Leave it to Mike Trask to end his lengthy tenure as Alna fire chief with a quiet shuffle out the side door while his fire department elects a new leader.
True to form, Trask told the people who needed to know and left it at that, knowing the word would trickle out. When reached by The Lincoln County News earlier this month, Trask didn’t announce anything as much as he quietly confirmed something already known for months.
To his credit, Trask will depart on his own terms after 32 years at the helm. He leaves behind a modern, rural fire department, properly trained and outfitted with modern equipment.
It’s also a subtle reminder of a perpetual changing of the guard. Trask recalls an era when fire chiefs were a long-term solution. Not long ago Lincoln County was served by a number of fire chiefs who were practically institutions in their towns; men like Dick Forstrom in Waldoboro, Swing Lewis in Boothbay Harbor, Clayton Huntley in Newcastle, and Ron Pendleton in Bristol. These guys were chiefs for decades and it was a really big deal when one of them stepped down.
It is still a big deal.
As of this writing, Trask is the third longest serving active fire chief in Lincoln County trailing only Somerville Chief Mike Dostie, who took office in 1990, and Southport Fire Chief Gerry Gamage, who was first elected in 1976.
Like Gamage, Trask’s career predates the development of the county’s mutual aid system and the modern incident command protocols departments follow now.
The fire chief always had the responsibility of being the first to arrive and the last to leave and explaining the department’s budget to the voters, but today’s fire chiefs have to be adept administrators with people skills and an encyclopedic knowledge of a mind-numbing array a regulations. It is not going to get easier.
“I don’t know how they are going to continue doing that, or why they would want to be honest with you,” Trask said last week when he was asked about the state of affairs.
Thank goodness for Alna, the town and department he served, Trask wanted to do it and he did it well.
