled fuel mixed with warm blood, animal guts, dung, and smoke.

Whether or not the driver survived is not known.

154

1980-2000

Loren Dennis “Denny” Schuler A Single Wreck Good for Multiple Drills Denny Schuler, who led Genesee Fire Rescue from June 1982 to July 1984, surrounded himself with a team of talented officers, each of whom made notable contributions to the department.

His assistant chiefs were Mike Cantwell and Alan Fletcher. Cantwell worked closely with Schuler to advance the professionalism of the department and helped recruit two veteran Fort Collins firefighters to conduct training seminars in Genesee. Cantwell succeeded Schuler as chief following his two-year term.

Fletcher, a firefighting phenom, was a ripe 20 years old when he was named Schuler’s second in command and remained an assistant GFR chief for six years. In May 2023, Fletcher retired after 45 years of diverse fire service, his final decade spent as chief of Fairmount Fire Rescue, headquartered in Golden.

Also on Schuler’s roster were future chief Sandy Schumacher, then a captain, and lieutenants Malcolm “Bud” Collier and Jean Haber.

Collier was a Denver native who served in the Colorado National Guard after graduating from Colorado College in 1960.

He subsequently worked his way up the executive ladder at First Federal Savings and Loan, eventually becoming its chief executive officer.

Both Schuler and Collier, who volunteered on the fire force for nine years, were elected members of the GFPD board.

Haber, who subsequently was appointed a GFR captain, was an evangelist for the department, arm-twisting whoever she knew to volunteer. One of her catches was Rich Jones, who joined the company when Schuler was still chief and remained a volunteer — including a six-year stint as chief — for a decade.

“Jean lived across the street. She was on me for about two years before I finally relented,” he recalls.

Schuler, a Nebraska native whose employment with the U.S. Geological Survey required him and his wife Lorraine to relocate regularly, landed in Colorado in 1964, age 29.

Denny and Lorraine lived in various cities and towns in the state. How they ended up in Genesee and what inspired them to join the fire department is unknown. In GFR records, Denny is listed as an officer as early as 1979. Lorraine was listed as an administrative assistant.

One training exercise that Schuler relied on as chief was acquiring a junker automobile and setting it on fire so that the volunteers could practice extinguishing it. A single wreck was good for multiple drills.

To this day, in the upper parking lot of the firehouse on Currant Drive sit several donated wrecks, now used primarily to practice extrications.

155

Dedication and Service

Michael A. “Mike” Cantwell Ixnay the Beer Question: How do you dress for a fire?

Answer: Systematically, thoroughly, and quickly.

Although Mike Cantwell was a commercial real estate developer and financier, as chief of Genesee Fire Rescue, he understood the exigency of training his volunteers to rapidly and properly don their bunker gear and self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), which are the gear worn to fight structure fires. After all, their lives and the lives of those who require their help might well rest in the balance.

While the order and specific equipment varies slightly from department to department and training chief to training chief, the process generally follows this sequence.

• Remove your street shoes.

• While standing, step into your specially designed firefighting boots, known as “turnout boots.”

• Drop down to pull up your bunker pants, which previously you took off in such a manner that you can slip through both leg openings and directly into the boots. Ensure that the pants’ cuffs overlap the boots’ tops. Simultaneously, pull up the suspenders attached to the pants.

• Loop both arms through the suspenders, and tighten as needed. Fasten the belt that helps secure the pants.

Pull up or Velcro the zipper.

• Slip the flame-resistant synthetic hood over your head.

• Put on the turnout coat, also made of flame-resistant materials, and remember to insert your thumbs into the wristlet holes to prevent the sleeves from riding up.

• Zip or Velcro the jacket, and don’t forget to tighten your collar.

• Next comes your helmet. Place it on your head, and connect your chin strap. Make sure it’s nice and tight. The helmet flaps should drop over your ears.

• Put each hand in a firefighting glove, making sure no part of your hands or arms is exposed. For that matter, other than your mouth and nose, no part of your body anywhere should now be exposed.

• Finally, it’s time to strap on your SCBA. With the SCBA laid out on the floor in front of you, lift the apparatus and flip it over your head and onto your back. Extend your elbows through the shoulder strap, connect and tighten the waist strap, and do the same if your pack includes a chest strap.

Oh, yes, and if you don’t want to annoy Chief Cantwell, complete all the steps above in a minute or less, as he has repeat156

1980-2000 edly demonstrated he can. No exaggeration.

Cantwell impressed his volunteers with his “if I can do it, you can do it” approach.

“He made a big effort to improve everybody’s ability to be bunkered up properly,” recalls Robb Gair, who, in his twenty years with GFR, concluding in 2008, witnessed the gradual metamorphosis of the department from amateur hour to one that became much more professional and better equipped.

When I first came, they sent you back into a closet and they said, “All the bunker gear is back there, find something that fits well.” Often, the pants were too long, the arms were too short in jackets or whatever.

To this day, Gair recalls a core lesson he learned from his interactions with Cantwell, who was still with the department but no longer chief when Gair first signed on.

One time, I was going to a call. It was just another routine call, but not for me. It was one of my early ones. Of course, I jump in my car. I’m only a mile away.

So I get to the station early. I slide around the corner and park my car. Maybe I remember to turn it off. I don’t know. I jump out. I’m all ready to go and start running into the firehouse.

Cantwell’s walking there too, quickly, but walking, and he says under his breath, plenty loud enough for me to hear it, “I have no idea why firefighters run into the firehouse to go to fight a fire.”

And I never forgot that. It’s like, “Get yourself under control. If you’re not under control here, what the heck do you think you’re going to do when you get on scene?”

Cantwell, and his successor as chief, Rich Jones, were intent on transforming the fire department from a “boys club” into a polished, professional fire agency.

Matt Solano joined the department when Sandy Schumacher was chief and much later headed the crew himself. However, he and Cantwell shared some weekend watches early in Solano’s tenure.

Mike is an incredible human being, a great guy. He pushed back. His position was, “This is not a club, it is a functioning fire department and you have as much responsibility [for training and discipline] as any municipal department.”

To the chagrin of many of the volunteers, Cantwell and Jones excised one of the most beloved perks of being a volunteer firefighter — beer. Says Cantwell: At the end of the day, when I was chief, Rich and I took the beer out of the firehouse. I’m one that loves beer. We couldn’t show up at an emergency situation in somebody’s house with a medical call and be smelling like beer. Every now and then we’d get caught in an awkward moment.

157

Dedication and Service

Richard G. “Rich” Jones “What’s That Liquid I Keep Smelling?”

Rich Jones was a law enforcement officer — Denver Police and FBI, not a firefighter.

It arose as a police detective investigating auto theft that the City of Denver didn’t have enough arson investigators for car and structure fires. So, after attending special classes, Jones was tasked with the job.

When Jones retired, his Genesee neighbor, Jean Haber, badgered him to volunteer for the fire department.

I don’t know anything about fighting fires. I’m just an old cop. It’s not like I can pull up to a burning building and pull out my gun and yell, “Freeze.”

No, but as Haber recognized, the traits that served him well in law enforcement — self-discipline, teamwork, and commitment to public service — would translate nicely in the fire services.

Denny Schuler, the chief at the time, convinced Jones to give it a try.

We can put you in bunker gear, and you can learn on the job.

Jones turned out to be a natural.

Along with Mike Cantwell, Jones prioritized bringing discipline and training to the department, assuming the role of chief in 1986 and remaining in the post for six years. It is the longest any volunteer chief has served, including Jason Puffett, who headed the department for only his first two years as a volunteer and then assumed the role in a paid capacity.

Jones continued the prohibitionist policies that began with Cantwell.

The thing that I really got irritated about was they were having a beer party up here one day and they got a call on a structure fire. By the time I showed up, they were all on the truck hanging on, drinking their beer.

They went down to the fire, and a gal came out and says, “I think we have it out.”

Not one person got off the truck to go check. They turned around, came back up here, and started partying again. Well, then things started changing after that.

It was during Jones’s watch as chief that he recruited John Bales, then a captain with the Thornton, Colorado, fire department, and Robert G. Tade, a senior officer with the Denver Fire Department, to conduct Genesee Fire Rescue’s first formal “Academy.” Each member of the inaugural course, twelve in all, passed their Firefighter 1 state certification exams and came to be known as the “Dirty Dozen.”

From then on, volunteers would need to take and pass Genesee’s fire academy as a precursor to becoming a full-fledged firefighter.

158

1980-2000 The former cop in Jones took no guff from slackers or fools.

Once, Jones sent notice of an incident to volunteers who only showed up at the fire station occasionally to respond to a call.

As company folklore relates, the firehouse bay had a three-button lock to access the engines. Those arriving would punch in the numbers one, two, three — very hard to crack the code — turn the latch, and the bay would open.

But Jones altered the code, alerting the regulars to the new combination, but not the infrequent volunteers.

The members of the squad who seldom responded would arrive at the station, and they couldn’t get into the building.

Jones was no more sympathetic to annoying firefighters who worked for neighboring departments.

As Jones recounts, he and his volunteers were often called on to lend mutual aid to Idledale Fire Rescue when accidents occurred on Interstate-70.

We were out on I-70, which happened a lot. It scared me because I was taking firefighters and turning them into traffic controllers, and I didn’t like that at all.

But we were out on a tanker that had gone over and there was gasoline all over I-70. Here comes the chief from Idledale, and he walks into the command post that I set up.

So he came into the command post, smoking a cigarette and he asks, “What’s that liquid I keep smelling?”

I said, “I’ll tell you, chief. You keep smoking that cigarette, we’re all going to find out.”

During his tenure, Jones initiated the purchase of two engines: a Brush Truck manufactured by Kovatch Mobile Equipment (KME), and an aerial purchased from Seagrave Fire Apparatus. But first, he sent Genesee’s Engine 1, the slime green pumper that the department purchased in early 1979, to a shop in Loveland, Colorado, to have it painted red.

The Genesee Fire Protection District (GFPD) board has always been responsible for approving the purchase of new engines in advance.

In concept, the board leaves it to the chiefs to oversee the day-to-day operations of the department, along with maintenance of the equipment.

But Jones’s GFPD board was an activist council. After the arrival of the Seagrave’s aerial, tensions between him and the panel surfaced.

I had a problem with the board because they were putting unleaded gas in it and it was a regular gas burner. So I told them, “We can’t do that unless we put an additive in there. We’re going to burn the valves,” and they said, “No, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

So Jones suggested a member of the board call Seagraves and ask the manufacturer about the fuel.

159

Dedication and Service Then they came back and said, “Well, how did you know that?”

Jones, who had moonlighted in the race car business for 14 years, recognized the kind of gasoline a combustible engine runs.

[Ultimately, Jones’s rows with the GFPD board led to an enduring change in the board’s oversight of the department, with the board staying out of decisions that are better made by the officers of the company. When men and women are volunteering their time and even risking their lives to serve the community, it only makes sense not to micromanage them.]

One of Jones’s assistant chiefs was David J. Bruno, a one-time lawyer for the Denver Police Department who later built a practice representing law enforcement officers throughout Colorado.

At the time, some of the GFR volunteers — military and law enforcement veterans — carried firearms along with their radios, flashlights and SCBA. As Jones recounts: Dave Bruno and I are responsible for bringing Jefferson County Sheriff’s officers in here. We had our own security prior to that.

There were three lawyers on the [GFPD] board, and the first thing they did was take the guns away from our security officers. The second thing they did was say, “You can’t respond to a [police] call. You have to stay and wait for a Sheriff’s officer.

I told them “these guys are supposed to be protecting the citizens up here. They’re all trained with guns, so that’s not a big deal. What are you going to do when a mountain lion is in somebody’s house or a bear?”

But they said, “No, no. That’s too much of a responsibility.”

While Jones discouraged his volunteers from turning the firehouse into a party venue, he and his wife, Susan, were instrumental in organizing the annual Fireman’s Ball, a fundraiser held at the Mt. Vernon Country Club. Rich recalls: It was a costume ball and we used to sell out every year at 220 people. We took over the country club, the whole thing.

Susan did a wonderful job, she and a few of the volunteer firefighters. We raised a lot of money.

In 1992, as Sandy Schumacher was poised to become the next GFR chief, Rich and Susan Jones moved to Durango, Colorado.

Of course, the department felt the loss of Jones, who’d been an influential part of the organization for a decade.

But it was Susan who they called, requesting that she return. Remembers Rich: A few of the people up here called Susan and asked if she’d come and do it [run the Fireman’s Ball], because they tried it without her, and it didn’t go over well.

160

All in the Family In 1843, when the Goshen Hook and Ladder Company was organized in Goshen, New York, about 60 miles northwest of Manhattan, New York City bore little resemblance to the Big Apple of today.

There were no skyscrapers. People traveled over rickety gravel or stone roads in horsedrawn carriages. Central Park’s construction would not begin for another 15 years. The Brooklyn Bridge was 40 years in the future, and Bedloe’s Island, the future home of the Statue of Liberty, would not welcome its most famous inhabitant until 1886.

In the beginning, ten men, relying on leather buckets, long-handled wooden pike poles, and a couple of ladders, watched over the community. The company’s first fire truck, purchased for $450, was pulled by hand.

Dr. Frederick T. Seward, a prominent psychiatrist, would not volunteer with Goshen’s fire department, renamed Cataract Engine & Hose, until much, much later.

His grandson, John A. Seward, inherited Dr. Seward’s gold-colored badge, #19, which depicts a ladder, fire helmet, and hose in its center. It is a precious memento of bygone days.

John A., who, as of mid-2023, was the most tenured member of Genesee Fire Rescue, is a third-generation volunteer firefighter. His father, John T. Seward, along with Marshall Coon, co-founded the Pine Brook Hills Fire Department on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado, in 1942 and remained on the force (now part of Boulder Mountain Fire) for more than four decades.

Such legacy volunteer firefighters are common throughout the country and help populate the ranks of Genesee Fire Rescue, including Neil Frame (2nd generation), Ryan Gaddis (2nd), Stephen Masztaler (2nd), Hank O’Brien (3rd), Jim Schmitz (2nd), Gregg Sheehan (3rd) and Mark Villa (3rd - recently retired).

The mother-son duo of Kathryn and Graeme Warner, both active on the force, is much less common but not unprecedented. In GFR’s early years, when Alan Fletcher was still a teenager and volunteered, both his parents were already Genesee firefighters.

In the case of the Warners, it was only Graeme who expressed an interest in volunteering. His mom tagged along to a GFR recruitment open house, she confesses, as much for the station’s free bagel breakfast as to support her son.

She didn’t realize there is no such thing as a free meal.

Soon the recruitment event organizers turned their attention her way.

She swallowed hard.

“Kathy was initially wary of the idea,” wrote veteran GFR volunteer Josh Boyles in the May 2018 Genescene community newsletter.

(Continued) 161

Dedication and Service Did she have the time? Sufficient fitness and strength? The necessary commitment?

Kathy’s day job was writing patents for a law office in Denver. She was glued to her desk for hours at a time.

Having moved to Genesee from Ohio not long before, Kathy reasoned the fire force would be a good way to get outdoors, integrate herself into the community, meet new friends, and make a difference.

Boyles asked Kathy, now a GFR veteran, to describe the most challenging part of her training regiment.

There have been numerous physical challenges, including training in live fire situations, using a chainsaw (for the first time ever) while on a pitched roof, crawling through tiny spaces while utilizing a self-contained breathing apparatus, and wearing a 45-pound pack while hiking three miles in 45 minutes.

Even more daunting than the physical challenges has been overcoming self-doubt and personal fears.

Kathy credits the “unfailing support” of her instructors and colleagues for helping her surmount the obstacles, as well as her fellow Academy classmates, Adrian Castro, Keith Dierking, John Meany, and Hank O’Brien.

Kathy and Graeme have become valued members of Genesee Fire Rescue and role models for others who have, and still will, follow in their footsteps. As she told Boyles in 2018: Going on even just a few calls so far has made me acutely aware of the great responsibility we have to our neighbors. We respond to all types of calls and have to be prepared for anything. It’s a great honor to serve with and learn from the dedicated and well-trained members of GFR. They each strive to be the responder we would want to be there if our own families and homes were in need.

Scott Mefford, the former GFR chief and, as of 2023, president of the Genesee Fire Protection District board, has a theory as to why the sons and daughters of volunteer firefighters often emulate their parents.

One aspect of being a volunteer firefighter that is sometimes overlooked; while responding in the middle of the night and attending training sessions may stress the families of members at times, the dedication to service and desire to help people when they may need help most often imprints on firefighters’ children in a good way. I can see this respect for voluntarism and challenge in many of the kids of firefighters I have known over my tenure with the department.

162

1980-2000

Steven Allen “Steve” Harms “We Are So Close to a 4 Rating” Steve Harms grew up in Cheyenne Wells, a tiny town in eastern Colorado, about eight miles from the Kansas border. His father was a member of the district fire department. Watching his dad and his dad’s commitment to volunteer service had a lasting impact on young Steve.

Years later, Steve and his wife Kathy moved to Genesee from Ken-Caryl Ranch. He was 35 years old and working as an electrical engineer when, in 1990, he spotted the “Volunteers Needed” sign hanging on the side of the Genesee Fire Rescue fire station.

Kathy went with him, and witnessed other women who were there volunteering.

I thought, “God, if these girls can do it, I should do it.” And Steve was like, “Do it.”

They both signed on that very day and remained on the force for 16 years.

Steve served as chief from 1994 to 1996, a seminal period for the department. During his administration, GFR spent more than a year debating a proposal to merge with three nearby fire companies. Harms was outspoken in his opposition to any such combination. His paid administrator, Cleve Joiner, strongly favored it.

In the end, Harms’s side prevailed, but the sparring led to what arguably has been the biggest internal rift in the department’s history.

The merger controversy, remarkably, didn’t slow Genesee Fire’s growth when it came to professionalism and quality recruitment.

In early 1995, the second year of Harms’s term as chief, GFR consisted of 34 members, not counting him, and five recent recruits.

Out of that group of 40, fifteen members remained on the force long enough to collect a pension (a minimum of ten years): Jim Andrews, Sue Barrowman, Judy Bird, Tim Collins, Harvey Dovey, Bill Easterling, Robert Fuchs, Robb Gair, Rich Greenstreet, Steve and Kathy Harms, George Heyliger, Scott Mefford, Peter Rogerson, and Janice Vail.

The collective impact of these individuals on Genesee Fire Rescue, then and ever since, can’t be overstated. They were stewards of GFR, custodians of its values and warrantors of the company’s long-term sustainability.

Witness how an independent insurance rating bureau, the Insurance Service Office (ISO), gradually ratcheted up its evaluation of GFR’s effectiveness in providing fire services to Genesee.

On the ISO one-to-ten grading scale, a “one” indicates the best any fire company can be, while a “ten” is the bottom rung.

A fire department’s ISO represents its efficiency in receiving and responding to alarms, operating a well-run department 163

Dedication and Service (apparatus, maintenance, supplies, recordkeeping, etc.), and working with the community to reduce the risk of fire. A fourth measurement is the availability of sufficient water supplies to combat fires; a standard few fire departments can affect.

In some cases, a lower ISO rating for the fire department translates into lower homeowners insurance rates.

In 1994, when Harms was named GFR’s chief, the company had an ISO rating of 6. Considering the size of the community (fewer than 4,000 residents at the time) and the fact that the firefighters were volunteers and required to be Genesee residents, a “6” wasn’t shabby.

By early 1995, GFR’s ISO had improved to a “5.” In the department’s quarterly report to the community that March, it wrote, “We are so close to a 4 rating.”

