50 year tradition not extinguished at new fire hall

On the walls of the recently decommissioned fire hall in downtown Prince George you will find generations of signatures — first inked by firefighters on the day they passed probation.

New recruits would climb to the top of the brick and mortar hose tower, where hoses are hung to dry, to leave their name and probation year in chalk.

According to the Fire Hall, this is a rite of passage that has spanned more than a half-century.

Now that a new hall has opened, Prince George Fire and Rescue has partnered with students from Duchess Park Secondary to bring the ritual to the new facility.

“Our crews were extremely excited to move into the new, modern fire hall, but it was also a little sad to leave a few of the intangible parts of the old hall behind, particularly such a long-running tradition,” says Deputy Fire Chief Cliff Warner.

“We wanted to preserve some of the rich history and customs that began in the old building, so we reached out to the School District to see if teachers and students from nearby Duchess Park might work with us to bring the names and the tradition along with us as we moved to the new hall.”

Every single one of the estimated 250 names on the old tower will be transcribed, as well as the addition of every single Fire Rescue member who has served Prince George going back to Fire Chief Harold Dornbierer in the early 1950s.

Shortly after construction finished on the new fire hall, 11 students in the Grade 12 Art Portfolio class began transcribing the names and graduation dates of hundreds of firefighters in black acrylic paint on the white walls of the hose tower in the new Fire Hall.

After six, two-hour painting sessions by the students, the list of names has surpassed 300.

“While there has been an active Fire Rescue Service in Prince George for over 100 years, we really only have reliable records of firefighting staff going back about 70 years to 1950,” said Warner.

Students were able to add to their art portfolios in a real-world setting while learning about social awareness and responsibility, he noted.

The School also says it is interested in participating in other similar collaborative learning opportunities with the City.

“This work is authentic and purposeful and gives meaning to the course curriculum. As students transferred historical elements from the old fire hall to the new one, they developed a greater understanding of how art is an essential element of culture and personal identity,” said Jaime Rose, the students’ art teacher.

As with the chalk signatures in the old hall, when each new member of Prince George Fire Rescue passes probation in the City’s new Fire Hall #1, they will add their names to the long list of their firefighting predecessors – as transcribed by the  Art Portfolio students from Duchess Park.

“Traditions like this really help to make the new fire hall into a home.”