By Sarah M. Wojcik
The Eastern Express Times
LOPATCONG TWP., Pa. — It all started with a fire on Prospect Street in 1910 that couldn’t be extinguished by the neighborhood bucket brigade.
A group of township residents voted unanimously in September of that year to form a volunteer fire company to take on future township blazes. One hundred years later, the Delaware Park Fire Co. plans to celebrate a century of serving the community.
A commemoration slated for June 19 will kick off with a parade that ends at the Park Avenue firehouse with plenty of food, drink and entertainment for the community, organizers said.
Frank Wismer, president of the department, said he hopes to see his neighbors turn out for the event.
“Because without them, we really wouldn’t be anything,” Wismer said.
Besides the dedication of a group of able-bodied men, the first tool the Delaware Park company used to battle fires was a two-wheeled cart that needed to be hauled to the scene of the blaze.
The cart used a chemical mixture to propel water through a hose but was replaced seven years later by a Model T engine, according to the department’s historian, Konnie Mellert.
The 78-year-old township resident has served in the company for 54 years and has been the company’s secretary and treasurer since 1972.
He’s just one example of the membership that brags of longtime involvement and family ties.
The Clymer family has had about 15 members in the department since its founding, and three men from the Stires family have served as fire chief in the last 100 years.
It’s a proud tradition that Assistant Chief Lou LaFord said is rooted in the nature of the area.
“Delaware Park is a very close little section of town,” LaFord said. “Everybody knows everybody and everybody is willing to help everybody.”
Among the biggest blazes Mellert can remember fighting was the 1966 blaze that destroyed the Hillcrest Club, Ingersoll-Rand’s recreation center. Among the most tragic, recounted by LaFord, was the 2004 Alpha fire that claimed the lives of three children.
LaFord works as a township patrolman and with his involvement in the fire department, he is always on call.
LaFord said the constant obligation never bothers him.
“I guess I just like helping people,” he said. “That’s just my passion.”
The fire company’s rich history includes bringing at least one township couple together.
Wismer, the president, met his wife Kathy — the only female firefighter ever to serve in the township - during a call more than 10 years ago.
At the time, Kathy Wismer was working for the Lopatcong Emergency Squad.
“That’s the standing joke, I cut the roof off of a car and my wife was inside,” Frank Wismer said. “That’s how we met.”
Wismer hollered at his future wife for not wearing a helmet while she helped the victim out of the car.
Kathy flipped him the middle finger.
“And that was the first gesture I got from my wife,” Frank Wismer said, laughing.
Persistent in his attempts to get her attention, Frank Wismer finally succeeded at a 1994 parade in Tatamy.
“He asked me to dance that evening and one thing led to another,” Kathy Wismer said.
Stories like these are no rarity to the fire company, according to Wismer.
“There’s a lot of hidden gems there,” he said.
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