As of 2023, thanks to the efforts of Harms, those he supervised, and the many similarly dedicated volunteers who arrived since, GFR’s ISO rating is an impressive “3,” placing the community in the top 15% of more than 39,000 ISO-rated fire protection areas in the nation.

For her 16 years of service to GFR, waking at all hours, responding to structure and wildfires, performing first aid, and mentoring others, Kathy Harms is best remembered for lying supine in a real coffin — black tape crossing each of her eyes — during one of the company’s jovial annual Halloween parties.

It was Kathy, along with fellow trainee Sue Barrowman, who narrowly escaped serious injury when the hose they were practicing with in front of the firehouse was inadvertently overpressurized by a third recruit. With Kathy holding the nozzle and Barrowman right behind her grasping the hose, the force of the water rocketed both women skyward. As Kathy recalls: It just picked us right up. And I was screaming to Sue, “Do not let go of the hose!” I was afraid she might let it go and I wondered, “If she lets it go, can I hold onto it by myself?” Oh, my God. Because what goes up must eventually come down, Kathy and Barrowman did crashland after Steve Harms took charge and slowly lowered the water pressure.

We landed in the ditch right in front of the fire station. They thought while we were flailing around we hit the “Yield” street sign, which was swaying back and forth. It was actually the water that hit it.

And John Bales [the veteran firefighter], who was running the exercise, comes running over, and I’ve never seen someone with fright in their face like him.

Barrowman and Kathy dreamed up the coffin stunt as a mild form of payback to Bales.

Kathy doesn’t remember how it came about that the fire station housed a genuine casket, but it did. So on the night of the next Halloween party, the two women taped their eyes, climbed into the bier, and posed for a photo.

We did take the photo and gave it to him that year as a gift for making us fly up into the air.

164

1980-2000 It was, of course, all in good humor.

While Harms served as chief, more than a few members of the department made valuable and lasting contributions to its operations, although they didn’t ultimately qualify for pensions. These include Drew McCoy — a one-time president of the GFPD board, Cleve Joiner, Rick and Charlene Quaife, George and Charlotte Raize, and Ralph Wallerstein.

Mention Wallerstein to those who served alongside him, and invariably, they speak dolefully of their former colleague.

Wallerstein was Harms’s assistant chief, in line to succeed him. He instituted a junior firefighting force for adolescents and kids — designed to whet their appetites for the fire service, not send them out on calls. His two sons were charter members.

The physician was whip smart, always thinking outside the box, but he was also mocked for how dense he could be at times when it came to simple matters. Says Harms: He was one of those guys who couldn’t make a sandwich, but he could take and operate on you, take your kidney out, and put it back in.

Both examples — the sandwich and the surgery — might be exaggerated, but they accurately reflect how Wallerstein was generally regarded.

Seemingly no one on the fire force foresaw Wallerstein’s suicide. He often came across as a deep thinker, even a troubled one, but taking his own life on February 26, 1996, at age 42, was a shock to the entire company.

No firefighter before or since Wallerstein has died from any cause while still an active member of the force.

Nestled on the ground just feet from the entrance to GFR’s station house is a memorial plaque, laid two years after his passing. Its dignified message reads:

Dedicated To Ralph O. Wallerstein, Jr. Assistant Chief

By The Volunteers of Genesee Fire & Rescue June 14, 1998

165

Dedication and Service

Timothy “Tim” John Collins A Passionate, Driven, Enthusiastic Individual The anecdote is apocryphal, yet there is an underlying truth to it.

Per the department’s oral tradition, when the company needed someone to succeed Sandy Schumacher as chief, a competition was held in one of the bays of the firehouse garage.

Each potential chief stepped forward and kicked an empty beer can from the back end of the garage toward the front. Mike Cantwell’s punt went the farthest, so the responsibility fell on his shoulders.

As Steve Harms spins the yarn: “Mike wondered, ‘Why did I kick it that far? I don’t want to be chief.’”

Humor aside, taking on the responsibility of leading the fire department without pay, more often than not, required some persuasion.

One exception was Tim Collins, Harms’s final assistant chief, who his fellow volunteers recount seemed keen to take the department under his wings. “When Tim came in, he was fired up. He really wanted to be chief,” recounts Robb Gair, a volunteer with GFR from 1988 to 2008.

Collins and his wife, Alisa Ramey, worked side-by-side on the force. Tim joined GFR in 1994 and quickly rose through the ranks, leading the volunteers from 1996 to 2000.

“Tim is a passionate, driven, enthusiastic individual. He is a great communicator and an asset to the community in which he lives,” wrote Dean Wahl on Collins’s LinkedIn page in 2013, the same year that Collins left GFR. Wahl retired as a captain with West Metro Fire Rescue in May 2020 after 33 years of service.

“I can remember calls where Tim Collins and I would both get to the station at 2:00 in the morning, and we were the only guys who would show up,” says Scott Mefford.

Collins might have relinquished his chief’s helmet sooner, but Bill Easterling, his assistant, who was in line to become chief, asked Collins to delay the transition.

At the time, Easterling was board president at Highland Rescue Team Ambulance, which, in one iteration or another, had provided emergency on-scene care and hospital transport since the early 1960s to multiple foothills communities.

Genesee Fire Rescue and Highland Rescue have always been tightly aligned, with both companies frequently responding to the same incidents. Moreover, many Genesee firefighters did double duty as Highland EMTs and paramedics, and vice versa.

Genesee, however, was always the financially more stable of the two companies, able to fund its operations using residential tax levies. Eventually, Highland also turned to taxpayers to solidify its operations. But for decades, Highland relied on pancake breakfasts, garage sales, chili cookoffs, fundraising balls, and a fair dose of pleading to make ends meet, which they often didn’t.

166

1980-2000 Easterling recalls: Highland was going through some tremendously bad times. We were trying to save it, and so I asked Tim to stay on another year.

Collins remained with GFR for more than a dozen years after relinquishing his oversight duties to Easterling in 2000.

Many former volunteers have difficulty separating from the camaraderie they enjoyed while still active. They return year after year for GFR’s Open House and periodically drop in to visit when the nostalgic mood strikes. Comparatively few ex-members follow Collins’s path, walking away without looking back.

Collins chose not to share his recollections for this 50th-anniversary commemoration. If he had, undoubtedly, he could relay colorful experiences and acts of courage that can only be inferred by the continued growth of Genesee Fire Rescue during his years with the company.

The specifics of Collins’s contributions may recede with time, but the comprehension of everyone who has put themselves out to join a volunteer fire department of what Collins sacrificed in the service of others and to strengthen the department is indelible.

167

CHAPTER THREE: 2000-2008 William Aaron Easterling: The Face of Genesee Fire Frank W. Beebe: “The Reality is Just a Little Worse” Matthew L. Solano: The Man in the Middle Frederick G. “Fritz” Ihrig: “For God’s Sake, We Need to Look Like Firefighters”

The Fire Within: Lieutenant Dan Hammock Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

169

Dedication and Service

William Aaron Easterling The Face of Genesee Fire Bill Easterling’s decision to retire from Genesee Fire Rescue in July 2017 did more to change the department’s character than any individual who — or event that — preceded it.

While the volunteers of GFR had always embraced the notion that no one individual was indispensable and that the company would always find capable replacements to fill any vacancies, Easterling’s departure challenged that paradigm.

In the words of a parting salute from the Genesee Fire Protection District board, he was, “The Face of Genesee Fire.”

Even that plaudit couldn’t suffice to credit Easterling for the many contributions he made to GFR and fire companies around the nation during his 23 years of service.

Easterling joined GFR in March 1994. Like everyone else, he volunteered.

He recalls his very first outing on a fire truck, which took place during his rookie training.

I was riding in the open jump seat and feeling a lot of pride as we drove through traffic in Lakewood.

Soon, he was an engineer/driver-operator, a lieutenant, an assistant chief, and then, in 2000, the chief.

I was very excited. I went on tons of calls. I went on every call I could, and I was always there.

Each Labor Day, when GFR conducted a “Fill the Boot” fundraiser for a worthy charity, Easterling would position himself on one of the two traffic bridges leading from Interstate-70 to Genesee and, employing various passes and feints between vehicles that would make a matador proud, collect a windfall of donations without getting injured.

His cheeseburgers, grilled at the annual GFR fall Open Houses, were legendary — possibly a byproduct of the frequent barbeques he and his wife, Tinsley, hosted for friends, family, and fellow GFR members at their home.

The Easterlings’ 2,700-foot residence on Genesee Village Road was a lovely example of the lifestyle that living in Genesee afforded many of the volunteers, who earned their livings as professionals in various fields and could purchase upscale homes.

When, in 2019, the Easterlings’ place was put on the market, Mark Samuelson, a real estate writer for The Denver Post, offered this description: The main level has attractive entertaining spaces and an open, welcoming master suite, each with sliders out to the deck.

More bedrooms and an office are upstairs, and there’s a nicely finished day-lit garden level, where for several years the couple watched a buck deer bed down nightly beneath their deck.

170

2000-2008 For much of Easterling’s two-year term as chief, Adam Petro served as his paid administrator.

Petro filled such big boots that at the time he seemed irreplaceable. During the days, when GFR was often short-handed, Petro would go out on emergency calls. An EMT, he led the medical responder portion of the training academies. He was responsible to see that each of the trucks received proper maintenance and that records were kept of all repairs and incidents. He paid the bills, handled the accounting, interfaced with the GFPD board, and even provided janitorial services at the firehouse.

I also saw to it that the pop machine was filled with soda and the candy bowl with candy.

After seven years as a volunteer firefighter and administrator with GFR, Petro accepted a job as director of emergency medical services for distant Chaffee County, Colorado.

It was tough to leave. But I needed to spread my wings professionally.

Up to that point, Easterling had earned his living as an accountant. But the draw of the fire service was so magnetic that he opted to make firefighting his permanent career and agreed to assume Petro’s duties and much more.

On June 1, 2002, Easterling was hired as GFR’s full-time Fire Marshal/Administrator.

His role as administrator pretty much mirrored Petro’s, although Easterling, as a veteran firefighter and former chief, sometimes played the part of a shadow chief when a couple of his successors in the role needed an extra hand.

As fire marshal, Easterling enforced the community’s fire regulations and codes. That involved regular inspections of Genesee’s office and retail buildings, walkarounds with homeowners, and conducting ongoing fire prevention education programs for residents.

It didn’t happen often, but when suspicious fires arose, Easterling, as fire marshal, helped investigate the causes.

Easterling’s vision extended far beyond the alpine terrain and panoramic views of Genesee. He looked as far away as Texas, Montana, California, and Oregon to bring back to his hometown the lessons he gleaned while helping to fight wildfires in those states and others.

In recent years, to gain experience battling remote fires erupting in federal forests and on grasslands, Genesee Fire Rescue has dispatched a crew of two or three members and a single fire truck. However, during Easterling’s time on the force, he generally traveled solo, sometimes staying away for weeks at a time.

Easterling credits Tinsley for allowing him to thrive in the job. Like the spouses of dozens of volunteers over the years, she was never a member of the department but crucial to its success. These unheralded family members sacrificed quality time with their loved ones, were awakened along with their firefighter partners in the middle of the night, and interrupted their plans many times over so their husbands and wives could be on call every day, at all hours, to respond whenever needed.

I’ll tell you how supportive Tinsley was. We were having a party and serving dinner to about 30 people at our house for a friend’s son who was getting married.

171

Dedication and Service We’re at the store buying the food for the party that evening and I get a page. They wanted me to get on an airplane and go to Texas on wildfires that afternoon. I looked at her.

She’s listening to the phone, and she said, “If you will get the meat cooked, go on.” I went home, cooked the meat, and packed my bags. I got a friend to drive me out to the airport, and got on a plane, and was gone for two weeks.

Easterling was a member of Jefferson County’s Incident Management Team (IMT), responding with other Colorado volunteers and professionals not only to wildfires in the state but also to a floods, blizzards, and a tornado.

Leveraging his experience with the local IMT, in 2010, Easterling co-founded the All-Hazards Incident Management Teams Association (AHIMTA). The umbrella group, which has grown exponentially, consists of emergency management and public safety professionals representing federal, state, local, and tribal agencies, as well as the private sector. Today, AHIMTA, has members in every state and multiple foreign countries. The group provides education and sets standards designed to enhance the professionalism of all incident management departments and individuals.

Perhaps if Bill Easterling hadn’t proven so valuable to the department, today’s Genesee Fire Rescue would still be overseen by a volunteer chief.

For four-plus decades, GFR staunchly clung to the principle that all of its firefighters — including the chiefs — would be volunteers. While the full-time administrators who handled the flood of back-room chores were on salary, it was a matter of tradition and pride that no one else received payment for their service to the community.

When Jason Puffett’s tenure as chief began in July 2015, he, too, was a volunteer. But the vacuum created with Easterling’s departure at the end of July 2017 caused the GFPD board and the volunteers to reconsider their long-held conviction that the department should be headed by a volunteer.

Easterling strongly supported the changeover from volunteer to paid chief.

I was 110% behind it and recommended it to the Board. It’s only logical. Who knows more about the fire department than the person that’s running it day in and day out? And that person should be chief.

Of course, it had been Easterling who daily had been running the company, allowing Puffett to continue his outside employment as a water processing engineer.

Although not all the members were happy about letting go of the volunteer-chief tradition, in the wake of Easterling’s department, Puffett was the ideal candidate to combine the roles of administrator and chief under one helmet.

Time has made clear that it was the correct choice. Moreover, there is no going back.

172

A Wide Spectrum of Professionals If there are stereotypical individuals who volunteer for the fire service, they won’t be found at Genesee Fire Rescue.

The men and women of GFR are a diverse group who bring unique skills and life experiences to the job.

This is a sampling of those on the current 50th-anniversary GFR roster: Lt. Doug Barenburg – Joined GFR in 2015. Doug is a licensed chiropractor. Has been a critical member of the department, active as an Academy instructor and recruiting officer. He currently manages the department’s medical training program.

Firefighter Adrian Castro – Joined GFR in 2017. Adrian is an attorney who donates his time to help the company navigate legal and regulatory issues.

Lt. Dorie Dalton — Joined GFR in 2018. Dorie is a former elementary school teacher. Since January 2021, she has worked full-time as GFR’s wildland specialist. Her husband Bob, who joined when she did, is deputy regional mission director for the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency under the Department of Defense.

Firefighter Keith Dirking – Joined GFR in 2017. Keith is a retired IT specialist. He works with the Academy, has participated in several wildland deployments, and conducts the required biennial CPR training for all members.

Captain Peter Greenstone — Joined GFR in 2016. Peter helps coordinate the company’s wildland preparedness. He earns his living creating 3D animations and other creative content for television series, feature films, and video games.

His work has appeared on HGTV, Discovery, DIY, Outdoor Channel, and TLC, among others.

Lt. Dan Hammock – Joined GFR in 2018. Dan is a career maintenance manager for the Frito-Lay plant in Aurora, CO. He is currently the apparatus coordinator for GFR. A talented fabricator, Dan has developed many solutions for the agency’s apparatus and created several tools for the department.

Engineer Mark Herzfeld – Joined GFR in 2016. He is a Boeing 777 pilot for United Airlines. Previously, he flew nuclear-capable B-52s for the Air Force. Mark has assisted with the Firefighter 1 Academy every year since he started.

Engineer John Meany – Joined GFR in 2017. John is an IT specialist and entrepreneur. He donates his expertise to help upgrade the fire department’s IT capabilities.

Firefighter Jim Schmitz – Joined GFR in 2014. Jim is an entrepreneur who received his MBA from Stanford University.

Firefighter Kathy Warner – Joined GFR in 2017. Kathy is an expert in patent law. She and her son Graeme, who wound up joining the fire department a year after she did, serve as GFR’s mental health coordinators.

(Continued) 173

Dedication and Service Recent retirees from the department include: Engineer Jim Olson – Joined GFR in 2014. Jim is a former IRS agent who was assigned to the FBI. Jim was a top emergency incident responder for a few years. He retired in 2023.

Captain Mark Villa — Joined GFR in 2009. A learning specialist with Jeffco Public Schools, Mark was responsible for planning many of the fire company’s most popular events, including its annual Open House and membership awards program. A third-generation firefighter, he retired in 2023.

174

2000-2008

Frank W. Beebe “The Reality is Just a Little Worse” It was cold and foggy, three days before Thanksgiving 1999. Snow had begun to fall, the first winter storm of the season.

The roads were wet but not icy.

At about 12:40 p.m., one car heading westbound on Interstate-70, just north of Genesee, spun out of control, causing a chain reaction. As Shannon Rogers recounted to The Associated Press: The visibility was so bad you couldn’t see the person in front of you. We tried to stop and went sliding off the road and we thought that was the worst of it, but then we kept hearing bangs, squealing tires and people banging into each other. We just kept hearing people screaming and it just never seemed to stop.

Frank Beebe was a rookie on the Genesee Fire Rescue force, having volunteered only months earlier.

One of the first calls we had right out of the training was a multi-car accident out here on I-70. There must have been 80 to 100 cars and trucks, one vehicle piled up after the other.

They had so many people in so many cars they set up a triage classification: “A” was real trauma, “B” was a little bit less, and “C” you could go home. They had tow trucks and ambulances coming from everywhere. It was wild. The tow trucks were pulling the cars off and staging them in the Rockland Community Church parking lot so that they could come right back and grab another one.

There was a guy and a girl that just got tossed out of a Jeep Wrangler, and they were dead in the middle of the road.

In all, the AP reported that 29 people were taken to four area hospitals, including two sisters, aged 5 and 8; a 26-year-old woman in fair condition, an 18-year-old woman in serious but stable condition; and an 80-year-old woman, a 75-year-old woman, and a 74-year-old man, each with traumatic brain injuries.

In one of the first cars Beebe approached, he found an injured pregnant woman.

She had gotten cut. She’d pulled off to the side of the road. Somehow, I guess she didn’t have her seatbelt on, and she was bleeding. We got her out.

The day was quite an initiation to the fire service for Beebe, who had only recently retired from the U.S. Postal Service, where he served in supervisory roles in White Plains, New York, and Denver.

There’s just nothing after that that can compare to what went on: cutting people out of cars, people lying dead in the road, and all that stuff. It was incredible.

Beebe’s wife, Selma, recalls discussing the November 22nd events with her husband. She had always supported and sometimes traveled with Frank during his decades-long career with the post office. Dead bodies and seriously injured civilians 175

Dedication and Service had never been on the conversational menu.

“You knew you were going to get into a situation like that, and I think they [Frank’s rookie class] were all prepared for it,” she says. “But the reality is just a little worse.”

At first, Frank adored the fire service, especially participating with fire companies from around the country in containing the Hi Meadow fire in June 2000. The blaze tore through forest land and 58 structures in Jefferson and Park Counties.

That was a beauty. I enjoyed every minute of that stuff. I enjoyed fighting fires and going on calls. I just loved it.

Selma knew Frank had had a purposeful day when he returned home with his clothes smelling of smoke. It happened with regularity.

Although after a fire incident, GFR volunteers would typically stop first at the station, change out of their bunker or wildland gear, and then return to their spouses and children. Nonetheless, the smell of smoke lingered.

Be prepared for the odors, Selma says, is what she would recommend to the spouses of new fire recruits. And be ready to be awakened in the middle of the night when your other half is summoned to the station and again when your spouse returns.

Most importantly, Selma says, embrace the new opportunity.

I would tell them to enjoy it because it is a family — a great support system.

