Mt. Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department spotlights 1915 engine as it marks 125 years of service

Long years of dedicated service are nothing new in the 125-year history of the Mt. Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department.

Take, for example, fire Chief Paul Harenchar, who has been a member of the firefighting organization for 41 years, or Bill Hare and Dave Bert — each with three decades or more of service, which includes caring for the department’s 109-year-old antique fire engine.

“It was our first motorized piece of equipment,” Hare said of the 1915 American LaFrance engine. “It was brand new when it was purchased by the First Ward Hose Company. It’s a department truck now.”

Restored to its past glory, the LaFrance truck still takes part in an occasional ceremonial detail. Its latest foray will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, when it will have a prominent role in the department’s 125th anniversary parade along Main Street.

The occasion will coincide with the department’s annual street fair, continuing 5 to 10 p.m. daily through Saturday on a closed section of Smithfield Street and at the parking lot of the fire department social hall.

The current Mt. Pleasant department had its start in 1899, but the town’s organized firefighting with specialized equipment began as early as the 1870s.

A hand-operated pumper was purchased in 1876, after a fire swept through the 800 block of West Main Street. Originally manned by a team of nine firefighters, the pumper also has been restored as an antique piece of apparatus.

With the arrival of the 1915 LaFrance, Mt. Pleasant’s firefighters had some of the latest technology at their disposal for quelling flames. Traveling over the Laurel Ridge, the engine was summoned as far away as Somerset, to help battle a wintertime fire at a lumber mill.

“The bed was used to carry hose to a fire scene,” Hare said. “Some of the original hose dates from 1907 and is still in the bed. On the side is a brass deluge gun.”

The truck also has a chemical tank, where water and soda ash could be mixed and brought under pressure. “You could use it with a booster line and a nozzle to fight small fires,” Hare said.

While most of the fire truck was constructed in Elmira, N.Y., the headlights feature lenses produced at Mt. Pleasant’s own former L.E. Smith glass plant, Bert noted.

The truck announces its presence with a hand-cranked siren and a large brass bell.

The hose truck underwent some restoration in time for its 100th anniversary, in 2015. Its wooden wheels, which have hard rubber tires, were remade by Amish craftsmen in Lancaster.

A hand crank is required to start the 4-cylinder motor. “When you get her in third gear, she’ll kick along pretty good,” said Hare.

Over the decades, the department’s firefighting vehicles have grown more powerful and more sophisticated.

The fleet of six units includes a 2019 Spartan model heavy pumper truck and a 75-foot Sutphen aerial truck. Harenchar said the latter is undergoing refurbishing at a cost of a few hundred thousand dollars compared to the $1.6 million price for a new one.

Mt. Pleasant department at one time had 65 members, according to Harenchar. He suggested increasing hours of required training may have helped to deflate that number to about 18. But the roster recently rebounded with recruitment of 10 new volunteers, as the department eased some requirements for joining.

“Some people are coming back who want to volunteer, and we’ve gained some who were in other departments before they moved into the borough,” Harenchar said.

The department consists of five different companies with a central station on Church Street and an additional Third Ward station on Center Avenue.

In addition to local emergency incidents, the Mt. Pleasant firefighters annually answer an average of 35 to 40 calls related to trouble on the local section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It’s a responsibility shared with a few neighboring departments.

“We’ve been answering calls there since we got our first heavy rescue truck in 1970,” said Harenchar. “Some of them can be pretty nasty.”

Over the decades, a number of firefighters have served with the Mt. Pleasant department for 50 years or more.

“For all of our members who achieve 50 years of active service, we put their portrait up at the central station,” said department secretary Luke Strickland. “There are at least 20 of those pictures that we see every time we meet.”

Jerry Lucia and Mark Kraisinger each were approaching that 50-year mark when they died unexpectedly. When 76-year-old Lucia died on Dec. 17, 2021, Mt. Pleasant also lost its fire chief of 31 years and mayor of 36 years.

Kraisinger, who succeeded Lucia as fire chief, died on April 11, 2023, at age 69.

“Jerry was the department’s community presence and Mark had the historical perspective,” said Strickland. “He could name every single member going back forever.”

Those losses, together with the covid-19 pandemic, put a damper on the department’s fairs in recent years. But Strickland expects both participation and turnout to be larger than usual for this year’s celebration, given the added interest in marking the organization’s anniversary.

For the parade, he said, “We invited every group of first responders in the surrounding area. Most of the businesses on Main Street are bringing floats.”