The
Rescue Fire Company No. 1 is the only fire company serving Mt. Aetna and
the outlying territory. The company had its origin in the following manner.
Two miles north of Mt. Aetna, a tragic fire destroyed two houses on the
farm of Christian Treida, on September 18, 1920. Three teachers in the
public school, Cyrus P. Klopp, Mrs. Harvey (Lillian Johnson) Frantz and
Mrs. Harry (Debra Schware) Noll, watched this destructive fire from the
school building.
Mr.
Klopp, motivated by the thought of what would happen if such a fire broke
out in the town itself, with no means of controlling it, set a date for
a meeting of interested members of the community to discuss the matter.
The result of this assemblage was the organization of a volunteer fire
company in October of 1920. After a certificate of Incorporation was filed
in the Court of Common Pleas of Berks County, Pennsylvania on December
30, 1921, the Court approved this certificate of incorporation as a non-profit
corporation on February 18, 1922.
A
short time after the Rescue Fire Company was organized, a request was
made to the Goodwill Fire Company of Myerstown to bring their steam fire
apparatus to Mt. Aetna to make a test as to how much pressure could be
maintained after pumping water up hill to the town square from the fire
dam, east of town. They found that it took a very good hose to take the
pressure that it took to force the water up hill to the town square, in
fact, they split a few sections of hose while doing it. In order to overcome
this handicap, and to save hose, should an emergency arise, it was decided
to lay a 2.5 inch pipe from the dam to the town square. This was done
in the Fall of 1922, thus this incline of eighty-six feet was overcome
by laying 1250 feet of pipe, and thereby has enabled the Rescue Fire Company
to give very satisfactory service to the Community throughout its fifty
years existence, but with the coming of bigger and more powerful fire
apparatus it became apparent that a bigger water supply was needed.
In
1983 a project was started to replace the 2.5 inch line with a 6 inch
line. The new line was extended from 1,000 feet to 2,800 feet and the
installation of 8 fire hydrants, at a cost of $75,000. The Rescue Fire
Company has its headquarters and social club in a building on West Tanner
Street.In 1985 a new 4 bay engine room was built, which is 68 feet x 54 feet, and has plenty of room for the equipment of the Rescue Fire Company. It also has a section 18 feet x 35 feet for a meeting room and toilet facilities. The company changed and rebuilt the baseball diamond, put up fencing around the back stop, and put in a large area of blacktop for parking, which took the price of the whole project to over $170,000.