Frank and Selma lived on Rockrose Drive (and still do), a two-minute ride from the firehouse.

Whenever there was a call, I was the first one to show up, so I was the driver all the time.

If Beebe had remained a driver and a rank-and-file volunteer, he would have rounded out his GFR career much happier.

But GFR had a dearth of capable officers, and Beebe had extensive experience overseeing people and operations. So GFR fast-tracked him.

I was a lieutenant within a year, and I was the chief within two years.

Each Genesee chief through the years had his or - in the case of Sandy Schumacher - her own style, some more popular than others.

“Frank Beebe was the chief when I joined and he was great. I loved Frank,” says Carlton Babbs, who signed on in February 2003. “Not everybody loved Frank. He was a tough chief, all business. He wasn’t warm and fuzzy.”

Chiefs also had their own priorities.

176

2000-2008 Beebe made quality recruitment one of his top initiatives.

Perhaps it was his postal DNA, but half-a-dozen times as chief, he placed a recruitment flier that he had designed in each cubby of the cluster mailboxes used by residents of Genesee and Genesee Village. Beebe also developed the first GFR website.

They worked.

Beebe grew the size of the department by about a dozen, to 45 volunteers, including bringing on future chiefs Babbs, Roel Snieder, and John Seward.

But after 20 months leading the department, Beebe had enough. He resigned as chief four months before the scheduled end of his term.

The chief thing just became meetings and meetings and putting out [proverbial] fires, people not getting along with each other, and things like that. It just turned out not to be so much fun anymore.

Beebe had been volunteering with Evergreen’s Blue Spruce Habitat for Humanity all along. His decision to quit GFR was closely timed to his growing role with the charity, which made him a site supervisor and construction manager, a sevenday-a-week commitment.

Like countless other GFR volunteers before and after Beebe, the commitment to help neighbors and those less fortunate didn’t end at the firehouse doors. When the men and women of Genesee Fire Rescue saw others in need, they responded.

177

Dedication and Service

Matthew L. Solano The Man in the Middle When you’re the chief, you’re not the most important person in the organization. You’re just the one who’s at the funnel point where all the stuff from the board and the public and the state comes down on you, and everything that everybody below you needs, comes up to you, and you’re in the middle.

Juggling the responsibilities of serving as Genesee’s volunteer chief with career and family could be daunting.

Matthew Solano had been the assistant to Frank Beebe. When in March 2004, Beebe decided to step down as chief before his full term was complete, Solano was elevated to the top leadership role.

At the time, GFR embraced an “up-and-down” model of departmental leadership, in which a chief, in this instance, Solano, helped prepare his assistant chief — Fritz Ihrig — to succeed him. When two years were up, Ihrig would become chief, and Solano would step down to an assistant chief role for another two years to smooth the transition. From assistant chief to chief and back to assistant chief was a six-year rotation.

It was a system that remained in place, more or less, until Jason Puffett became the department’s first paid chief in 2017.

Solano believed in the merits of “up-and-down”: The purpose of leadership is to develop other leaders. And that was very much a thing. It was not, “I want to be chief for the rest of my life.” It was, “No, I’ve got to get you ready.” So it wasn’t by happenstance.

Compared with other local fire departments, Solano says the GFR approach skirted the issues that arise when chiefs, with unlimited terms and no incentives to identify and prepare their successors, come to see themselves as fire emperors and empresses.

Solano, who worked as a behavioral consultant for the State of Colorado, joined GFR in 1992 at age 36, two years after moving to Genesee. His wife, Joan, who lived in the community before they were married, volunteered for the fire department in the 1980s.

What most appealed to Solano about becoming a volunteer firefighter was the ability to see the immediate, tangible results of his efforts.

In terms of my career, I would do things that would have no effect on anything really for several years.

Solano’s tenure as chief was marked by his focus on training and professionalism. Among other innovations, he instituted competency checklists for members, specifying what they had to know and which skills they needed to demonstrate proficiency in executing.

178

2000-2008 Another change implemented by Solano was the introduction of physical agility tests. Previously, physical fitness had not been a requirement for volunteers. Members unable to undertake the more strenuous aspects of firefighting were allowed to perform duties such as traffic control.

Solano regarded even that as an untenable risk.

It was time for a change because we never really wanted anybody to have a big heart attack and die or to put others at risk because of their lack of ability to perform. So we put together the agility test, and it became mandatory.

Solano’s decision was not popular, even though he gave volunteers up to six months to get into shape and offered to pay for a personal trainer to work with them at the community’s fitness center.

We had some people who were incredibly angry about it.

Nonetheless, his policy marked a sea change for Genesee Fire Rescue, not only requiring volunteers to pass the required fire certification courses but also to validate their ability to tackle the rigorous activity and exertion of a firefighter.

In 2006, Solano passed the leadership mantle to Ihrig, and in keeping with GFR’s protocol, he stayed on as his assistant chief. Eventually, the day came when Solano determined it was time for him to step away altogether from the department.

There was a fire over at the town center, at the commercial center, one of the office buildings. It wasn’t that bad, but it was enough that we were out there for several hours, like from 10:00 at night until 7:00 in the morning.

I had to come home, clean up, shower, change clothes, and go to a statewide meeting with a bunch of people who the Department of Human Services contracted with. And in that meeting, my chin was hitting my chest.

My boss talked to me and said, “You’ve got some decisions to make.”

The fire department was so strong that I thought, “there’s never a better time to leave than right now.”

More than 15 years after his departure from Genesee Fire Rescue, Solano remains nostalgic for the sense of purpose and the camaraderie he enjoyed.

The best memories for me really have to do with the firehouse radio room [now an exercise room]. Before a call, after the call, being together, drinking coffee, and talking about what happened. What’s up with your family?

The thing I miss the most is that sense of belonging to a very dedicated group of people who aren’t after their own self-interest but out for everybody else’s interest.

179

Dedication and Service

Frederick G. “Fritz” Ihrig “For God’s Sake, We Need to Look Like Firefighters” When Fritz Ihrig, a semi-retired attorney, first volunteered with Genesee Fire Rescue in 2000, he was 63, more than twice as old as Benjamin Franklin was when the Philadelphia printer organized the Union Fire Company.

An ex-Marine and gym rat, Ihrig was a former vice president for corporate human resources at Samsonite and a partner in the firm of Ihrig, Delisle & Associates of Denver.

Ihrig and his wife, Joanne Shroyer Ihrig, were both previously divorced with children. He had spent time living in her Genesee home in the late 1980s and fell in love with the community. In 1996, when each of their children was grown, he permanently resettled into her home, which had been in the Shroyer family since the 1930s, decades before the development of the planned community.

A big draw for Ihrig in signing up with GFR is that, like his time spent in the Marines, it fostered a sense of brotherhood.

Indeed, over the years, many of GFR’s volunteers have been attracted to the fire service because it gives rise to the same sense of belonging of working alongside others who will always be there for you.

In Ihrig’s 2000 rookie class of ten or eleven, there were two other veterans.

We had one guy in the class who was a West Point graduate, a tank commander in the First Gulf War, and a big hockey player; a big burly guy, one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet.

Also, Terry Turner, who was a commercial pilot and had been a helicopter pilot for a number of years in the Navy. Terry was our rope expert. He was probably one of the best knowledgeable people in our class. [Turner continued as a volunteer for a decade.]

Even at the turn of the millennium, with as much growth as GFR had shown, it still had a long way to go to become a truly model volunteer company.

Ihrig recalls wintertime runs in GFR’s old Engine #1, the primary response apparatus, where only the driver and a single volunteer were able to sit in the cabin while the other volunteers were in the back of the truck in the open air.

If you were in the back on a call, it was hell. It was cold.

Then there was the GFR bacchanal at the conclusion of each Academy class.

Golden Gate Canyon State Park, about an hour’s drive northwest of Genesee, offers visitors scenic trails, rich clusters of Aspen trees, multiple spots to fish and hunt, and serves as home to a variety of wildlife.

In addition to moose, bighorn sheep, black bears, beavers, and foxes, once or more a year, over a weekend, the park was beset by a pack of rookies and veterans from Genesee Fire Rescue who certainly could get wild and, quite commonly, 180

2000-2008 drunk.

Ostensibly, the men and women of GFR set up base at one of the park’s picnic areas to conclude their training. But group bonding was always the true, unspoken objective.

Working in concert with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the firefighters practiced wildland fire mitigation by day, using hand tools to build a fireline.

Firelines don’t douse wildland fires, but slow them by scraping swaths of soil to remove all surface vegetation and other organic matter. Doing so deprives an advancing fire of the fuel that feeds the blaze.

The GFR wildland weekends were not only the highlight of the year for many of the company’s members; the campouts fostered lifelong friendships and memories cherished to this day — years, and even decades later.

“It felt like family,” recalls Josh Meneses, who joined GFR just after his high school graduation and still volunteers and helps train GFR recruits after more than 20 years.

“That was one of the fondest memories I have, us spending time together up there,” he says.

For Meneses and many of those who participated, one indelible memory was sitting around the campfire they built and listening to their beloved training instructor, Aaron Sirbin, tell old fire war stories.

The insobriety was also unforgettable.

“We did the cooking, and in the old days, it was a drunken weekend,” recounts Ihrig.

“I remember the next day, the park rangers came around and there’s empty booze bottles and stuff laying around, and I thought, ‘Oh, Jesus.’”

The rangers reminded the firefighters that two beers each was the limit allowed by the park’s rules.

“We talked our way out of that,” Ihrig remembers. “Then I think we went up one more time before they quit letting us go in.”

Ihrig served as chief from 2006 to 2008. Bill Easterling, administrator and fire marshal, urged him to finally buy uniforms for the volunteers, something that had been talked about for years but never acted upon.

“For God’s sake, we need to look like firefighters.”

Ihrig agreed, and from then on, there was dress cohesion among the volunteers.

Ihrig’s most enduring legacy, however, was his insistence that every member of the department take the necessary courses to qualify as a first responder.

When I became chief, I said, “I think people have a right to expect that the responders know something about medical care.

181

Dedication and Service Everybody in this department will become a first responder.”

More than half of all of the calls that GFR responded to back then involved a medical emergency of one type or another — a percentage that has remained roughly the same for the past five years.

There was grumbling, but I gave everyone three years to get certified. I still ended up throwing a couple or three [volunteers] out.

In 1928, when Joanne Shroyer’s family bought land on what’s now known as Waynes Way in Genesee, there was little community to speak of.

The only path to their unheated property was a rutted dirt road. The 6.2-mile long Moffat Tunnel under the Continental Divide — the world’s longest railroad tunnel — had just opened. That year, the City of Denver acquired the site for the amphitheater at Red Rocks, and Denver Mayor Benjamin F. Stapleton, a one-time member of the Ku Klux Klan, was readying the opening of Denver Municipal Airport, which would be renamed Stapleton Airfield in 1944.

Joanne’s grandparents had purchased three acres of land for about $79 an acre, and her parents, Wayne and Pearl, who married in June 1933, constructed a modest cabin, roughly 400 square feet in size, on the property, circa 1936.

Wayne E. Shroyer, the roadway’s namesake, was an accounting professor (and later chairman of the accounting department and assistant dean) at the University of Denver. At DU, Wayne met and married Pearl Bonnelle, one of his students.

Pearl was a Denver native. Her grandfather, Charles O. Bonnelle, was a training chief with the Denver Fire Department who, during World War II, served as Colorado’s state fire chief under the Office of Civil Defense.

When the weather got hot and steamy in Denver during the summer, Wayne and Pearl repaired to Genesee, where they could count on the high-altitude temperatures to be at least 10 degrees cooler. They first brought Joanne along when she was nine months old.

It was not, Joanne recalls, luxury living.

It was very primitive still. There was no toilet. We didn’t even get running water until I was 16 or something.

Long before the Denver developers arrived on the scene and organized a formal fire department, the Shroyers and other area residents primarily relied on themselves and their neighbors to have each other’s backs.

One day, Joanne recounts, lightning struck their cabin, and a spark from the bolt danced along an electrical wire running from their roof to the home of their neighbors, the Kennedys.

My mom knew the Kennedys weren’t there. But they always kept their doors unlocked. So when my mom saw smoke coming out of the Kennedys’ kitchen, she grabs the (lawn) hose and goes down and puts out the fire. She wasn’t afraid.

Otherwise, the house would have burned down.

182

2000-2008 Ihrig remained an active volunteer with Genesee Fire Rescue until 2010, age 74. But well into his 80s, he remains a regular presence at the firehouse, often joining the active volunteers on Saturday mornings for coffee, breakfast, gossip, and reminiscences.

One story Ihrig has shared dates back to his time as chief. It was before the firefighters had uniforms, so they often wore street clothing at the firehouse.

During a training incident that he recalls vividly, one of the women volunteers who had only recently joined the department accidentally turned the hose on him.

I was just over here watching the class, and she squirted me with the hose. Then she panicked when she found I was chief.

It might have spelled the end of her firefighting days. But Ihrig took it in stride.

A few years later, he notes, the rookie, now a seasoned veteran, became chief of a nearby mountain fire department.

183

CHAPTER FOUR: 2008-2023 Scott G. Mefford: Thanks for Saving Our House John Carlton Babbs III: “It Was Easily the Most Pucker Moment of My Career” Roelof R. Snieder: “Give Somebody Your Confidence” John A. Seward: “You’re Getting Paid For This. I’m Not” Jason Richard Puffett: Lead From the Front Joe Auster: A Mentor, Friend, and Collaborator

The Fire Within: Engineer Gregg Sheehan Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

185

Dedication and Service

Scott G. Mefford “Thanks for Saving Our House” Scott Mefford’s initiation into the fire service was about as jackleg as it gets.

Twenty-five years old, Mefford was fresh out of the Army, spending the summer during grad school at the Colorado School of Mines working high in the Rocky Mountains at a ranch near Fairplay, Colorado.

The region is known for its trout fishing, hunting, ancient bristlecone pine tree clusters, and wildflower meadows.

When a fire broke out near Jefferson Lake, ultimately scorching 375 acres, the smoke could be seen from many miles away.

Mefford spotted dark clouds rising, and curiosity drew him to the one-room-schoolhouse town of Jefferson to discover what was happening.

This little green pickup shows up from the Forest Service, and the driver says, “Okay, we need volunteers. Let’s go.”

That’s how they fought fires. They’d just go clean out the bars and the gas stations and scrounge up volunteers anywhere they could. They’d give you a tin hat, and they’d take your Social Security number, and you’d go. Your PPE [Personal Protective Equipment] was whatever you happened to be wearing when you signed up.

The first fire I went on with them, we had to hike in quite a ways. So all the training I got on tool order and how to use the tools and all this stuff a Forest Service guy explained as I was hiking in. That was my total training.

Mefford and the other transient volunteers worked through the night battling the blaze.

Despite the fatigue and the stench that lingered on his clothing for days, Mefford enjoyed the experience, which reminded him of his enlisted days.

Being in the Army and going through all that was kind of fun, too, in terms of all the equipment and stuff that you got to mess around with.

When the U.S. Forest Service finally sent Mefford payment for his participation, the check was for $18.

Like Bill Easterling, Mefford spent so many years with Genesee Fire Rescue and, since 2015, serving as a member of the Genesee Fire Protection District Board, that his contributions have become an inseparable part of the department’s DNA, inspiring and influencing generations of firefighters and leaders within the company.

A Colorado native, Mefford moved to Genesee from Wheat Ridge around 1984 and joined the department in 1994. At the time, the department was just transitioning from calling itself the “Genesee Fire Department” to “Genesee Fire Rescue.” Adding “Rescue” was a trend being embraced by many fire agencies nationwide.

186

2008-2023 Mefford’s first chief was Sandy Schumacher. Cleve Joiner was her deputy, and Aaron Sirbin ran the rookie Academy, which consisted of nine trainees, none with the least amount of fire experience but all energetic and dedicated.

I just came in out of the blue one day and talked to Cleve. ‘Hey, are you interested at all in more people?’ I asked. They didn’t have the big sign out that said, “Volunteers Needed” at the time. It was more of a private club sort of thing, and I didn’t quite know what I was getting into. Cleve said, “You bet. Here, fill this out.” And so I did.

Mefford would spend two decades running calls with his fellow volunteers. Even after he retired in 2013 at age 64 and was no longer technically an active member of the company, he would ride along sometimes, serving as an unofficial advisor.

Mefford’s degree was in geophysical engineering. He worked as a groundwater hydrologist who eventually formed his own Golden-based consulting firm, Hydrokinetics, Inc., which provided technical expertise in groundwater engineering and geology.

When Matt Solano’s two-year term as chief ended, Mefford was in line to replace him. However, a devastating family tragedy struck in Februay 2005 when Mefford’s 13-year-old son Jack, who had helped collect “Fill the Boot” donations after 9/11 and was a frequent presence at the firehouse from an early age, died.

Both Genesee Fire Rescue personnel and a crew from Highland Rescue responded to the accident at the Mefford home.

“Jack was a great kid. To those of us who knew him it was an unbelievable tragedy,” recalls one of the GFR responders.

“I’ll never forget that night, but I want to forget all the details.”

As fate would have it, at least two other times members of GFR and Highland Rescue responded to fatality incidents that involved a team member or the family of a team member. Moreover, since Genesee is a small, tight-knit community, GFR volunteers have often responded when the call came from neighbors or friends. Being on hand for them is doubly rewarding and stressful.

Says Mefford: I have a hard time talking about this, but suffice it to say, whenever there is a death in the department to a firefighter or close family member, then more than any other time the members close ranks and provide support.

A wound like the Mefford family experienced never heals. In its aftermath, however, Mefford found renewed purpose in being on hand to assist other residents of Genesee in their hours of need and, sometimes, grief. He recalls one incident that has stuck with him, even though it wasn’t particularly exceptional.

I was at a call in the middle of the night, and I can’t even remember whose house or where it was, but some lady’s husband had a stroke. And she pulled me aside and said, “I don’t know what I would have done if you guys hadn’t shown up.” It’s those kinds of calls, I think, that make you want to do it.

Mefford especially loved going out to battle out-of-district wildland fires.

I can remember just about every wildland call I was ever on just because they were fun and interesting and different. We came out of the Black Mountain Fire and there were a bunch of kids that had a Kool-Aid stand set up there. They said, 187

Dedication and Service “Thanks for saving our house.” And they were handing out Kool-Aid.

Rather than precede Fritz Ihrig as chief as he was in line to do before his son’s passing, Mefford followed him, leading the department from 2008 to 2010. Like his predecessors, Mefford met frequently with the chiefs of nearby fire agencies and aimed to maintain cordial relations with the companies.

One issue that arose early in his service as chief pitted Mefford against the chief of Foothills Fire and Rescue.

A Genesee homeowner phoned Mefford to complain that he had been billed for emergency medical services. Only it wasn’t GFR that sent the invoice, it was Foothills Fire and Rescue, which had provided mutual aid during the incident.

Genesee didn’t, and still doesn’t, charge its residents — or the residents of any other community — when it responds to emergencies.

I created something of a fray with the Foothills chief and board over this. We always provided mutual aid to their district for free and we expected the same in return.

While the dust up went unnoticed by most Genesee residents, the actions of Mefford and the Genesee Fire Protection District (GFPD) board saved community homeowners tens of thousands of dollars in the years since. They also cemented a quid pro quo for mutual aid between Genesee and Foothills, as well as other mountain companies, that remains in force to this day.

The GFPD board deserves a great deal of credit for the service it provides both to the fire department and the community at large.

