Firefighting is truly a family affair for three generations of a particular Midway family who have maintained a strong dose of volunteerism dating back nearly 100 years.
Earl Carpenter, 72, Sarah Green, 40 and her 15-year-old son, Austin Green, are fulfilling the family tradition of public service as members of the Midway volunteer fire department.
Carpenter was the first, starting when he was 45. He and his siblings lived in Midway their entire lives, with their parents moving to the village in the 1930s and public service was a major component of their dynamic.
“We were always volunteering for different things. The village needed volunteer firefighters, so I joined,” he said. “We are one of the few purely volunteer fire departments left and we never wanted to get paid for it. That’s just volunteering.”
During those decades, the department has grown and changed significantly. When Carpenter started, they had one truck. Now they have four pumpers, two Tenders, one Initial Attack for wildland fires.
Between Midway and Rock Creek, there are about 40 firefighters, he said.
Over the years, there have been many memorable calls, but the ones that stick out for him are the 2015 and 2018 Rock Creek wildfires. Those, he said, were intense and showed the public the importance of having trained volunteer firefighters in the community.
Sarah Green, in contrast, is a very new volunteer firefighter, bringing her son along when they joined this past spring.
She was inspired by her father’s decades of service.
“I had been wanting to serve for a while, but I was busy with my job and family, but the chance finally came up and I wanted to get my son out of his bedroom, so I got him to join as a junior firefighter,” Green said. “So we all joined and we are having lots of fun.”
To be a volunteer firefighter is a process: There are several courses members have to complete, as well as training requirements, before those qualified are allowed to go out on calls as full members. Currently, she’s working her way through the training handbook. Once she receives her certification, she will be given a radio and be allowed to respond to calls.
Meanwhile, Austin gets all the same training as a Junior Firefighter, but cannot go out on any calls until he is old enough. Still, Green said his confidence has “grown immensly just by being surrounded by all the guys and ladies in the department.”
While he competes heavily in sports, living in the country and far frome friends’ homes has allowed firefighting to be a positive in the family’s life. Since joining, he’s earned his first aid certification and wildfire tickets, as well as motor vehicle extrication skills.
Being volunteer firefighters fits perfectly with their family’s mantra of public service. Green’s grandfather was alderman for the area for 25 years. Her parents helped raise funds to help build the village’s arena.
“My family has always been into the community and helping out where we can,” she said. “That was dad’s rule and he saw an opportunity to help out.”
The Midway Volunteer Fire Department responds to local fires, but also car crashes – which are becoming increasingly more common due to there no longer being a dedicated road accident response team, Green explained.
“We do traffic control and extrication, which we never did before. There are a lot more services and knowledge we provide to the community now.”