By Michael Shaw
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
“You tend to remember the bad things, but there were a lot of good times, too.
Back when Donald Feher joined the Fairview Caseyville Township Fire Protection District as a volunteer 37 years ago, the method of fighting fires was to “put the wet stuff on the red stuff.”
That philosophy hasn’t changed, Feher said, but the training has improved so much that firefighters now save a lot more property and lives. And in Fairview Heights, there’s a lot more property to protect than when Feher first donned a helmet.
Feher, 65, nearly a lifelong resident of Fairview Heights, will retire next month as chief of the district, a position he has had for nine years. When a neighbor first talked him into volunteering in 1969, Fairview Heights didn’t have a large retail store, he said.
In an interview in his office at Engine House No. 2 Monday, he spoke about the changes that he has seen through a long career.
Firefighters do their best not to “chase” fires as they did in the old days by spraying water from outside toward the interior of the structure. Instead, using better protection and safety equipment, they try to get inside a home and try to push the fire from the inside out. The water spray forms a powerful steam jet that can push a fire around.
“It’s night and day,” he said of the different techniques employed by modern departments. “Back then, if it was a house, we just said it was an electrical fire. Now we’re way beyond that, in investigating and determining the cause.”
So far this year, the Fairview district has saved about $10 million in property from fire damage, compared with about a $1 million loss.
The district includes most of Fairview Heights and some outlying areas. Gerald Imming, president of the district board, said Feher has kept the volunteer department performing at a high level.
“We’re well-respected by the state as far as our ratings go,” Imming said. “I believe (Feher) has done a really good job.”
The district’s Insurance Services Office rating, a measure of how well a department can protect the community, is a 3 on a scale of 10, with 1 being the best.
The area hasn’t had any truly catastrophic fires since he joined, but Feher has responded to a bomb scare and fires at St. Clair Square mall over the years, some of them set by a disgruntled employee. Sprinkler systems made short work of those fires.
In 1971 he responded to one of the first vehicle fires involving a Ford Pinto where the driver was killed, he said.
“You tend to remember the bad things, but there were a lot of good times, too,” he said.
He told a few stories of kids who learned in school from firefighters how to do the proper thing to avoid being hurt or killed. “That’s when you feel good about what you’ve done.”
Feher, who has been married for 42 years and has three grown children, said he looks forward to gardening and being with his wife, Kathleen.
Imming said Feher will probably be replaced by Assistant Chief Brian Doyle.