Under Colorado law, the fire district is a taxing authority, and the sole governing body of Genesee Fire Rescue. The five members of the Board, who are not compensated, are elected to four-year terms by residents and accept responsibility for selecting GFR’s chiefs, approving the department’s budgets, establishing the taxes that homeowners and businesses must pay, and complying with a variety of county and state regulations.

Mefford has come to understand the operations of the GFPD board better than most Genesee firefighters, having interacted regularly with the council as chief, and then, in 2015, joining the board itself. Since 2019, he has served as the president of GFPD. Originally the GFPD board was composed primarily of active members of the fire department. That presented the potential for conflicts of interest. Among them was having senior members of the fire force asking for taxpayer provided funds and then sitting on the panel to decide whether to authorize the proposed budget.

Over time, GFPD adopted the rule that no active member of GFR could serve simultaneously on the board. This resulted in subsequent boards of directors, most of whom had no active fire service background. However, it added diversity and unique experience to the board in areas such as medicine, law, business, finance, and management.

Still having retired volunteers on the council to represent the interests and needs of the cadre of active firefighters, as Mefford points out, is a valuable asset.

I can explain to the board the history and why we’re doing this and how we’re doing this and what the firefighters need 188

2008-2023 more easily than people who haven’t been volunteers. I think that’s an important perspective to have on the board.

Mefford and the other board members often have to strike a delicate balance trying to satisfy the needs of the fire department and tax-paying residents, with both groups at times unable to reach a consensus among themselves.

Some residents strongly oppose raising the mill levy on their property, for example. While others, seeking to maintain and grow the capabilities of the fire department, are supportive of paying whatever it takes. Explains Mefford: The board is ultimately the arbiter. It has to make all those decisions to try and keep everybody happy to the degree that they can. These kinds of issues come up more or less constantly.

Another issue that frequently has come before the board in recent years has been the use of GFR personnel and an apparatus to attend out-of-district and out-of-state wildfires.

Why, some residents ask, should GFR, with comparatively limited human and equipment resources, be using either outside its prime coverage area?

That’s a question that we as a board have wrestled with and discussed many times.

The justification comes down to two reasons, according to Mefford.

It helps us to get personal experience, especially in wildland stuff, because we’re in an area which is very susceptible to large wildland fires.

But we have not had fires in our district in recent years. So unless we send firefighters to outside fires, we don’t develop volunteers, especially young firefighters, with a lot of experience. We’ve got people with training, but it’s a lot different going out on a real fire. That’s why the experience they gain fighting fires in somebody else’s backyard is so valuable to us.

The other explanation is that GFR (the department), the volunteers, and even the company’s salaried personnel, are compensated by the federal government for their out-of-district assistance.

This is actually a profit center for many front-range departments now. While this is not a large profit center for us, we do get paid for the use of our equipment and firefighters. The practice more than breaks even financially and provides some funds to help maintain the department.

Most importantly, perhaps, for the volunteers who are selected to travel out of state, the multi-week assignments are a welcome change of pace compared with the typical incidents they handle in the Genesee district. Says Mefford: I loved doing it. It’s interesting and it’s fun work. You can go out and you can get the experience and you meet a lot of other firefighters and learn some stuff and see new equipment. There is a lot of benefit to that and it really doesn’t cost us anything.

189

Dedication and Service

John Carlton Babbs III “It Was Easily the Most Pucker Moment of My Career” Leadership runs in Carlton Babbs’s blood.

In both official and unofficial capacities, he stepped up to serve as a role model and provide guidance to his fellow volunteers for much of the 17 years he volunteered with Genesee Fire Rescue. He served as chief from 2010 to 2012, retiring from the force in 2020.

Babbs wasn’t intimidated by authority, whether in his own department, meeting with the Genesee Fire Protection District board, or interacting with the other area fire chiefs.

I never hesitated to make a decision or make a suggestion to one of my superiors if I thought it would keep our guys out of harm’s way.

Babbs shared his 2003 rookie training class, led by Aaron Sirbin, with fellow GFR members, including Matt Pantaleo, Josh Meneses, and Kara Cooper. Recruits from the Foothills and Clear Creek fire departments were also in the joint Academy. The friendships he established with firefighters in the other two departments would prove valuable throughout his time with GFR. The very first call Babbs went on after becoming a GFR officer exhibited his take-charge mettle.

His pager went off around 3:00 a.m. Since he and his wife, Maia, lived only two houses away from the Genesee fire station, Babbs was the first to arrive.

I had just become a lieutenant. So, I run to the station. It’s a chimney fire. I jump in the front seat of the old Engine 1. Mike Sparks was the D/O (driver/operator). The call was down in Genesee Village. I could see flames probably 50 feet in the air.

It was easily the most pucker moment of my career because here I am, a new officer, and all of a sudden, it got real.

Babbs kept his emotions in check. He and Sparks, with a couple of other volunteers who rode along in the back of the truck, made the decision to bypass nearby fire hydrants and attack the flames head on using the Engine 1 fire tank. It was a gutsy choice.

Even as other firefighters from Foothills Fire and Rescue showed up to lend mutual aid, Babbs remained in command of the operation.

I cut my teeth on that call and we saved the house. Nobody got injured, which was a big thing.

Babbs’s leadership talents, during that incident and others, did not go unnoticed.

When Scott Mefford sought to identify an officer to eventually replace him as GFR chief, he cast his eye on Babbs.

Mefford asked me if I’d be willing to do it and I said, “Yes.” I was a young guy and I ended up leapfrogging a couple of 190

2008-2023 guys that were not happy about it.

Babbs served as Mefford’s assistant for a year before ascending to the top post. A self-acknowledged Type-A personality, he persisted in running the department as he thought best, even when that meant having to push back against the wishes of others.

As chief, I’m responsible for everything. I made my own decisions because I wanted them to be mine for better or worse. I wanted to make sure I was engaged in everything I was going to be responsible for.

Doing the right thing, even if it was not the popular choice, was a hallmark of Babbs’s grandfather and namesake, the Reverend Dr. John Carlton Babbs.

Like his grandson, the Reverend Babbs was a community servant, ministering — along with his wife Harriett Herron Babbs — to the congregants of Denver’s Park Hill United Methodist Church from 1955 to his death in 1978.

The Reverend Babbs’s posting could have been a cushy one, Park Hill being an upper-middle-class neighborhood and his church, at its apex, numbering several thousand members. But the pastor drew the ire of some members of his congregation, who left when he began going door-to-door in the neighborhood, inviting newly arrived Black residents to join his nearly all-white church.

One door he knocked on was that of Juanita and Cartelyou Walls, formerly of Little Rock, Arkansas.

Juanita had worked as a secretary in the Office of Public Housing, and Cartelyou, a World War II veteran, was a mason.

The Walls’s home was bombed in 1960, after their 17-year-old daughter, Carlotta, three years earlier, joined with eight other Black students to be the first to integrate Little Rock Central High School. The students came to be known as the “Little Rock Nine.”

Cartelyou, unable to find work in the wake of the controversy, moved his family to Denver.

As Carlotta, the eldest of three sisters, wrote in her autobiography (co-authored by Lisa Frazier Page), A Mighty Long Way: One day, Mother answered a knock at the door and found Reverend J. Carlton Babbs, pastor of Park Hill United Methodist Church, standing there. He told Mother that he had heard we were new to the neighborhood, and he invited us to worship with his congregation.

The previous homeowners were among his members, and they must have told him about us. My parents thought it was such a gracious gesture that all of us attended services the following Sunday.

When we got there, we saw only white families. We learned later that just one black family was among the three-thousand-member congregation and that Dr. Babbs was reaching out to the new neighbors in an effort to integrate his congregation.

Carlotta married Ira C. LaNier in 1968 and the couple has two children. As of 2009, when she wrote A Mighty Long 191

Dedication and Service Way, her family was still attending Park Hill United Methodist Church. The congregation dedicated its Babbs Memorial Chapel in tribute to the reverend.

Writing for skimag.com in March 2021, Ben Stuart showcased Carlton Babbs as an example of “Why Skiers Give the Best Business Advice.”

Babbs, a long-time financial executive and lifelong skier, has been a regular presence in Vail, Colorado, both on the slopes and in the ski village. Wrote Stuart: Carlton was born to socialize and is constantly hosting groups of friends and acquaintances from all over for ski weekends in Vail. I’ve been fortunate to attend countless gatherings with Carlton, and it’s always fascinating on these trips to see the types of personalities and behaviors that emerge on the mountain.

What most impressed Stuart, however, was Babbs’s recognition that there is a right way and a wrong way to complain, insights that came in handy during Babbs’s time with Genesee Fire Rescue, where complaints among volunteers, board members, and residents were as common as deer foraging for food at dusk.

Inevitably, there are some who exist in a constant state of complaint—“Hey, Carlton, my hands are cold;” “My boots are too tight”; “These skis are too long”; and so on. Then there are those who handle themselves very differently—and I don’t mean they suffer silently. Rather, they approach their situations differently. It’s more like, “Hey, Carlton, do you mind if I pop in the lodge quickly and adjust my boot?” or “Will you guys wait while I stop in the lodge and run my hands under some hot water?”

It didn’t take too many ski trips with Carlton to see a clear trend emerge. The complainers were almost always left to go to the lodge alone and catch up with the group later, but the requesters were graciously allowed to solve their issue while the group waited patiently.

Even though Babbs’s leadership style rubbed some in Genesee Fire Rescue and its neighboring agencies the wrong way, he regarded it an essential part of his duties to be a peacemaker.

Of note, when Babbs became chief, he inherited a somewhat fractious relationship between Genesee Fire Rescue and Foothills Fire and Rescue. Among the antecedents were GFR’s decision not to join the other three mountain companies that merged to form Foothills in 1997, and Mefford’s stiff-arm refusal to let the Foothills fire department charge Genesee residents for emergency calls arising in Genesee.

One of my primary goals once I established myself on the fire department was to try and repair that relationship and create better cooperation between the two departments.

It helped that as Babbs rose through the ranks of Genesee Fire Rescue, some of those in his rookie Academy class became officers and veteran firefighters at Foothills, including twins Brad and Dave Danek, and Adam Goldman. Likewise, on mutual aid calls over the years, Babbs became friendly with — and had a lot of respect for — several members of Foothills, including Dave and Pati Stajcar.

While the potential for tension between Genesee’s fire chiefs and its governing board always existed, Babbs used his business skills to maintain a cordial and productive work relationship.

192

2008-2023 My interaction with the board was always very positive. I was always very prepared. I was always very focused, fact-focused. I tried not to be emotional about things. And so I think the board recognized that.

The Board undoubtedly also appreciated Babbs’s willingness — before, during, and after serving as chief — to take up any slack among those in GFR who, due to outside professional or family obligations, needed help fulfilling their firefighting responsibilities.

Carlton and Maia Babbs are a dynamic duo, both successful financial professionals and deeply dedicated to community service.

They met and, in July 1997, married in Prague, Czech Republic. She was a graduate student at Tufts University, working overseas as a paralegal for a British law firm, and he, who always had wanted to live abroad, was a senior account executive at a small professional services concern.

Their frightful experiences on September 11, 2001 — at the time, both were living in Manhattan and witnessed the nightmarish destruction of the Twin Towers — hastened their decision to relocate to Colorado. Maia’s grandparents, whom she visited every summer, lived on Lookout Mountain, and Carlton is a native of the Centennial State.

The couple arrived in Genesee in April 2002, purchasing a home on Snowberry Drive, just behind the fire station.

Maia is a chartered financial analyst who worked in institutional asset and wealth management for more than two decades before founding her own firm, Lariat Wealth Management, in 2021. While Maia never volunteered as a Genesee firefighter, like dozens of other “civilians” over the years, she contributed to the well-being of the department as an elected member of the Genesee Fire Protection District board.

GFR Chief Jason Puffett approached Maia, asking that she bring her financial acumen to the district’s board. She agreed and subsequently was elected. Beginning in March 2018, she served as treasurer until the Babbs family moved to Denver in early 2020.

Carlton and Maia’s daughter, Cara, born in April 2006, spent lots of time with her dad at the Genesee firehouse from the time she was a little girl. Maia credits Carlton for looking after Cara when she was not in school so that Maia could concentrate on her demanding career.

Cara, scheduled to graduate high school in 2024, is a varsity swimmer at Colorado Academy in Lakewood. Maia says her daughter takes after Carlton.

She is a highly competent leader, one of those people who just keep their cool in an emergency.

Maia’s assessment is seconded by Erin Carlson, a foreign language teacher at Colorado Academy, who wrote this about Cara on the school’s website: You have a unique understanding of the world that comes from having an old soul; you are a fun, fearless, and compassionate leader who is always willing to take on the toughest challenges.

The same can be said of Cara’s parents.

193

Dedication and Service

Roelof R. Snieder “Give Somebody Your Confidence” A native of the Netherlands, Roel Snieder spoke with an accent. He didn’t always pick up on American idioms or the puerile sense of humor of some of his fellow volunteers, for whom playful ribbing was as much a part of the fire service as self-contained breathing apparatuses.

GFR Volunteer: Do you have any naked pictures of your wife?

Chief Snieder: No. GFR Volunteer: Well, do you want one?

Chief Snieder: You have a picture of Idske?

It was a stupid joke which would be frowned upon if repeated today.

But even then, those who got a chuckle out of making Snieder the butt of their humor would readily acknowledge that their colleague was one of the smartest and most likable individuals to ever serve as a GFR chief.

“Roel is about as good a person that I think you are going to meet,” confirms Matt Solano, who served alongside Snieder for more than six years.

Snieder, a professor then and now at the Colorado School of Mines, is the former director of the university’s Center for Wave Phenomena, and the co-author of several academic books, including A Guided Tour of Mathematical Methods for the Physical Sciences, available in English and Japanese. His system for and method of monitoring properties of a fluid flowing through a pipe is patented (US Patent 8,020,428).

Fortunately, Snieder took all the teasing in stride and, actually, his time with GFR is perhaps best remembered for his (admittedly lame) sense of humor.

Even before his two-year term as chief began in 2012, Snieder made a habit of sharing a joke on the ride back to the station following an emergency call — often broadcasting between apparatus over GFR’s two-way radios. Like backseat teens asking the driver to play a song, the volunteers implored Snieder to crack a joke to help them decompress.

It became sort of a tradition that I would tell a joke on the way back. And to be honest, most of my jokes were groaners. I don’t think people asked because the jokes were so funny, because they weren’t. But it was a moment to unwind.

I mean, you know that feeling that you’re going back from a call, and sometimes adrenaline has been rushing, or other times you’ve been bored out of your mind, and you’re just happy the call is over? I mean, all sorts of things can happen.

And in general, we’re happy to go back after a call. It was always a moment of relaxation. And I would tell a joke.

Snieder’s specialty was Belgian jokes — which in the age-old tradition of jests poking fun at the supposed imbecility of virtually every ethnic, religious, and national group — focused on the supposed inanities of the people of Belgium, the 194

2008-2023 country that shares a 280-mile border with the Netherlands.

Snieder, interviewed in late 2022, wasn’t inclined to repeat any of the specific jokes he told. But they were along these lines: The King of Belgium visits the King of the Netherlands and laments that the Dutch people always make fun of the Belgian people. “Can’t you just do something ridiculously stupid? That way we have something to make fun of you. Just build a bridge in the middle of the desert. That would be so dumb.”

The King of the Netherlands admits that the Dutch tend to make a lot of dumb Belgian jokes and that he can probably do something to help out. So he builds a bridge in the middle of the desert, and the Belgians are slapping their thighs, laughing at those stupid people from the Netherlands.

After a period of time, the King of Belgium returns to the King of the Netherlands and says, “Well done, we had a good laugh, now you can remove the bridge.”

The King of the Netherlands replies, “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” and the Belgian asks, “Well why not?”

“There are Belgians fishing on the bridge.”

Ba-dum, ba-dum.

Roel Snieder loved being a firefighter. From childhood, he was mesmerized by the waltzes and pirouettes of a flame dancing a fevered tango with the surrounding cool air. At eight years old, the Dutch police cautioned the intelligent youngster for lighting fires when he shouldn’t have been playing with matches.

As a kid, I was always building fires — not putting something on fire, but building fires at places where it was not wise to build fires.

As GFR’s chief, however, Snieder was acutely aware of the peril that fire presents. He feared that making a mistake or overlooking a danger on his watch might cost lives.

It was a responsibility that was really weighing down on me. And the first concern was just safety. I mean, I knew when I became chief, I never wanted to put on that nice white shirt and have to go and tell a spouse that something horrible had happened.

On reflection, Snieder didn’t recognize the synergies between his academic career and being a firefighter.

But his analytical mind, always searching for better methods and solutions, did inform his firefighting instincts. Here is one example of him describing how his thought process worked: One thing I would always do on a medical call where you need to get somebody out of a house. And there might be complicated stairs that you need to navigate. But I would always walk around to see if there were any other points of access or egress from the house. And there were so many calls where I would say, “Why don’t we just go in the walk-out basement?”And then we could carry the gurney with six people. And it’s so much easier than to navigate stairs and horrible 195

Dedication and Service corners.”

Most people would be so caught up in, “Okay, how do we [navigate] the stairs?” that they wouldn’t think of other solutions.

While most of the calls that GFR responds to are routine, that isn’t always the case.

It often is completely different from what you expect. And then you’re just managing chaos in the beginning. And your job [as the incident commander] is to create order out of this chaos. And on the one hand, I found this very scary, but I also found it very exciting. And so you have to really focus on keeping your head cool.

Snieder’s wife, Idske Hiemstra, an immunologist by profession, had to put the brakes on her husband’s near obsessive tendency to respond every time GFR was summoned to an incident.

And at one point, I was going out on a call again, and my wife physically got in the way in the kitchen. She says, “Where are you going?” I said, “There’s a call.” She says, “I know, but who’s on watch?” And I mentioned it was the overseer on watch. And my wife asked, “Can she handle it?” I said, “Absolutely.” And she says, “Give her your confidence.”

I thought it was such a great lesson, because it also made me aware that giving people your confidence is a way of empowering them, and it’s a way, almost, of giving them a present.

So I love that word. Give somebody your confidence. So that really changed me. And I’m really grateful to my wife for doing this.

On April Fools’ Day each year, Snieder, as Genesee Fire Rescue’s unofficial jokemeister, could always be counted on to come up with a prank.

One hoax, unintended, exposed the profound loyalty of GFR volunteers.

Snieder tore his ACL and that year, in reality, was scheduled for reconstructive surgery on April 2nd.

As a prank, he sent a message to the entire GFR squad seeking someone to donate a ligament. The words may not be exact, but here’s how he recalls the dispatch: So I wrote [to the prospective donors], “You’re going to be at the hospital for a couple of hours and you’re going to be sore for a little while, for a couple of weeks maybe, but you will not have any stitches on it because they’re going to take the ligament out using radius graft transfer.”

There is no such thing as a radius graft transfer.

I just made it up, but I thought, ‘Okay, that’s the giveaway”. That’s a joke, right? I had three people call me and it was sort of embarrassing. They said, “I’m happy to donate and go with you to the hospital to give you a ligament.”

I had to tell them that it was a joke, and I felt horrible.

But the experience didn’t dissuade Snieder from repeating his first of April practical jokes, which resulted in the volun196

2008-2023 teers devising their own devious payback.

The year was 2006, and across the country, millions of people took to the streets to protest proposed changes to the nation’s immigration policies.

Being an immigrant from the Netherlands, Snieder — a GFR officer but not yet chief — thought it would be funny to message his GFR colleagues.

Let’s also march in Genesee.

