{"id":23646,"date":"2014-10-24T11:40:27","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T15:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=23646"},"modified":"2014-10-24T13:22:59","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T17:22:59","slug":"longwood-fire-co-94-years-of-service-and-going-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=23646","title":{"rendered":"Longwood Fire Co.: 94 years of service and going strong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volunteers embrace \u2014 and serve \u2014 \u00a0the Unionville and Kennett communities<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Kim Chiomento<\/b>, Staff Writer, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Longwood-1\"<\/a>

Members of the Longwood Fire Company enjoy a moment, Thursday night, after finishing a rescue demonstration at the company’s Open House.<\/p><\/div>\n

KENNETT \u2014 The Longwood Fire Company, a 100% volunteer organization, community pillar and impressive emergency response resource has been hosting its annual open house for over 50 years.\u00a0 For the first time it was held \u201cUnder the Stars\u201d last night, to the delight of children and adults alike. The open house was attended by many of its volunteer s; along with several hundred interested community members.<\/p>\n

Guests were treated to a tour of the fire house, life-saving equipment, \u201cgive-aways,\u201d refreshments and a live demonstration of the extraction of a 180 lb car crash \u201cvictim\u201d (a practice dummy.)\u00a0 \u00a0A donated car was quickly cut and broken apart, using the \u201cjaws of life\u201d and special steel-penetrating saw and the Longwood responders quickly rescued the \u201cvictim\u201d to safety.<\/p>\n

Originally named The Longwood Fire Brigade, the company was founded in 1921 by Pierre DuPont to protect Longwood Gardens.\u00a0 In 1926, the name was officially changed to Longwood Fire Company and Pierre DuPont permitted the company to aid in emergencies involving the surrounding community.\u00a0 Today, Longwood Fire Company is a highly-trained, diverse tactical response team equipped to respond to: high speed crashes, chemical spills, swift water, rope and confined space rescues.<\/p>\n

\"Longwood-2\"<\/a>

Area residents look on as Longwood Fire Company does a demonstration of an extraction from a damaged vehicle, Thursday night.<\/p><\/div>\n

Longwood also participates in the county-wide Rescue Task Force \u2013 a group of specially trained firefighters from various fire companies that come together to assist any fire company that may need help with a certain, technical issue.\u00a0 Longwood is the group leader for Confined Space Rescues.<\/p>\n

Fire Chief, A.J. McCarthy, explained that Longwood has over 50 very active<\/i> volunteers that serve the community, 25 of which are a core team that spend a lot of time<\/i> on call at the fire house.\u00a0 \u201cOur volunteers are incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of the community\u2019s growth, Longwood has aggressively pursued two highly competitive federal grants. The first, a $198,000 \u201cSAFER\u201d grant, will be distributed over three years and shared with Avon Grove Fire Company.\u00a0 The grant\u2019s focus will be on purchasing equipment and adequately recruiting and training volunteers; with the hopes of easing the financial burden on the community, these two companies serve.\u00a0 The Longwood & Avon Grove partnership has been fostered by the Southern Chester County Fire Chiefs Association which holds regularly meetings to review best practices and consult on emergency services related issues.<\/p>\n

The second, \u201cFire Act Grant\u201d for $90,000, will focus on retrofitting Longwood\u2019s fire house to properly vent the noxious and destructive fumes associated with the large trucks and emergency services vehicles the company houses.\u00a0 \u201cWe are and old fire company, in an old building, that was not designed to house the state-of-the-art equipment needed to serve the community today,\u201d says McCarthy, \u201cThe emergency responders are in close proximity to these vehicles inside, and when they are running, the strong fumes are not healthy and also significantly contribute to the breakdown of the integrity of gear stored within the house.\u201d\u00a0 This grant will create a healthier environment and slow the rate needed to purchase new equipment.<\/p>\n

All of the fire companies work very closely together to assist each other in serving the communities of Southern Chester County.\u00a0 \u201cYou helped us today and we\u2019re going to help you tomorrow,\u201d says Chief McCarthy, \u201cWe have a great working relationship with the various fire companies throughout the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Longwood Fire Company is always in need of financial support and community volunteers.\u00a0 Additional information on how to support Longwood Fire Company, volunteer and view examples of recent real-life emergencies Longwood has responded to, please visit:\u00a0 www.longwoodfireco.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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Volunteers embrace \u2014 and serve \u2014 \u00a0the Unionville and Kennett communities By Kim Chiomento, Staff Writer, The Times KENNETT \u2014 The Longwood Fire Company, a 100% volunteer organization, community pillar and impressive emergency response resource has been hosting its annual open house for over 50 years.\u00a0 For the first time it was held \u201cUnder the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[74,2046,602],"class_list":["post-23646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-longwood-fire-company","tag-open-house","tag-volunteers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23646"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23654,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23646\/revisions\/23654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}