Gil Jaeger and Robert Ball, the longtime assistant chief and captain of the Round Pond fire station, retired from their posts Jan. 3.
The veteran firefighters and friends sat down at the fire station Jan. 16 to share stories with The Lincoln County News from their combined 70 years of experience.
Jaeger, 63, was the second assistant chief of the Bristol Fire Dept. (Bristol has stations in Bristol Mills, New Harbor and Round Pond – Jaeger helmed the Round Pond station).
He’s also a former president of the Lincoln County Fire Chiefs Association and a 2011 recipient of the organization’s Bob Maxcy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jaeger’s interest in firefighting developed at an early age. As oft-repeated legend has it, in 1953, a five-year-old Jaeger donned a plastic helmet to help the Camden Fire Dept. fight a chimney fire at his childhood home.
Later, while studying marine biology at Southampton College in Southampton, N.Y., on New York’s Long Island, Jaeger joined the school’s fire brigade.
During the race riots after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., 170 fires were set on Long Island, Jaeger said. One fire threatened the college, but the poorly equipped brigade “saved the school,” Jaeger said.
Jaeger remembers the day, almost 44 years ago, as “my first big fire.” He joined the Bristol Fire Dept., in 1976.
Ball, 55, was the captain of the Round Pond station. A lobsterman and, for 19 years, the Round Pond harbormaster, he joined the department at Jaeger’s urging in 1978.
Jaeger recalled his words to his young friend. “You ought to do this – it could be interesting,” he said.
“And it has been,” Ball said.
Jaeger agreed. “You see a lot of things – some you want to, some you don’t want to,” he said.
“We’ve helped a lot of people,” Ball said.
Ball and Jaeger became lieutenants together in 1985. Two years later, Jaeger became assistant chief. Ball ascended to the rank of captain in 2000.
After almost 35 years together, “You don’t need a lot of discussion,” Jaeger said. “You just know what the other guy’s doing. You know the other guy’s got your back.”
Firefighting, in Bristol and across the nation, has undergone significant changes in almost every aspect, including finances, inter-department cooperation, recruitment, technology and training, since Jaeger and Ball joined the department.
In the beginning, the first firefighter at the station would sound a siren and write the location of the fire on a blackboard outside.
At the scene, “Things were a little chaotic,” Jaeger said. “People didn’t have any training, particularly,” although “they did what they could to help their neighbors.”
The all-volunteer department had an $8000 annual budget in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jaeger said. The department also had a strong individualist strain. “They adamantly refused to call for help,” Jaeger said. “Now it’s automatic.”
Today, Lincoln County Communications pages the firefighters. Training is much more advanced – and demanding – than before, and the department budget, at $157,550, is nearly 20 times the size of the annual budgets of old.
The department roster shrank as the demands of state and federal government-mandated training made recruitment a challenge. In 1987, Jaeger’s first year as chief, Round Pond had 15 firefighters. Today, the village has less than half that number.
“The amount of effort it takes to bring someone up to speed is daunting,” Jaeger said. “It’s a separate job and it is a job, it’s not a lark at any point anymore, but it’s a pretty rewarding job.”
Firefighters often work together for long periods of time. This fact, along with the nature of the work, forms a bond. “Sometimes you get along, sometimes you don’t, but when the chips are down, everybody seems to pull towards a goal that tends to bring people together,” Jaeger said.
Jaeger and Ball have fought many large fires over the years. The firefighters agree that the July 11, 2008 Washburn & Doughty fire is the biggest in their collective memory – presumably the biggest “we’ll ever see,” Jaeger said.
A 1982 barn fire in Round Pond also stands out in their memories.
Jaeger remembers the flame “pouring, wailing out of the barn doors, 30-40 feet in the air, carrying shingles and debris with it.”
Despite the fire’s apocalyptic appearance, the firefighters “saved the main structure of the house,” Jaeger said. “That was a good save.”
More recently, a March 11, 2011 fire at a Round Pond home “was as stubborn a fire as I’ve ever seen in my 36 years here,” Jaeger said.
“You couldn’t get to the seat of the fire,” Jaeger recalled. “You could see fire coming at you from various directions. You didn’t dare to hit one because the other would come up behind you.”
Slowly, however, firefighters corralled the fire and, although the house was lost, the family was able to recover many personal items inside.
Two of the pair’s most memorable experiences as firefighters didn’t involve fighting fires.
Shortly after 9/11, Jaeger, as president of the Lincoln County Fire Chiefs Association, presented a $57,198 check to benefit the families of five Rockland County, N.Y. firefighters who died at the World Trade Center.
The funds, raised during a boot drive, reached the families by Thanksgiving, becoming some of the first donations to reach the families of 9/11 victims.
Later, Bristol firefighters, including Jaeger and Ball, had another opportunity to help the families of 9/11 victims.
Camp Kieve, in Nobleboro, hosts the 9/11 Family Camp every year for families affected by the attacks.
On Aug. 30, 2006, the camp’s boat, the Snowgoose III, hit an underwater ledge while carrying 22 campers across Round Pond harbor.
Bristol Fire and Rescue and a handful of local fishermen, including Ball, swiftly and safely brought all the campers to shore.
Jaeger and Ball both plan to continue as firefighters and assistant fire wardens.
Former Lt. Neil Kimball succeeded Jaeger as assistant chief. Jaeger will fill the captain’s position for a year in order to assist with the transition and allow younger firefighters to continue to train and gain experience.
A former research scientist, Jaeger left the field in 1980 to raise oysters in the Damariscotta River. He sold his business, Dodge Cove Marine Farm, in 2008. He owns a camp in northern Maine where he hopes to spend more time in his semi-retirement. “I can go away with a little less guilt,” he said.
Ball plans to continue to lobster and fulfill his duties as harbormaster.
As a self-employed lobsterman and a retiree, the pair expects to continue to be available and, as they have many times, to be the first on scene. “Our jobs haven’t really changed that much,” they said.
Bristol Fire Chief Paul Leeman Jr. said Jaeger and Ball’s “dedication to the town of Bristol and Bristol Fire is certainly unsurpassed.”
Ball, specifically, has provided “a great service to the town” on the many occasions he has used his lobster boat, Easy Does It, to aid boaters in peril or transport firefighters to the islands off Bristol’s coast.
Leeman clearly appreciates their continuing involvement with the department. “We need these guys for their experience and calmness and knowledge to stay on and help the younger firefighters with the transition and it’s great that they have agreed to stay on,” he said.
Jaeger, meanwhile, said he recently spoke with Bob Tibbetts, the former chairman of the Bristol Board of Selectmen and a fellow recipient of the Bob Maxcy Lifetime Achievement Award, about retirement.
“[Tibbetts] said ‘It’s a young man’s game’ and it’s the truth,” Jaeger said. “It hurts to get up at three o’clock in the morning when it’s this [cold] and the young guys don’t feel it like we do.”
“It’s been a real privilege to be able to do this job,” he said. “We’ve been lucky to do it.”