For good measure, he added that the department could take one of its engines down to the nearby interstate and block off the road in a show of solidarity with the actual protesters.

It was obviously so crazy and irresponsible that I thought it was clear this was a joke.

Indeed, several fellow firefighters who knew Snieder’s sense of humor messaged back.

Oh, good joke.

But not everyone was laughing.

The head of Snieder’s department at the Colorado School of Mines came to him not long after his April Fools’ Day gag.

Roel, you’ve got a big problem. The Colorado State Police want to talk to you.

Two captains from the Colorado State Police were waiting for Snieder in the School of Mines’ campus security headquarters. Their demeanor was deadly serious.

I was really scared. They chewed me out for like an hour on how irresponsible this was.

Some very sleepless nights ensued for Snieder, who worried that he might have been taken seriously by some.

Things went through my mind, like, “Okay, suppose somebody else has seen that email message. And now you have people who start blocking the highway. Maybe that email message could have spread around, and who knows? It can lead a life of its own.”

Snieder may have been an expert on using quantitative methods to analyze the physical processes and properties of the Earth, and he would go on to become a well-respected chief of Genesee Fire Rescue. Still, it took him nearly three years to realize that he had been punked in a scheme hatched by his fellow firefighters.

The two state patrol officers and his School of Mines department head were in on the gag all along, and no one outside GFR ever saw Snieder’s message or was at risk of taking it seriously.

197

Dedication and Service

John A. Seward “You’re Getting Paid For This. I’m Not.” For someone who had no intention of becoming a firefighter, John Seward’s nearly 20 years on the Genesee Fire Rescue squad found him in 2023, the last GFR volunteer standing from his 2004 rookie Academy.

I never had an interest in it.

Fate, however, had different ideas.

For starters, Seward was born into a family where both his father and grandfather had been firefighters. Then, when relocating to Genesee in 2002, Seward and his wife Donna unknowingly settled on a block — Snowberry Drive — that was deep in the heart of GFR territory, closeby to the fire station and home to five Genesee Fire Rescue families, including neighbors to the Sewards’ immediate left and right.

Even so, Seward was not an easy convert. He resisted the entreaties of his fellow homeowners for almost two years — especially persistent neighbor Roel Snieder — until, to put a halt to their pestering, he finally said ‘yes.’

Eight years later, after serving as Snieder’s assistant, he would become GFR’s chief.

Seward’s early hesitations aside, he acknowledges that his time with Genesee Fire Rescue has proven rewarding.

I’ve met some of the most amazing people doing this. That was the bonus for me. I never expected that when I joined. I thought, “Oh, I’ll get to see what my dad experienced and it will be a good way to get involved in the community.” But it became more of a lifestyle for me.

Whether responding to structure fires, medical emergencies, or wildfires, Seward says volunteering as a firefighter has exposed him to experiences that few civilians ever have.

Just to see how people deal with being put under stress is pretty amazing; to see how we can all come together and look out for each other. We experience things that most people don’t get to experience.

Moreover, Seward explains firefighters have the confidence that they are never on their own.

I’ve got a whole team behind me, and I have somebody to fall back on.

Seward adds that looking out for one another extends well beyond the fireground. It’s a 24/7 commitment, especially for fire department officers.

Somebody’s having trouble in their marriage; they have a drinking problem, they get cancer, or a family member passes, whatever. There are all sorts of things that happen, and you’ve got to be there and try to do the best you can for them.

198

2008-2023 When Roel Snieder passed the chief’s medallion to John Seward in 2014, in theory, Snieder was supposed to remain on hand for an additional two years as an assistant chief, supporting his successor.

However, Snieder, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines, accepted an academic position in Germany and left Chief Seward to navigate his way without the assistance of his immediate predecessor.

Seward did just fine.

Like previous Genesee chiefs, at times, Seward found himself at odds with neighboring department chiefs, Genesee Fire Protection District directors, and, inevitably, members of his own department.

Seward didn’t hide his feelings.

When the chief of a nearby fire agency wanted to undertake a study to determine if his department and Genesee would do better building their own alternative to the Jefferson County dispatch system, Seward agreed to contribute half the budget — about $7,000 — to explore the possibility.

We found out that it was not really going to work out, and we decided that we were going to go with JeffCom. He was livid about it.

I told him, “You’re getting paid for this. I’m not. I’m not going to put up with this anymore. It’s not worth my time.”

Seward is a Colorado native who has enjoyed a long career as a commercial real estate appraiser, and in recent years, as an investor and owner in several residential apartment buildings. He is an outdoorsman who enjoys camping, skiing, mountain biking, and surf casting.

Although his nine-to-five job often requires him to wear business attire, he never believed his volunteer time should oblige him to adhere to a business dress code.

I know there were people that just couldn’t stand me. They would say, “You don’t get dressed up for the board meetings.

You’re not sitting here kissing our ass.” My attitude was, “F#*k you. “You know what, you’re my board member; I appreciate that. I appreciate the work you do, but you [have to] work with me.”

Seward found himself in what he described as a tug-of-war between entrenched interests held by some volunteers and board members and those, like him, who sought to decouple from what they believed were outmoded ways of running the company.

Our attitude was out with the old, in with the new. We’re going to move on.

It took Seward the better part of his first year as chief to bring the department around, but his way ultimately prevailed.

I think it couldn’t have worked out better. This department is the best it’s ever been.

199

Dedication and Service

Jason Richard Puffett Lead From the Front One characteristic of Genesee Fire Rescue, more than any other, accounts for its survival as a top-notch independent fire company, even as a growing number of volunteer departments throughout Colorado and around the nation have found it necessary to combine or be subsumed into large metropolitan departments to survive.

GFR does not remain locked in the past.

Every aspect of GFR has evolved to meet the needs of the times, including its engines, firehouse, training, personal protective equipment, interagency relationships, and internal organizational structure.

The most dramatic of these progressions — and the biggest departure from tradition — was the department’s decision in 2017 to abandon its devotion to having volunteers lead the company, to be replaced by a full-time paid chief.

For many veterans on the force and retirees, it came as a culture shock. Yet progress would not and could not wait if GFR was to continue to provide excellent emergency response to its constituents.

The prior system which at one time worked so well — a six-year rotation in which a volunteer spent two years apprenticing for the top job, two years serving as chief, and a final two years coaching the next chief — proved increasingly unworkable.

Observes Jason Puffett, who served as GFR’s volunteer chief from 2015 to July 2017 and then was hired as the company’s first full-time paid head of the department: A two-year cycle is an opportunity [for volunteers] to be exposed to the role of being chief, but it doesn’t allow you to do anything with that role. You can’t do a whole lot in two years. And when you have [successive chiefs] come in with varying visions, what happens is nothing gets done.

One example: Although a devastating wildfire is unquestionably the most significant threat facing the Genesee community, before Puffett became chief it had been more than a decade since Genesee’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) was revised to reflect changing conditions and priorities.

Updating the CWPP is a laborious task, one that among all their other priorities was understandably impossible to fit in for two-year chiefs. Among the procedures an effective CWPP covers are risk assessment, community preparedness, fire safety standards, lines of communication, removal of trees and other vegetation that might fuel a fire, coordination with neighboring departments, and — significantly — evacuation plans.

Even more to the point, with a new GFR chief every third year, long-term initiatives — such as the CWPP — are neglected or abandoned altogether. Explains Puffett: It’s a matter of having someone in that seat who has a long-term vision and is able to steer the ship over the course of time.

Even bringing a new fire engine online is a process — from planning to budget approval to build to integration — that stretches beyond a single chief’s term.

200

2008-2023 There were plenty of other compelling reasons to find a full-time chief, including the important difference that Puffett describes between leading GFR as a volunteer and leading it as a full-time job.

The other aspect is accountability. As a volunteer chief for two years, if something happens: “Fine, I’m a volunteer. It doesn’t really matter.”

As a full-time paid chief: “This is my career.”

While GFR installed a new commander biennially, Fairmount Fire and Rescue, Evergreen Fire Rescue, and other nearby fire departments relied on paid, long-term leaders. Asks Puffett: Why would a neighboring chief invest in a volunteer chief who’s going to be gone in two years? It takes you a year just to figure the place out. And then you’re on the down side. So really two years was just not enough time to get anything accomplished. And as a result, we were very stagnant for a lot of years.

The departure in 2017 of Bill Easterling, who had spent 23 years with GFR as a firefighter, chief, administrator and fire marshal, more or less forced the hand of the Genesee Fire Protection District board to reconsider its six-year, volunteer chiefs rotation protocol.

The evolution to a paid chief was long overdue. It likely would have happened years earlier, only Easterling’s devotion to the department and his knowledge and experience with every aspect of the agency allowed GFR to maintain steady operations even if at times, as one volunteer put it, the man in charge “had the hat but not the cattle.”

Meanwhile, Puffett, who had succeeded John Seward as the volunteer chief after Seward’s two-year stint, was ready for a career change.

Born in Minnesota, Puffett earned his bachelor of science degree from the University of Minnesota, and after relocating to Colorado in 1999, his master’s degree from the Colorado School of Mines. In 2000, he married his college girlfriend, Emily.

Puffett spent two decades as a water process engineer, traveling throughout the United States and the Western Hemisphere, serving a wide variety of clients ranging from Pepsi and Coke to Facebook and Microsoft.

The work was good, but I wasn’t passionate about it.

Seward, the last volunteer chief before Puffett, recalls one of his first responsibilities on assuming GFR’s leadership mantel: They would always say as soon as you get in as chief, it’s time for you to start looking for your replacement, so I did, pretty much immediately.

Unlike Seward, a third-generation firefighter, no one in Puffett’s family or ancestry had ever served as a firefighter.

Yet Seward recognized in Puffett that “X” factor that convinced him early on that he’d identified his successor.

(Continued) 201

JOE AUSTER A MENTOR, FRIEND, AND COLLABORAa TOR The atmosphere at Genesee Pub and BBQ, nestled at the vertex of the community’s sole shopping strip, was jovial. The firefighters of Genesee Fire Rescue, along with their family and friends, gathered in late August 2022 for the company’s annual membership party.

The early evening weather was ideal for socializing on the restaurant’s outdoor patio. Waitstaff circulated among the guests with plates of barbecued meats and deep-fried veggies. The buffet offered beef, chicken, mac and cheese, potato salad, dinner rolls, and chocolate chip cookies. Overhead, on television monitors dotting the taproom, the Denver Broncos faced off against the Minnesota Vikings in a preseason game. The Broncos won 23-13.

With the two tickets each attendee received upon arrival, they could procure wine, beer, or other adult beverages from the pub’s well-stocked bar.

Michael Taggart, a one-man keyboardist and performer, sang a mix of tunes by aging pop artists and groups, including James Taylor, Neil Diamond, Simon & Garfunkel, and Carole King.

The evening was given to camaraderie and celebration of another year of productive, invaluable volunteer service.

The master of ceremonies was GFR’s events coordinator, Captain Mark “Panch’’ Villa, who made all the arrangements for the gathering.

Joe Auster, deputy chief, introduced members of the department who had distinguished themselves since the prior year’s membership celebration.

To warm and genuine applause, each recipient stepped forward and accepted Auster’s firm handshake and a Visa gift card — a token of appreciation.

Those recognized included Engineer Dan Hammock, who keeps all of Genesee’s fire apparatus ready for service; Lieutenant Doug Barenburg, who oversees emergency medical response and training; Lieutenant Peter Greenstone (since promoted to Captain), who helps coordinate the company’s wildland preparedness; and Lieutenant Hank O’Brien, tasked with recruiting new volunteers and the co-author of this volume.

Jeremiah Torbit, a recent graduate from the GFR training academy, came forward to accept his black helmet — signaling that his probationary period was over. Before trainees are admitted as full members of GFR, they wear yellow helmets.

David Olsen, another new member of the company, would also have received his black helmet, but he was traveling and unable to attend.

The Fire Within: Deputy Chief Joe Auster Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

203

Lieutenant Bob Dalton received the second-most enthusiastic round of applause that evening. Officially in charge of the upkeep of GFR’s firehouse, Dalton put in more training hours and responded to more emergency calls than any other volunteer during the prior year. His two-fold achievement earned him two gift cards.

The heartiest round of applause was reserved for Deputy Chief Auster, who received a 20-second standing ovation when Chief Jason Puffett introduced him.

For me personally, Joe is not just a colleague. He’s a mentor, a friend, and a collaborator.

Few of those present, other than Auster himself, likely recognized the irony of the moment.

When he was first interviewed in 2014, hoping to volunteer, the fire chief at the time held out slim hope that Auster had the right stuff.

“Oh, I don’t think they’re going to put that guy in,” cautioned Chief John Seward to former Chief Carlton Babbs. “I don’t think it’s going to work.”

Joe Auster, who turns 64 in November 2023, is a man of many talents — diesel mechanic, electrician, pilot, fire suppression specialist, and more. He is also a superb administrator.

When he and his wife Tracy first moved to Genesee from Chicago in 2006, he wanted to volunteer with Genesee Fire Rescue to lend his expertise and contribute to his new community. Auster had no desire to become a firefighter. He only wanted to help the volunteer company maintain its equipment and utilize his handiwork wherever it might be needed.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” was the essence of the response he received.

As Auster recalls, he was told there were two disqualifying factors.

First, Genesee Fire Rescue wouldn’t let anyone — not even someone as capable as Auster — touch its apparatus or help maintain the firehouse unless they were a firefighter.

And second, even if Auster would relent and agree to join the department, his job with a Colorado-based construction firm had him traveling out of state weekly from Monday through Thursday. With that schedule, Auster couldn’t possibly participate in all the training courses and practice drills required to qualify as a firefighter.

It would take eight years until Auster again presented himself at the Genesee firehouse, seeking to volunteer.

In the interim, tough economic times slapped the Austers hard.

“During the financial crisis, when 2008 hit, I actually moved back to Chicago because I couldn’t find work here.”

Joe and Tracy rented out their Genesee home while they were away.

204

One day, Joe’s boss reached him in Illinois with good news.

“He said, ‘I’ve got a big project in Colorado,’ because he knew I wanted to get back.”

So, in 2014, the Austers once more set out for the mountain vistas, lush woodlands, and fresh air of Genesee.

“As my furniture was on the road coming here [Genesee], the guy called me and said, ‘Oh, we lost the contract, I don’t have any work for you.’”

Being unemployed in Illinois or Colorado offered pretty much the same bleak prospects, so the Austers decided to proceed with their plans to return to Genesee.

“When I came back in 2014, because I was out of a job — I was on unemployment, looking for work — I had plenty of free time.”

As it had in 2006, the sign adorning the Genesee firehouse, “Volunteers Needed,” caught Joe Auster’s attention.

This time, Auster agreed to submit to the rigorous classroom and training requirements to qualify for his firefighter certifications. His Academy required him to be at the station every Saturday and on Wednesday nights, in addition to sporadic emergency calls throughout the week.

It turned out that Joe Auster was a natural.

Within three years, he was promoted to lieutenant and only two years later elevated to the rank of deputy chief.

Auster was not the company’s first deputy to serve alongside Chief Puffett — Gregg Sheehan and Neil Frame preceded him — but since beginning a two-year term in 2021, he has restructured the role into its current, highly effective incarnation.

As deputy chief, Auster became the highest-ranking volunteer in the department. Puffett, Wildland Specialist Lieutenant Dorie Dalton, and Training Chief Ryan Babcock (before his April 2023 departure) are paid members of the company.

Under the model Auster designed, in effect he serves as the company’s chief operating officer. Reporting to Puffett and taking broad direction from him, Auster implements Puffett’s directions.

The whole operation is my responsibility.

The deputy chief is elected by a vote of the volunteers, and, in turn, supervises them. As Auster explains, he is responsible for their training, certifications, performance reviews, and safety.

“The deputy chief role is as much a human relations director as it is anything else.”

205

In theory, the volunteers of Genesee Fire Rescue who vote in the deputy chiefs can also give their leader the boot if they feel he or she isn’t up to the task.

“Volunteers can remove me as quickly as they put me in.”

As the standing ovation Auster received at the membership party in August 2022 suggested, Auster was readily re-elected to a second two-year term by the membership in the spring of 2023.

Joe Auster is an excellent testament to the fact that to be a successful volunteer firefighter, there is no prototypical candidate — tall or short, stocky or slim, male or female, young or not. There is one commonality, however, that every outstanding firefighter must possess: a boundless sense of duty.

Auster has it.

Back when then-Chief Seward and former Chief Carlton Babbs were reviewing Auster’s application to join the force and debating his chances of becoming a successful firefighter, Babbs accurately sensed Auster’s make-up.

“Oh, I don’t think they’re going to put that guy in,” Seward cautioned Babbs. “I don’t think it’s going to work.”

“Are you f&!?n kidding?” Babbs responded. “That guy will be a rockstar.”

And he is.

206

2008-2023 (Continued from page 201) It was an opinion shared by two other previous chiefs, Scott Mefford and Carlton Babbs, who later on strongly influenced the GFPD board to select Puffett as the first paid chief. Says Seward: We got really lucky, and the luckier part about it was Jason’s kids were at the right age, and he wanted to spend more time with them, and he just was burned out on traveling.

Jason Puffett is the embodiment of the honor, integrity, drive, and pride that all volunteer fire departments strive to imbue in their members.

The advancement of the department under Puffett’s command has been unparalleled. Among other achievements, he: • Brought on board Dorie Dalton to be GFR’s first full-time wildland specialist.

• Hired Ryan Babock as a full-time trainer, which in Puffetts’ words “produced some of the best recruits we’ve ever had.”

• Cleared the path for GFR to send volunteers and an apparatus to fight out-of-state federal wildland fires.

Moreover, that list is far from complete, and doesn’t include his ordering three new engines, including a second brush truck that was approved by the GFPD board in December 2022 and as of mid-2023 was still pending delivery.

Less tangible, but of no less importance, Puffett has given volunteers a greater voice in all aspects of the department’s operations, delegating responsibility to his deputy chief, Joe Auster, to be a direct conduit from the volunteers to him and, significantly, to the board of directors.

Explains Puffett: What you don’t want is to have a fire chief tell stories about how everything is great, and not having any checks and balances — the board’s not getting the full story. So I changed our board agenda to provide the deputy chief with the most talking time, the most time interfacing with the board.

This way, the board can hear directly how the volunteers are doing. What’s the health of the department? Are there issues?

What are the different coordinators doing?

And the fire chief is primarily an administrator, responsible for supporting the deputy chiefs, and all that they do. But it’s really to be that figurehead, to be that leader, to help with the volunteers and hold them accountable.

The instructors were scheduled to arrive at the Genesee firehouse at 7:15 a.m., followed by the firefighters at 7:30 a.m.

Together, they would travel in three of the company’s apparatus to the Fairmount Fire Protection District training center, located off Highway 93 in Golden. The center featured a four-story burn building, where the Genesee volunteers would run live fire drills — known in fire fighting parlance as “evolutions” — with an emphasis on advancing fire hoses into the 207

Dedication and Service structure to reach the seat of the fire and bring it under control.

A day earlier, on May 13, 2022, Chief Puffett emailed every Genesee volunteer encouraging them to participate in the optional training.

If you haven’t signed up, I’d encourage you to do so. We’ll run evolutions in the morning and then, for anyone that has interest, lunch is on me. We’ll be done by lunchtime, and the chief is calling you out. No excuses. Bonus — if you beat me, as determined by [Dave] Geralds [who was in charge of the drill], you’re chief for the day!

It was one of the many examples of Puffett’s management style.

I come from the school that you always ‘lead from the front.’

If members of his company could be asked to enter the burn building to extinguish the fire and conduct a search for anyone trapped inside, well, he would don bunker gear and the necessary breathing apparatus and participate in the evolutions, too.

Really, the old adage that you don’t ask others to do something you aren’t willing to do yourself applies. Plus, I love it.

Ordinarily, Ryan Babcock, the training chief, would have supervised the May 14th live fire drills. But Babcock was off fighting an actual out-of-district fire, so Geralds stepped in to take his place.

Geralds’s history with GFR dates back to the mid-to-late 2000s, when, as a member of Foothills Fire and Rescue, Geralds helped run joint training academies with Genesee instructors Aaron Sirbin and Carlton Babbs.

Geralds’s first exposure to firefighting came as a sailor aboard the USS Schenectady. On leaving the Navy, he worked in construction in Illinois for ten years before moving to Colorado and, in 2007, volunteering with Foothills Fire.

When Babbs was chief, although the inter-departmental classes were always held at the Genesee firehouse, Geralds ran the joint training academies. Says Puffett: He encapsulates what it means to be a firefighter. In fact, in my opinion, Dave is one of the best training officers I have ever met.

As of 2022, as Geralds continued to help train GFR members, his paid assignment was as a captain of the Fairmount Fire training division, working alongside its then-chief, Alan Fletcher, a GFR alumnus.

It’s not only Geralds’s skills that impress Puffett and the others who know him, it’s his distinct personality.

“He has that thing very few training officers have,” says Puffett. “It’s that innate trait that allows him to drive you into the ground, and you thank him for it, with a smile.”

So did Geralds judge that any of the volunteers at the May 14th drills beat Puffett and win the bragging rights as “chief of the day?”

208

2008-2023 We’ll never know. Puffet explains, without elaboration, that “we weren’t able to actually compete.”

He did, however, keep his commitment to treat the entire crew to lunch. After cleaning up, they headed to the Genesee Pub and BBQ — a frequent GFR haunt specializing in Texas-style barbecue, fresh seafood, and Colorado draft beer selections.

We sat outside and ate, socialized, and relaxed. Not only are those days physically tough, they are long days away from family. So I like to make sure everyone knows that the district appreciates them, and a nice lunch is a good way to do that.

For all his accomplishments, Puffett is publicity shy, preferring to direct attention to the department and its volunteers.

When he was first named chief, he made an exception, giving an interview to Fred Whitten, a Genesee resident and friend, who profiled the incoming supervisor in the community’s Genescene newsletter. Wrote Whitten: He told me that leading this multi-talented team is an honor that is both rewarding and challenging.

Jason explains, “I most enjoy watching as individuals grow from individual contributors to leaders of others both on and off the fire-ground.

The challenges are many but not insurmountable. As with any organization, the dynamics of leading a diverse group of people will always present challenges but without that dynamic an organization would lose the ideas and experience that comes with it. A common and well-established mission focuses diversity through compromise for the benefit of the greater good.”

Before Whitten moved to Evergreen, his family and the Puffetts used to spend more time together, including at least one camping trip with their children. Whitten wrote: Jason and Emily are hard-working and involved parents that have done a fantastic job raising [their two sons] as polite, young gentlemen.

Due to varying schedules, we don’t get together nearly as often as we would like, but when it does happen, it feels good because you know you’re with humble folks who project great energy and spirit. Good people.

209

SECTION FOUR Backward Glance, Forward Vision

The Fire Within: Fritz Ihrig — 2000 to 2010 Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

211

CHAPTER ONE September 11th Forever Recast the Character of Genesee Fire Rescue

I

t was a sunny, cool autumn morning, the sky a pristine blue.

Carlton Babbs emerged from the fourth-floor Reade Street walk-up where he and his wife, Maia, lived in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. Walking the mile south to his office in the JP Morgan building at 60 Wall Street, the 35-year-old investment banker cut through World Trade Plaza as he did each morning.

Not one block from Carlton and Maia’s apartment stood the nearly one-hundred-year-old majestic red brick, French Renaissance structure that served as a combined station for New York’s Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 and Engine Company 7. It was and remains one of the city’s largest and most historic firehouses.

Carlton and Maia were always within earshot of the station’s vehicle sirens, although Manhattan being Manhattan, no doubt they soon became oblivious to the frequent wailing alarms.

Founded as an all-volunteer company in 1772, Hook & Ladder No. 1 was one of the city’s most noteworthy departments, not solely due to its longevity but also because it helped battle some of the city’s most spectacular fires.

Early that morning, none of the professional firefighters at 100 Duane Street could have anticipated it, but the next few hours would make every prior blaze the 229-year-old force fought look like child’s play.

The first call of the day came into Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 and Engine Company 7 at 8:33 a.m. A strong gas odor was reported less than a mile north of the firehouse.

The firefighters on the first floor rushed to don their bunker gear and helmets while those upstairs slid down the firehouse pole and followed suit.

The two fire companies had worked in close coordination since the city first organized its professional fire department in 1865. Members of both departments responded to the gas odor call with two engines and two ladders. Their chief, Joseph Pfeifer — a battalion commander with management responsibilities for three other firehouses in lower Manhattan, rode along.

213

Dedication and Service As he strolled to work, gas leaks, fires, and fire departments were the last thing on Babbs’s mind.

I was in a great mood. I was really, really happy.

Heightening his joy along the route was the call that Carlton received on his cell phone from his younger brother, Michael, who lived in Denver, informing him that Michael’s wife, Kristin, had just gone into labor with the couple’s second child.

It promised to be a morning Babbs would never forget. Tragically, that proved to be the case for most everyone on the planet, too.

The events that were about to unfold would not only change the course of Carlton and Maia’s lives, but they would also rapidly ripple 1,800 miles to the west, profoundly impacting the Genesee Fire Rescue company, then and to this day.

Babbs, who would join Genesee Fire Rescue in early 2003 and go on to serve two years as its chief, worked in a special unit of JP Morgan known as Lab Morgan. The Denver native and Colorado State University graduate co-managed a portfolio of technology-oriented companies that the investment bank had helped incubate.

Babbs worked in the southwest corner on the 45th floor, one of the uppermost floors in his building. From a nearby conference room, he and his colleagues had an unobstructed view of the Twin Towers, located only a few blocks away, as well as Newark Airport to the far southwest in New Jersey.

Shortly after he arrived at work that morning, the atmosphere of Babbs’s workplace changed markedly.

About a half-dozen of his colleagues began to drift into the conference room, mouths agape, struggling to get a clear understanding of what they were witnessing.

I remember something; something had happened. And we didn’t know what it was.

Moments earlier, American Airlines Flight 11, hijacked by Mohamed Atta and four other al-Qaeda terrorists, slammed into the north face of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, known as WTC 1, hitting between floors 93 and 99 of the 110-story structure.

From his vantage, Babbs could not see the ominous black smoke blasting from the multi-story gash in the South side of WTC 1. What he did observe was the cloudburst of paper swirling around the tower and a massive plume of smoke rocketing high in the sky.

The story was much different for Chief Pfeifer, as he recounted in his 2021 book, Ordinary Heroes: A Memoir of 9/11.

The fire chief was on the northeast corner of Church and Lispenard Streets, using a portable monitor to sniff for gas.

Suddenly, I heard the thunderous roar of jet engines at full throttle. In Manhattan, you rarely hear planes because of the tall buildings. Looking west, I saw a low-flying commercial airliner so close that I could read the word “American” on the fuselage. Racing south above the Hudson River, visible just above the buildings on Church Street, the plane zoomed past us and disappeared from my sight for a couple of seconds behind some taller buildings.

214

September 11th Forever Recast the Character of Genesee Fire Rescue When it reappeared, I saw the aircraft was aiming for the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

It was 8:46 a.m.

United Flight 175 departed from Boston’s Logan International Airport headed for Los Angeles when a separate group of five al-Qaeda hijackers diverted the plane on a fatal course to the South Tower of the World Trade Center, WTC 2.

Babbs and his co-workers were still trying to process the calamity that was taking place at WTC 1 when they heard the ear-splitting roar of airplane engines and caught sight of the sun’s reflection glaring off of an airliner to the southwest of WTC 2.

The plane kind of banked around, and I remember thinking, “Oh, you know, it’s just another plane taking off from Newark.” And it kept banking and banking and banking and, you know what happened next. That, we saw live.

Like other high-rises throughout Manhattan — near the World Trade Center and well up to Midtown — Babbs’s building quickly deactivated the elevators and ordered everyone inside to evacuate. One-hundred and ninety pounds, standing sixfoot-one, Babbs was fit, making the descent down 45 flights of stairs a manageable challenge.

On Wall Street, chaos reigned.

Men and women poured out of every building, most running in the opposite direction of the World Trade Center toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

The North Tower had not yet collapsed when Babbs made the decision to wade upstream along Wall Street back to Church Street and toward home. The traffic lanes, parked cars, and sidewalks were already coated in debris, especially paper.

Babbs passed a jet engine lying in the middle of the street.

It was pretty harrowing.

While landlines and most cell phones went dead in Lower Manhattan, JP Morgan had provided Babbs with a beta test version of the latest Blackberry and, using it, he was able to reach Maia, who was evacuated from the Deutsche Bank Securities office in Midtown, where she was employed.

Along with thousands of other Midtown workers, Maia and one of her colleagues made their way to Brooklyn, some crossing on foot over the Manhattan Bridge, others catching the subway before the system shut down around 10:20 a.m.

When Maia and her colleague arrived at his Brooklyn home, she was dressed in business attire, dusted in ash. His wife lent her casual clothing and comfortable shoes, which she used when she walked back into Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge, heading for a rendezvous with Carlton.

The police had cordoned off the streets leading to Tribeca and wouldn’t allow anyone to pass. It didn’t deter Maia, who explained her circumstances to one policewoman monitoring a barricade. Maia recalls: After I told her I was trying to meet my husband on Church and Reade Street, she didn’t warn me that I wasn’t allowed to pass. At that point, I probably looked pretty desperate because, basically, she looked the other way.

215

Dedication and Service Given his proximity to the North Tower, Chief Pfeifer knew from the moment he witnessed American Airlines Flight 11 slam into the World Trade Center that the burden of command was about to fall on his shoulders, at least temporarily, as the first chief who would arrive on the scene.

And, arguably, no heavier burden — before or since — has ever faced a fire chief. As Chief Pfeifer wrote in Ordinary Heroes: In seconds my mind flooded with a hundred pieces of information as I thought about my next moves. Fighting thousands of fires had taught me to recognize danger, to pick up small details and process them at lightning speed. The more experience you have, the faster you can process the information by matching it to past incidents and envision a possible course of action. But this was a novel event. I had to slow my thinking down and anticipate the unexpected.

With his battalion aide behind the wheel of his red SUV, Chief Pfeifer began radioing orders to the Manhattan emergency dispatcher as he and a convoy of responders blazed south on West Broadway. Four minutes after the first plane hit, wearing bunker pants, knee-high leather boots, and a bulky black turnout coat made of heat-and-flame-resistant fabric, he marched into the lobby of WTC 1.

The soaring six-story lobby, usually festooned with colorful flags of the world, looked like it had been hit by a bomb. The thick floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides of the lobby had been shattered. Shards of glittering glass littered the floors.

Large white-and-gray marble panels had crashed from the walls and lay in broken chunks. One entire bank of elevators had been destroyed by the initial fireball racing down the shaft and exploding into the lobby. But the lights were still functioning. The large space had a faint smell of jet fuel but was clear of smoke.

On the entryway floor sprawled a man and woman, their clothing on fire and skin charred. The woman was screaming.

There was not a thing any of them could do to be of use, but the volunteers of Genesee Fire Rescue began filtering into the firehouse that morning, compelled to share the unfurling events with their comrades.

Soon there were five members of the company, then six, then seven. Among them, Scott Mefford, who had joined Genesee Fire seven years earlier and became the chief well after 9/11.

Mefford was driving to work when he heard the news bulletin on his truck’s radio. He made a U-turn and drove to the Genesee firehouse instead, arriving just as the second plane hit.

Mefford and the others sat transfixed all morning as they watched live coverage on the station’s only television set, which was located in what was then the kitchen.

The mood was quiet, unbelieving.

Bill Easterling was the volunteer chief in Genesee on 9/11, having assumed the responsibility in early 2000. He worked in downtown Denver but was still at home, just out of the shower, when his wife, Tinsley, alerted him to the news.

Hey, come see what happened.

Easterling did a double take when, just after 7:00 a.m. Denver time, he watched as a passenger plane plowed into the upper floors of the World Trade Center.

216

September 11th Forever Recast the Character of Genesee Fire Rescue “Was that an instant replay?” he asked Tinsley.

It wasn’t.

United Flight 175 thundered into WTC 2, the South Tower, at 9:03 a.m. Eastern, killing 51 passengers, nine crewmembers, the five suicide terrorists, and an estimated 600 people at or above the impact zone. Many more lost their lives when WTC 2 pancaked 56 minutes later.

[In all, 2,977 innocent victims perished in the September 11th attacks, including those killed at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The Fire Department of New York lost 343 members on 9/11. As of mid-2023, the death toll of FDNY firefighters who subsequently succumbed to 9/11-related illnesses stood at 329, and climbing.

Said Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, in October 2022: In the last week of the summer, we had a funeral every single day of the week for members that had passed from 9/11-related cancers.]

At 7:37 a.m. Denver time, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all civilian aircraft, even helicopters, to land as soon as possible. It was the first-ever unplanned shutdown of U.S. airspace.

Over the audio blaring from the live TV newscasts, those gathered at the Genesee firehouse could hear the thunderous rumble of low-flying fighter jets patrolling the skies over metropolitan Denver, having been dispatched from one or both of the nearby Air Force bases. Not a single commercial or private aircraft remained airborne after 10:16 a.m. local time.

Powerless to help, and knowing the ruin it would bring to the emergency responders, their families, and the victims of the attacks, the volunteers of Genesee Fire Rescue shared in the horror.

“Watching was tough to do,” Mefford remembers. “But it was where they wanted to be and what they wanted to do when all of this was going on.”

Reflecting on his time as a volunteer and chief with Genesee Fire Rescue, Carlton Babbs says, “I’ve seen things that nobody should see.” Primarily, he is referring to the many deadly vehicle accidents along Interstate-70 near Genesee, where GFR volunteers were called on to provide mutual aid to other responding emergency agencies.

Likewise, virtually everyone who witnessed the death dives of those trapped in the upper floors of the World Trade Center on 9/11, and the subsequent disintegration of the Twin Towers, wishes they could unsee those atrocities.

Carlton and Maia’s Tribeca apartment faced south, affording them a front-row view of Ground Zero. Maia had not yet returned home when the first tower collapsed. Carlton and his neighbors at 92 Reade Street, an old shoe factory that had been converted to lofts, could see that the North Tower was structurally compromised.

We just didn’t know if it would tip over or collapse. So everybody hunkered down in a bathtub.

The Babbses spent three days sheltering in their apartment, monitoring the unfathomable wreckage just down the street 217

Dedication and Service and the makeshift supply depot that the New York Fire Department established just outside their entryway. On the third day, President George W. Bush and his entourage of VIPs arrived at Ground Zero. Speaking through a bullhorn, the President offered words of solace.

I want you all to know that America today is on bended knee, in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn. This nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens.

When a first responder in the crowd shouted, “We can’t hear you,” the president, standing on a pile of still-smoldering rubble, famously replied, “I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

Shortly after, as President Bush worked his way through the throng of rescue workers, he spotted Chief Joseph Pfeifer.

Pfeifer’s brother, Lt. Kevin Pfeifer of Engine Company 33, had exchanged a few words with the chief before climbing the stairs of the North Tower. It was the last Joseph would ever see of Kevin.

The president approached Chief Pfeifer and put his hands on the firefighter’s shoulders.

Mr. President, we can’t find my brother.

Looking at him with what Chief Pfeifer later wrote was “deep empathy,” President Bush replied, “God will provide.”

On the afternoon of 9/11, the volunteers of Genesee Fire Rescue — having had their fill of ghastly images and eyewitness accounts on the television — scrounged around the firehouse to locate the biggest American flag they could find.

Scott Mefford and a few others used a ladder to hang the flag prominently on an outside wall of the station.

In the days that followed, members of GFR launched a “Fill-the-Boot” drive, standing along roadways and at the on- and off-ramps of nearby Interstate-70, asking motorists to toss coins and bills into the footwear to be donated to a 9/11 fund.

Many of the firefighters, their spouses, and even their children solicited drivers. Mefford’s daughter, Anne, and son, Jack — along with his Boy Scout buddies, were among the youngsters who joined the boot brigade.

The fundraising drive eventually concluded, and the flag came down.

From all appearances, life at the Genesee fire department returned to its pre-9/11 self.

Only it hadn’t, and it still hasn’t to this day.

September 11th forever recast the character of Genesee Fire Rescue.

The GFR station remains a gathering place for camaraderie, jokes, and just hanging out.

But since 9/11, there has been a more serious undertone to the firehouse quintessence. What was once inconceivable — firefighters summoned to a deliberate mass, man-made casualty event — no longer is.

218

September 11th Forever Recast the Character of Genesee Fire Rescue The male and female firefighters of tranquil, rustic Genesee now store bulletproof vests and helmets in the company’s command vehicle. Recruits participating in the fire academy still practice donning self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) to advance into burning structures, only now they also train to use the respiratory system under combat conditions, simulating the physical exertion and stress of the 9/11 firefighters who ascended flight after flight of stairs wearing their SCBA gear, which can add an extra 25 pounds or more to the weight of their standard bunker gear.

Post-9/11, there was a marked increase in the number of Genesee residents who raised their hands to join the volunteer force. Even years after, when applicants were questioned about their reasoning for wanting to volunteer, the echoes of 9/11 remained a motivating factor.

Carlton and Maia Babbs, who both had family in Colorado, contemplated relocating to the Centennial State even before 9/11, aiming to start a family. The events of September 11th hastened their timeline.

Carlton’s employer, JP Morgan, which a year before 9/11 had agreed to be acquired by Chase Manhattan, the third biggest banking company in the country, relocated Carlton and his Lab Morgan colleagues to Chase’s Midtown headquarters on Park Avenue, then shut down the unit altogether.

Maia’s grandparents lived just across the highway from Genesee on Lookout Mountain, and both Maia and Carlton knew and liked the Denver foothills. Carlton was an expert skier. The couple purchased their home on Snowberry Drive in Genesee in April 2002.

As a kid, Carlton used to look wide-eyed at the big white Mile High City fire trucks responding to a call, all the other vehicles on the road making way for them. Nevertheless, the idea of becoming a firefighter never occurred to him.

September 11th changed that.

Having a close-up view of how New York’s firefighters responded and the sacrifices they and their families made to protect others left an indelible impression on Carlton.

To see what these guys did on 9/11 gave me a newfound appreciation for firefighters. It’s not glamor; this is hard work, and it’s dangerous.

By coincidence, the home that Carlton and Maia purchased in Genesee was a tennis ball’s throw away from the GFR firehouse.

Like so many other GFR recruits over the years, the “Volunteers Needed” sign eventually drew Carlton into the station, where he wound up serving for 17 years.

As far as the shadow that 9/11 created, I would say that every time the pager went off — even if it was for an 80-year-old woman with a bloody nose that wouldn’t quit — someone needed to show up to help. Just like on 9/11, someone had to show up. I carried that with me the whole time.

To this day, when Carlton hears a plane overhead, for an instant, he’s transported back to his JP Morgan office on Wall Street, recalling the deafening sound of the second plane approaching, then hitting the South Tower.

It definitely makes me cringe.

219

Dedication and Service Each year, on September 11th, the Genesee Fire Rescue community — including the volunteers, their families, and residents — mark the day with solemnity.

Annually, an anonymous individual arrives at the Genesee Fire Rescue station first thing in the morning and places a bouquet at the base of the flagpole.

On the 10th anniversary, members of GFR joined with firefighters and private citizens from around the state marking the occasion at the state Capitol. Nearby, on display in front of Denver’s city hall, were grinders and engine pieces recovered from Ground Zero.

Joseph A. Garcia, then Colorado’s Lt. Governor, remarked on their significance.

Twisted, lifeless inanimate pieces of steel that remind us of the thousands of lives that were lost that day and the millions of lives that were affected by the events of that day.

The 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks fell on a Saturday, when Genesee Fire Rescue was holding its regular Academy training course for recruits.

Captain Mark Villa, a veteran member of GFR, hosted a small ceremony at the firehouse with an emphasis on solidarity, commitment, and sacrifice.

Scott Mefford’s daughter, Anne, who was seven years old when she helped her dad and other members of the Genesee community collect donations in their “Fill the Boot” drive in the aftermath of 9/11, never forgot the courage of the firefighters who gave their lives trying to save others.

Now an adult, she recently finished her training academy with the Newport (OR) Fire Department, which traces its founding back to May 1885.

Zachary Babbs, the son of Michael and Kristin Babbs and nephew of Carlton and Maia, was born at Rose Medical Center on the morning of September 11th. Rose, sometimes referred to as Denver’s “Baby Hospital,” is known for its dedicated staff of physicians and nurses.

Michael knew something was off when, attending to his wife in labor, he looked up to find the maternity ward at Rose devoid of staff, save for a single nurse.

Michael poked his head out the birthing-room door and spotted all the missing attendants huddled around a television in the nurse’s station, watching news coverage of the terrorist attacks. It’s how Michael learned that the day would go down in history for much more than his son’s arrival.

Give or take a couple of minutes, Zachary was born at the time the clocks in the South Tower froze as the doomed United Airlines Flight 175 enshrined that moment for eternity.

220

221

CHAPTER TWO The Challenges And Opportunities Ahead On Genesee Mountain I found a high point of land where I could stand and feel the great reaches of the Earth.

-Charles Deaton Architect

T

he year is 2173, 150 years hence.

Miles Monroe, a jazz musician and former owner of the “Happy Carrot” health-food store in New York City’s Greenwich Village, is happily married to Luna Schlosser and living in the Sculptured House — often referred to as the “Sleeper House” or “Flying Saucer House” — on Genesee Mountain near Genesee Park.

The iconic home, looming over Interstate-70 and visible to travelers in each direction, is a one-of-a-kind dwelling featuring an elliptical curved design. It was fashioned by architect Charles Deaton and featured prominently in Woody Allen’s farcical 1973 film, Sleeper.

In the madcap comedy, Monroe, played by Allen, is cryogenically frozen after a botched minor surgical procedure and revived two centuries later.

If such a circumstance was real, and Monroe and Schlosser (actress Diane Keaton) — when rummaging through some old trunks in their basement happened upon this book — would the Genesee fire department be as anachronistic in their eyes as the cultural artifacts — videos of President Richard Nixon and Howard Cosell, photos of Joseph Stalin and the Reverend Billy Graham, and a Playboy centerfold — that Allen’s character is asked to explain in the movie?

Undoubtedly.

It’s unlikely that ten years from now, much less 50 or 150 years on, Genesee Fire Rescue will remain an independent volunteer company.

Forces mightier than the resolve of one community — even one with a proud and honorable history such as Genesee’s — augur against it.

The Fire Within: Captain Peter Greenstone Portrait by Avital Romberg, January 2023

223

Dedication and Service At the macro level, volunteerism throughout the United States is on the decline in general, and particularly acute among fire companies.

The U.S. Fire Administration, the lead federal agency for fire data collection, public fire education, fire research and fire service training, reports that as of 2020, there are 676,900 volunteer firefighters nationwide, compared with 897,750 in 1984.

This decline of over 220,850 volunteers took place while the United States population grew from nearly 236 million to over 331 million in the same time frame, indicating that volunteerism in the fire and emergency services has not kept pace with population growth.

Even more troubling, according to USFA, today’s volunteer firefighters are trending older, with about one-third of small town firefighters staffed by those 50 or older.

In some rural areas, it is not uncommon to find volunteers in their 60s or 70s.

The issue isn’t so much that older firefighters can’t carry their weight — GFR members such as Fritz Ihrig, who joined the department when he was 63, belie that notion — it’s that too few younger recruits are stepping up to replace older members when they retire.

Another challenge is that younger volunteers in increasing numbers are using their volunteer experience as a stepping stone to career — i.e., paid — fire departments. Writes the USFA: Volunteers get their certifications, training and field experience and then have highly sought-after skills that land them at the top of the hiring list for career departments. This creates a high turnover rate at the volunteer fire department. Managing this turnover can be expensive for the volunteer fire department, from both a financial and time investment standpoint. In many cases, career firefighters cannot or will not continue volunteering because of the rules of peer pressure at their new department.

Oh, the pleasure of serving as the chief of a volunteer fire department, or as a director on the board that governs one.

In May 2023, USFA published a 148-page guide titled, Retention and Recruitment for the Volunteer Emergency Services, featuring recommendations for how to stem the outflow of emergency responders.

Steps suggested by the guide could prolong the life of volunteer fire companies teetering on the brink. However, in Colorado and elsewhere, independent companies are yielding the struggle, accelerating the trend to merge with other volunteer companies or career departments for the cost-savings and synergies such combinations promise. Even career departments are looking to consolidations to solidify their operations.

Three foothills departments — Elk Creek, Inter-Canyon, and North Fork Fire — where volunteers make up the core of the squads, are among the most recent Colorado fire companies to agree to combine.

“I’m not envious of the volunteers. Volunteerism in the fire department has been really declining nationally and we’re struggling with that, I think all three agencies,” Curt Rogers, chief of North Fork Fire explained to CBS Colorado in February 2023. “For example, in my district when you run a call, say you do an ambulance transport, you’re probably going to be involved with that call for four to five hours. It’s just difficult for people to set aside that much time.”

224

The Challenges And Opportunites Ahead In December 2022, the Grand Junction Fire Department and the smaller Clifton Fire Department began a trial agreement, which could lead to an eventual merger, in which a deputy chief from Grand Junction is assigned to Clifton Fire to provide management and oversight operations.

In August 2022, the Tri-Lakes Monument Fire Protection District merged with the Donald Wescott Fire Department to create Monument Fire, in northwestern El Paso County, between Colorado Springs and Castle Rock.

Even Fairmount Fire, a combination department employing 24 career firefighters and staff, and over 50 volunteer firefighters, was, in 2023, in the process of consolidating its operations with Arvada Fire, which utilizes nine active fire stations and has nearly 200 employees.

For Genesee Fire Rescue, the challenge of remaining independent is especially daunting because the dangers it faces are more threatening than ever and only promise to grow in the years to come.

Figuring out how to evacuate Genesee safely is a top priority.

“Right now we’re a one-way-in and one-way-out community,” notes Jason Puffett, GFR’s chief. “Because of that, we’re one of the highest risk communities in the western United States as far as potential life threat and structure loss.”

Not that anyone with GFR needed a wake-up call, but the December 2021 Marshall Fire, which razed more than 1,000 homes and structures in a flash, is a stark reminder of how rapidly wildfires can spread, and the tragic loss of life and devastation they leave in their wake.

Over the next five to seven years, assuming Genesee Fire Rescue remains independent, Chief Puffett says GFR will need to lead a massive community effort to develop an effective evacuation route for area residents and businesses.

Taking all the obstacles into consideration, it would still be ill-advised to count out Genesee Fire Rescue as an independent, volunteer-based department anytime soon.

As previously noted in this volume, GFR has persevered, when many other volunteer companies haven’t, by embracing change, not avoiding it.

In 1963, architect Charles Deaton gazed out from his Genesee Mountain perch and could feel the great reaches of the Earth.

Sixty years later, the potential for greatness remains for those who have the vision and the will to make it a reality.

225

SELECT SOURCES • 5280Fire.com • 9News KUSA • A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School by Carlotta Walls LaNier and Lisa Frazier Page (2010) • AmeriCorps/US Census Bureau • The Associated Press • CBS Colorado • Colorado Division of Fire Prevention & Control • Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection • Colorado: The Queen Jewel of the Rockies by Mae Lacy Baggs (1918) • Congressional Research Service • The Denver Post • Denver Public Library • EndCAN.org • Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) • FireEngineering.com (Andy Marsh’s Blog) • The Flying Norseman by Leif Hovelsen (1983) • Genescene (Newsletter) 1977 - 2021 • Genesee Community Wildfire Protection Plan • GeneseeFire.org • Golden Daily Transcript • The Great Divide (Newspaper) • Historically Jeffco (Denver’s Genesee Park by David E. Peri) • History Colorado • History of Genesee (Second Edition) by Galen W. Knickel (2009) • I Live Here by Lori Poland (2022) • Insurance Service Office • Moanfeldt, Samuel, “Report to the Music Publishers Protective Association” (1935) • National Fire Protection Association • National Public Radio • National Volunteer Fire Council • The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook (Second Edition), edited by Richard Steinberg and Walter W. Powell (2006) • The Olympics That Never Happened: Denver ‘76 and the Politics of Growth by Adam Berg (2023) • Recruitment for the Volunteer Emergency Services (U.S. Fire Administration) • SkiMagazine.com • U.S. Fire Administration • U.S Forest Service • Wildfire Risk to Communities (USDA Forest Service) 227

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to recognize and offer their heartfelt gratitude to the dozens of individuals who gave generously of their time to help us recount the history of Genesee Fire Rescue and its admirable legacy.

It is telling that even former GFR members who long ago left the force — many of whom no longer live in the district — once again answered the call to be of service. Enthusiastically.

In particular, we wish to express our gratitude to Chief Jason Puffett, Deputy Chief Joe Auster, members of the Genesee Fire Protection District board, and the dedicated volunteers of the 50th-anniversary GFR squad. Their steadfast endorsement and wholehearted backing have been the cornerstones of this endeavor, which was two years in the making.

Finally, like the families of all volunteer firefighters, our own families have been invaluable partners in this undertaking as we dedicated time away to transform this vague aspiration into a tangible reality.

- Dean Rotbart Hank O’Brien

229

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dean Rotbart

A

s a child, Dean Rotbart’s favorite ride at Denver’s Lakeside Amusement Park was the carousel featuring miniature replicas of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and buses. But his first choice was always the little red fire truck.

The volunteers at Genesee Fire Rescue are wise enough never to let Rotbart anywhere near the steering wheel of an actual fire engine. But they were immensely helpful in assisting a clueless civilian to become sufficiently knowledgeable about firefighters and the fire service to avoid embarrassing himself or them. Rotbart’s regular professional haunts include Wall Street, boardrooms, and newsrooms.

He is an award-winning former reporter and columnist with The Wall Street Journal, which nominated him for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting.

His 2021 book, September Twelfth: An American Comeback Story, was awarded the Gold Medal by the Nonfiction Authors Association.

Since June 2012, Rotbart has produced and hosted Monday Morning Radio, a popular weekly business podcast. The anthology, All You Can Eat Business Wisdom, is a treasury of his top episodes.

A Colorado native, Rotbart lives in Denver with his wife, Talya, a children’s book author. They have two adult children, who likewise write books.

230

Hank O’Brien

W

hen Hank O’Brien was growing up (and later during annual family visits) in his hometown of Rowayton, Connecticut, he always loved hearing the stories his father, uncles, cousins, and grandfather shared about their work at the all-volunteer Rowayton Hose Company No. 1, est. 1902.

Hank would also occasionally visit the still active firehouse, built in 1956. These childhood experiences left a lasting impression, especially after his family home on Bell Island caught fire in 1972, and the Rowayton Hose Company No. 1 responded.

As the decades wore on and school, career, and raising a family became his priority, Hank’s memories of the lore surrounding the Rowayton Hose Company remained, albeit somewhat dimmed.

In 2015, Hank’s career as a national/global sales, marketing, and general management executive in the food and pharmaceutical industries brought him to Genesee, Colorado. A freak medical incident involving one of the moving van workers at his new home brought a response from Genesee Fire Rescue.

Soon, he, too, was a volunteer.

Hank lives with his wife of 40 years, Carol, an architect, and their dog Murphy. They have two adult children. Frank and his wife, Carter, and their three children live in Evergreen, Colorado. Jeffrey and his wife, Rahel, reside in La Jolla, California.

Hank is a Lieutenant/EMT for Genesee Fire Rescue and its unofficial department historian.

231

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TJFR PRESS www.GutenbergsStore.com

k Story is an inspiring book that reflects icans.

ed men and women of the Journal and , technicians, administrative assistants, — overcame their personal anguish and rize-winning edition on September 12th.

* ost important newspaper, The Wall een told until now. This riveting acflects the American spirit. September

nd Founder, The Dilenschneider Group

e about the ability of Americans to em-solve. That the staff of The Wall stacles to publish the next day’s edirate culture and professional ethos h estate brings to the viability of the

Historian, Naval Historical Foundation

*

and ated

ness proNews busi-

nday st.

$34.95 ISBN 978-1-7344841-7-5

53495>

m at rad-

long two

September Twelfth: An American Comeback Story

urnal’s main newsroom — located just ter — was obliterated by falling debris eemed certain that the paper’s dynamic killed or seriously injured.

9 781734 484175

September Twelfth: An American Comeback Story is an inspiring book that refl ects the indomitable spirit of America and Americans.

On September 11, 2001, The Wall Street Journal’s main newsroom — located just across the street from the World Trade Center — was obliterated by falling debris and flaming smoke. For much of the day, it seemed certain that the paper’s dynamic managing editor, Paul E. Steiger, had been killed or seriously injured.

This is the true story of how the traumatized men and women of the Journal and Dow Jones — journalists, graphic designers, technicians, administrative assistants, compositors, and delivery truck drivers — overcame their personal anguish and confusion and rallied to publish a Pulitzer Prize-winning edition on September 12th.

232

Praise for September Twelfth The heroic story of how the world’s most important newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, handled 9/11 has not been told until now.

This riveting account shows how that incredible day reflects the American spirit. September Twelfth is not to be missed.

— Robert L. Dilenschneider Author and Founder The Dilenschneider Group Dean Rotbart makes a compelling case about the ability of Americans to act independently and collectively problem-solve. That the staff of The Wall Street Journal overcame tremendous obstacles to publish the next day’s edition on time speaks volumes of a corporate culture and professional ethos and the vital contribution that the fourth estate brings to the viability of the grand American experiment.

— Dr. David F. Winkler Author & Historian Naval Historical Foundation The most detailed and dramatic look yet at the [Wall Street Journal’s] Pulitzer-winning work following the terrorist attacks.

— The Poynter Institute September Twelfth is an amazing story about how The Wall Street Journal produced Pulitzer-winning coverage while overcoming incomparable obstacles. It’s a story about perseverance, diligence and a commitment to doing a job, and doing an excellent job — something that everybody can learn from.

— Christopher S. Roush Dean and Professor, School of Communications Quinnipiac University There could be a movie about this. This is a truly compelling story. It is so relatable.

One fantastic story. I’m sure that it will be a global bestseller.

— Dan Gaffney The Dan Gaffney Show Delaware 105.9 FM / News-Talk — Malcolm Gallagher Anchor, BizVision Network, England

Grips you as soon as you begin reading the book. It’s really the proverbial page-turner because these are real stories that you’re reading.

— Rob Cornilles Founder & CEO Game Face, Inc. An incredible book. Absolutely amazing.

— James Lowe Syndicated Radio Talk Show Host iHeart Network

I am proud that my friend has chronicled the play-by-play of that miraculous day, but I must also say that I am not surprised. This was a story that had to be told.

— Roy H. Williams Bestselling Author The Wizard of Ads Trilogy

233

INDEX Abbreviations Introduction: Intro

Chapter Four: 2008 - 2023: C-4

SECTION ONE

SECTION FOUR

The Fabric of America: Fabric

September 11th Forever Recast GFR: Sept 11

My Colorado Home: Genesee: Early

The Challenges and Opportunities Ahead: Future

And That’s The Way It Was: Way SECTION TWO The Call of Duty: Marshall Wherever Flames May Rage: Wildland We Don’t Rise to the Level of Our Expectations: Training Generations of Pumpers and Fond Memories: Trucks SECTION THREE Chapter One: Schumacher, Kimmel, and Rumsey: C-1 Chapter Two: 1980 - 2000: C-2 Chapter Three: 2000 - 2008: C-3

INCIDENT REPORTS and CHRONICLES Incident Report: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” — IR-1 Incident Report: “Like a Good Neighbor” — IR-2 Incident Report: “He Was Not a Very Nice Man” — IR-3 Incident Report: “Summon the Posse” — IR-4 Incident Report: “Man in the High-Top Shoes” — IR-5 Chronicles: “Fire Hydrants Every 500 Feet” — CR-1 Chronicles: “All in the Family” — CR-2 Chronicles: “A Wide Spectrum of Professionals” — CR-3

A A Mighty Long Way (Book) — C-4 al-Qaeda — Sept 11 All-Hazards Incident Management Teams Association (AHIMTA) — C-3 Allen, Woody — Future Alonson, Ramon E. — C-1 American Airlines Flight 11 — Sept 11 AmeriCorps — Fabric Andrews, Jim — C-2, IR-5, Training Ansbro, Andrew — Sept 11 Arvada Fire Department — Future Associated Press, The — C-3 Atta, Mohamed — Sept 11 234

Aurora Fire Department — Training Auster, Joe — C-4 Auster, Tracy — C-4 Avista Adventist Hospital — Marshall

B Babbs, Cara — C-4 Babbs, Carlton — Sept 11, C-3, C-4, Trucks, Training Babbs, Harriett, Herron — C-4 Babbs, Dr. Reverend John Carlton — C-4 Babbs, Kristin — Sept 11 Babbs, Maia — Sept 11, C-4 Babbs, Michael — Sept 11 Babbs, Zachary — Sept 11 Babbs Memorial Chapel — C-4 Babcock, Ryan — C-4, Training Bakker, Stephen — IR-3 Bales, John — C-2, Intro, Training Ballenger, Jane — C-1, Way Barbour, Jeanne — C-1, Way Barenburg, Doug — C-4, CR-3 Barrowman, Sue — C-2, Training Battlement Creek Fire — Wildland Bauer, Jim — C-1, Way Beebe, Frank W. — C-3 Beebe, Selma — C-3 Benson, Paul — Trucks Bertelson, Linda — C-1, Way Bird, Judy — C-2 Black Mountain Forest Fire — Wildland, C-4 Blue Spruce Habitat for Humanity — C-3 Boblak, Steve — Way Bonfils, Frederick — Early Bonifacius (Book) — Fabric Bonnelle, Charles, O. — C-3 Boulder Mountain Fire — CR-2 Boyd, Sue — Way Boyles, Josh — Marshall, CR-2, Wildland Brooks, Sid — Way Bruegman, Randy — Training Bruno, David, J. — C-2 Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave — IR-5, Trucks Buffalo Creek Fire — Wildland Bureau of Land Management — Trucks Burgess, Ken — C-1, Way Busch, Hays — Way Bush, President George W. — Sept 11

235

C Call Girls — C-1 Calvi, Nettie — Training, Way Cameron, Tim — C-1, Way Cameron Peak Fire — Wildland Cantwell, Mike — C-1, C-2, Training, Trucks, Way Carlson, Erin — C-4 Castro, Adrian — CR-2, CR-3 Cataract Engine & Hose — CR-2 Cecil, Rowan — Way CenturyLink — Early Chase Manhattan — Sept 11 Chrysler Corporation — IR-5, Trucks Clifton Fire Department — Future Climax Molybdenum Company — IR-5 Cohen, Al — CR-1, Early, Wildland Collier, Bud — C-1, C-2, Way Collins, Tim — C-2 Colorado Construction Group, Inc. — Way Colorado Division of Fire Prevention & Control — Marshall, C-1 Colorado Fallen Firefighters Foundation — Training Colorado Home: Prospectors’ Song — Early Colorado National Guard — C-2 Colorado Parks and Wildlife — C-3 Colorado School of Mines — C-4 Colorado State Police — C-4 Community Wildfire Protection Plan (Genesee) — C-4 Congressional Research Service — Wildland Coon, Marshall — CR-2 Cooper, Kara — C-4 Coors Brewing Company — C-1, Training Coors Field — Early Cosell, Howard — Future Costco — Marshall COVID-19 — Fabric Cowell, Matt — Way Crabs Rippey, Helen — Early Cranmer, George, E. — Early Craven, Wes — IR-4 Crosby, Bing — Early Cunningham Fire Department — Way

D Dalton, Bob — C-4 CR-3, Fabric, Marshall, Wildland Dalton, Dorie — C-4, CR-3, Fabric, Training, Wildland Danek, Brad — C-4 Danek, Dave — C-4 Dean, James — Trucks 236

Deaton, Charles — Future Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency — Marshall, Fabric Denver Broncos — C-4 Denver East High School — Early Denver Federal Center — Fabric Denver Fire Department — C-2, C-3, Training Denver International Airport — IR-1 Denver Municipal Airport — C-3 Denver Olympic Committee — Early Denver Police — C-2, Early Denver Post, The — Early, C-3 Department of Defense — Fabric, Marshall Department of Human Services — C-3 Department of Justice — IR-3 DeSoto, Roy — Trucks Deutsche Bank Securities — Sept 11 DeVore, Terry — Wildland Dirking, Keith — CR-2, CR-3 Disneyland — IR-3 Dixon, Ann — Marshall Dixon, Rick — Marshall Dodson, Mike — Way Donald Wescott Fire Department — Future Dora Moore Elementary School — Wildland Dovey, Harvey — C-2 Dykhuis, Hank — Way

E Earl, Sue — C-1, Way East, J.H. Jr. — Early East Troublesome Fire — Wildland Easterling, Bill — Sept 11, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, Intro, Training, Trucks, Wildland Easterling, Tinsley — Sept 11, C-3 Edwards, Cliff — Trucks El Creek Fire Department — Future Emergency (NBC TV) — Trucks EndCAN — IR-3 Erickson, Robert — C-1 Evergreen Fire Rescue — C-4, IR-4

F Fairmount Fire and Rescue — C-2, C-4, Fabric, Future, Training Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — C-2 Federal Aviation Administration — Sept 11 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — Fabric Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company — Early Fire Department of New York — Sept 11 Firefighter’s Prayer — Wildland 237

Fireman’s Ball — C-2, Way First Federal Savings and Loan — C-2 First Financial Securities Corp. — IR-3 FlatIron Crossing Shopping Center — Marshall Fletcher, Alan — C-2, C-4, CR-2, Fabric, IR-3, Training, Trucks, Way Flight for Life — Way Flying Saucer House — Future Foothills Fire and Rescue — C-1, C-4, Training, Trucks Ford Motor Company — C-2 Forest Oil — Training Fort Collins Fire Department — Training Fourmile Canyon Fire — Wildland Fox Plaza (Los Angeles) — Early Frame, Neil — CR-2, Trucks Franklin, Ben — C-3, Fabric, Way Freeman, Richard, B. — Fabric Freemasons — Fabric Friedman, Judge Charles — IR-3 Frontier Airlines — IR-3 Fuchs, Bob — C-2, Training

G Gaddis, Ryan — CR-2 Gage, Johnny — Trucks Gair, Robb — C-2, Training, Way, IR-2 Garcia, Joseph A. — Sept 11 Garnet, Gordon — Way Gaulin, Cynthia — IR-3 Gaulin, Steven — IR-3 Genescene (Newsletter) — C-1, C-2, C-4, Training, Way Genesee Associates — Early Genesee Business District — Trucks Genesee Fire Protection District Board — C-1, C-3, C-4, CR-2, Trucks, Way Genesee Foundation — IR-5, Training Genesee Land Company — C-1, CR-1, Early, Intro, IR-3, IR-5, Trucks Genesee Mountain — Early, Future Genesee Park — Early, Future, IR-5 Genesee Pub and BBQ — C-4 Genesee Town Center — Trucks Genesee Water and Sanitation District — C-1, Trucks Geralds, Dave — C-4, Training Golden Daily Transcript (Newspaper) — Early Golden Door Award — Trucks Golden Fire Department — Training Golden Gas Can Award — Trucks Goldman, Adam — C-4 Goodwin, Mary — Early Goodwin, William — Early Gordon, Garnet — Training 238

Goshen Hook and Ladder Company — CR-2 Grand Junction Fire Department — Future Granite Mountain Hotshots — Wildland Great Divide, The (Newspaper) — Early Greenberg, Joanne — IR-3 Greenstone, Peter — C-4, CR-3, Marshall, Wildland Greenstreet, Rich — C-2, Training Griffith, Bill — Way Grobjerg, Kirsten A. — Fabric Ground Zero — Sept 11

H Haber, Jean — C-2 Halpin, Steve — Way Halstead, Sheila — C-1, Way Hammock, Dan — C-4, CR-3 Hanlon, Ed — Way Harms, Kathy — Training, C-2 Harms, Steve — C-1, C-2 Hayman Fire — Wildland Herzfeld, Mark — CR-3 Heyliger, George — C-2 Hi Meadow Fire — C-3, Trucks, Wildland Hiemstra, Idske — C-4, Fabric High Park Fire — Wildland Highand Rescue — IR-3, C-2, C-4, IR-1, IR-5, Way Higley, Brewster M. — Early Hill and Dale Society — Early History of Genesee (Book) — Early Hoffman, Peggy — Way Home on the Range (Song) — Early Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 — Sept 11 Howelsen, Carl — Early Hoyt, Burnham — Early Hydrokinetics, Inc. — C-4

I IBM — Way Idledale Fire Rescue — C-2, Training, Trucks, Way Ihrig, Fritz — C-3, C-4, Fabric, Future, Trucks Ihrig (Shroyer), Joanne — C-3 Incident Qualification Card — Training Insurance Service Office (ISO) — C-2 Inter-Canyon Fire Department — Future

J JP Morgan — Sept 11 239

James Dean Festival — Trucks Jeffcom — C-4, Trucks Jefferson County Board of Commissioners — Early Jefferson County Fire Council — C-1 Jefferson County Fire Districts — C-4 Jefferson County Sheriff — C-2, IR-3 Joiner, Cleve — C-1, C-2, C-4 Jones, Rich — C-1, C-2, Training, Way Jones, Susan — C-2

K KBRR-AM — Early Keaton, Diane — Future Kelly, Daniel, E. — Early Ken-Caryl Ranch — C-2 Kimmel, Brian — C-1, Trucks, Way King, Patti — C-1, Way Knickel, Galen — C-1, Early, Wildland, CR-1 Knickel, Loraine — Early Kreuger, Mike — Way, Training Krugman, Dr. Richard — IR-3 Ku Klux Klan — C-3

L Lab Morgan — Sept 11 Lamb, Kitty — Way Lang, Doug — Way Lang, Laura — Way LaNier, Ira, C. — C-4 Lariat Wealth Management — C-4 Lawritson, John — IR-3 Leete, Laura — Fabric Levy, Glen — Training Lininger Mountain Fire — Wildland Little Rock Central High School — C-4 Littleton District Court — IR-3 Littleton Fire Department — Training Logan International Airport — Sept 11 Lookout Mountain Fire Protection District — C-1, Early, Training, Trucks Loveland Fire Rescue Authority — Marshall

M Mackey, Jack — Way Macy’s — Marshall Malachite Mine — Early Mars, Christie — C-1, Way Marsh, Andy — Fabric 240

Marshall Fire — Future, Intro, Marshall, Wildland Masse, Bob — Way Masse, Marlene — Way Masztaler, Stephen — CR-2 Mather, Cotton — Fabric McCabe, Bill — Early McClane, John — Early McCoy, Drew — C-2 McDougall, Diane — C-1, Way McLellan, Pete — Training Meany, John — CR-2, CR-3 Mefford, Anne — Sept 11 Mefford, Jack — Sept 11, C-4 Mefford, Scott — Sept 11, C-1, C-2, C-4, CR-2, Training, Trucks Meneses, Josh — C-3, C-4, IR-1 Mexican Drug Cartel — Trucks Microsoft — C-4 Mile High City — Sept 11, Early Moanfeldt, Samuel — Early Mobley, Mark — Way Monument Fire — Future Moose Fire — Wildland Mosquito Fire — Wildland Mother Cabrini Shrine — IR-5, Training Mountain Area Fire Academy — C-4 Mountain Area Planning Council — Early Mountain Christian Fellowship — C-1 Mt. Vernon Country Club — C-2 Mt. Vernon Fire Protection District — Trucks Myers, Jackie — Way

N Nakatomi Tower — Early National Fire Academy — Training National Fire Protection Association — Fabric, Wildland National Museum of American History — Fabric National Public Radio — Fabric National Volunteer Fire Council — Fabric Neely, Jerry — C-1, Way Neely, Judy — C-1 New York Police Department — Early Newark Airport — Sept 11 Newport Fire Department (Oregon) — Sept 11 Nobel, Linda — Way Nomex — Wildland North Fork Fire Rescue — Future

241

O O’Brien, Hank — C-1, C-4, CR-2 Olsen, David — C-4 Olson, Jim — C-3 Ordway Volunteer Fire Department — Wildland Over, Michele — Way Oxley House (Homestead) — Early, IR-5, Trucks

P Page, Lisa — C-4 Pantaleo, Matt — C-4 Park Hill United Methodist Church — C-4 Peace Corps — C-1 Peery, Max — Trucks Peery, Sam — Trucks Peri, David — Early Petro, Adam — C-1, C-3 Pfaff, David — Way Pfeifer, Joseph — Sept 11 Pfeifer, Kevin — Sept 11 Pierce, Sharon — Way Pierce Manufacturing — Trucks Pine, Lisa — C-1 Pine Brook Hills Fire Department — CR-2 Pipeline Fire — Wildland Plectron — IR-3 Plumsted, William — Fabric Poland, Diane — IR-3 Poland, Lori — IR-3 Poland, Richard — IR-3 Popovich,William C. — Marshall Powell Jr., Samuel — Fabric Pray, George — C-1, Way Prescott Fire Department — Wildland Pueblo Interagency Dispatch Center — Wildland Puffett, Emily — C-4 Puffett, Jason — C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, Future, Marshall, Training, Wildland

Q Quaife, Charlene “Char” (Smith) — C-2, Way Quaife, Rick — C-2 Qwest Tower — Early

R Raize, Charlotte — C-2 Raize, George — C-2 242

Ramey, Alisa — C-2 Rancho Tranquilo — Early Red Card — Training Red Rocks Amphitheater — Early Richie Fox Farm — Early Rickman, Alan — Early Rippey, Arthur G. — Early Roberts, Hugh — Fabric Rockland Community Church — C-3 Rogers, Curt — Future Rogers, Shannon — C-3 Rogerson, Peter — C-2, Training Romer, Governor Roy — IR-3 Roosevelt, President Franklin D. — Earlh Rose, Jane — Way Rose Medical Center — Sept 11 Rossback, Dave — Training Rumsey, James L. — C-1, C-2, Way Rumsey, Robert — C-1

S S&S Fire Apparatus — Trucks Salmon-Challis National Forest — Wildland Samsonite — C-3 Samuelson, Mark — C-3 Schaeffler, Wilhelm — Early Schmitz, Jim — CR-2, CR-3 Schuler, Denny — C-1, C-2, Training, Way Schuler, Lorraine — C-2 Schulthess, Angela — Training Schumacher, Sandy — C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, Training, Way Schwartz, John — Wildland Sculptured House — Future Sellmeyer, Carolyn — Way Seward, Donna — C-4 Seward, Dr. Frederick W. — CR-2 Seward, John A. — C-3, C-4, CR-2, Fabric, Trucks, Seward, John T. — CR-2 Shannon, Judge Daniel — Early Sheehan, Gregg — CR-2, Trucks Shippen, Edward — Fabric Sholes, Barb — C-2, Way Shroyer, Pearl — C-3 Shroyer, Wayne E. — C-3 Shuler, Russ — Way Sirbin, Aaron — C-2, C-3, C-4, Training, Way Sirbin, Jane — Training Sleeper (Movie) — Future Sleeper House — Future 243

Smaldone, Mary — C-1 Smith, Kevin — Way Smith, Steven Rathgeb — Fabric Snieder, Roel — C-3, C-4, Fabric, Training Solano, Joan — C-3, Training Solano, Matt — C-2, C-3, C-4, Training South Metro Fire Rescue — Marshall, Training Sparks, Mike — C-4 Speer, Robert W. — Early St. Anthony Hospital — IR-3 Stajcar, Dave — C-4 Stajcar, Pati — C-4 Stapleton, Mayor Benjamin F. — C-3 Stuart, Ben — C-4 Super Target — Marshall Swartz, Crawford O. — Early Syng, Philip — Fabric

T Tade, Robert — C-2, Training Taggart, Michael — C-4 Tammen, Agnes — Early Tammen, Harry — Early Tasker, Jeff — Marshall The Flying Norseman (Book) — Early The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook — Fabric The Snowberry Mafia — Fabric Thiret, Robert Paul — IR-3 Thornton Fire Department — C-2, Training Tocqueville, Alexis de — Fabric Topper, Bill — Way Torbit, Jeremiah — C-4 Tri-Lakes Monument Fire Protection District — Future Troutman, Bob — C-1, C-2, Way Troutman, Maudie — C-2 Turner, Joseph — Fabric Turner, Terry — C-3

U U.S. Army — C-4 U.S. Bureau of Mines — Early U.S. Census Bureau — Fabric U.S. Coast Guard — Training U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) — Future, Wildland U.S. Forest Service — Wildland U.S. Geological Survey — C-2, Early U.S. Marines — C-3, Fabric U.S. Naval Academy — Early 244

U.S. Navy — C-3, C-4 U.S. Postal Service — C-3 Unimogs — Trucks Union Fire Company — C-3, Fabric Union Security — Way United Flight 175 — Sept 11 University of Denver — C-3, Early University of Minnesota — C-4 University of Oregon — Fabric University of Pennsylvania — Fabric USS Schenectady LST 1185 — C-4

V Vail, Janice — C-2 Van Woensel, Irene — Way, Training Villa, Mark — Sept 11, C-4, CR-2, CR-3

W Wahl, Dean — C-2 Wake, John — C-1, Way Waldo Canyon Fire — Wildland Wallerstein, Ralph — C-2 Walls, Carlotta — C-4 Walls, Cartelyou — C-4 Walls, Juanita — C-4 Warner, Graeme — CR-2, CR-3 Warner, Kathryn — CR-2, CR-3 Wenzel, Janet — C-1, Way West Metro Fire Rescue — C-2, Trucks Westergaard, Ed — Way Whitten, Fred — C-4 Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) — Wildland Wilkinson, Dennis — Way Willis, Bruce — Early Wright, Charles Washington — Fabric

Y Yosha, Cathy — Way

Z Zachary, Lloyd — Fabric Zoril, Chuck — Training

245

The Fire Within Portraits: Avital Romberg 246

Dedication And Service 50 Years on Call with the Volunteers of Colorado’s Genesee Fire Rescue DEAN ROTBART and HANK O’BRIEN with Past and Present Members of Genesee Fire Rescue

Published by TJFR Press Denver, Colorado Copyright ©2023 Genesee Fire Rescue All rights reserved.

Permission to reproduce or transmit in any form or by any means — electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording — or by an information storage or retrieval system, must be obtained by contacting the author via email at dean.rotbart@geneseefire50.com.

Ordering Information For additional copies, visit www.GutenbergsStore.com or Amazon.com.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023914820 ISBN 978-1-956928-03-7 (Softcover) Book Editor: Maxwell Rotbart Text Production and Cover Design: Time in a Bottle Photography The Fire Within Portraits: Avital Romberg Director of Research: Talya Rotbart Contact: TJFR Press • 200 Quebec Street • Building 300, Suite 111 • Denver, Colorado 80224 Genesee Fire Rescue • 23455 Currant Drive • Golden, Colorado 80401 First Edition: September 2023

247

Genesee Fire Rescue Squad — October 2022 Front Row: Ryan Babcock Kris Kleiner Dan Natan Alex Witkowicz

Standing L to R: Dan Hammock Peter Greenstone John Seward Kathy Warner Keith Dierking Graeme Warner Jim Schmitz Brian Davis Branch Russell Gregg Sheehan Justin Shannonhouse 248

Neil Frame Hank O’Brien Ryan Gaddis Bob Dalton Josh Boyles Dorie Dalton John Meany Susan Eagle Jerimiah Torbit Mark Herzfeld Scott Mefford Paul Benson Dave Olsen Mark Villa Mary Meath Teresa Crane Kim Marklund Joe Auster Nancy Balter

Missing: Jason Puffett Doug Barenburg Josh Meneses Matt Pantaleo Dave Geralds Steve Masztaler Adrian Castro Clare Geiselman John Cummins Scott Schroeder JP Brewer Patti Harris

ABOUT THE BOOK Dedication and Service masterfully tells the story of Genesee Fire Rescue, a remarkable volunteer company located in the foothills west of Denver.

Through perpetual training, outstanding leadership, and steadfast devotion to community service, the Genesee fire force has earned its place among the top volunteer departments in the state.

This book is an inspiring testament to the enduring spirit of American volunteerism, a beacon that continues to shine in towns and cities nationwide, often with little fanfare.

For half a century, the men and women of Genesee Fire Rescue have confronted perilous situations, combating wildfires, extinguishing home and commercial blazes, aiding and evacuating residents who become ill, and attending some of the worst imaginable motor vehicle accidents, all while placing themselves in life-threatening situations.

For their efforts, the volunteers have won the immeasurable gratitude of those they serve and the priceless satisfaction of knowing that what they give of themselves genuinely matters.

Dedication and Service is a poignant celebration of the heroes next door, those ordinary yet extraordinary individuals who show up for neighbors and strangers in their times of need, From the Foreword by John Bales President, Colorado Fallen Firefighters Foundation DEAN ROTBART is an award-winning former reporter and columnist with The Wall Street Journal, which nominated him for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting.

His 2021 book, September Twelfth: An American Comeback Story, was awarded the Gold Medal by the Nonfiction Authors Association.

A Colorado native, Rotbart lives in Denver with his wife, Talya, a children’s book author.

HANK O’BRIEN is a husband, father, grandfather, and volunteer Lieutenant/ EMT with Genesee Fire Rescue.

He resides in Genesee, Colorado, with his wife of 40 years, Carol, an architect. $50.00 ISBN 978-1-956928-02-0

55000>

9 781956 928020