The Station News

• Answered every call that came in, day shift or 3 a.m., with a volunteer roster and no guaranteed staffing.
• Stood up mutual aid runs with neighboring departments and held our end of those agreements.
• Kept the apparatus in service — pump tests, ladder checks, SCBA flow tests and the routine nobody sees.
• Carried members through Firefighter I and II coursework while holding down full-time jobs.
• Put fire safety in front of children at school visits, the open house and community events.
• Raised money the hard way: chicken fries, hog roasts, raffles and asking neighbors face to face.
• Built and launched abingtontwpfd.com, the members' portal and this newsletter.
• Opened the Firefighter's Hat Fund to pay for training, education and community fire education.

Chief Mike Taylor steps back this year after 29 years of service to Abington Township, two of them in the chief's seat. He took the calls nobody wants to take and made the decisions that come with them.

Under his tenure this department held its certifications, kept its apparatus in service, trained its people and stayed answerable to the township that funds it. He leaves a roster that is better trained than the one he inherited, and a station that runs on standards rather than habit.

Our thanks go with him — and to every officer and member who stood the line alongside him. The assistant chief, the captains, the lieutenants, the drivers, the engineers and the members who showed up for drill when it was cold and nobody was watching. This is your year too.

Chief, the door stays open and the coffee is still bad. Thank you.

Chief Adam Cecys takes command with a full officer slate behind him: assistant chief, captain, lieutenant and the department advisor. The crew voted for a direction, not just a name.

That direction is written down for the first time. Training comes first. Education comes with it. Fundraising pays for both, and every dollar gets accounted for in front of the membership.

Congratulations to the new chief, to every officer taking a new seat, and to the members carrying the 2027 initiatives. You asked for a plan. You have one.

Most runs end and you go home. A few of them follow you to the kitchen table. Every member of this department has one — a call they can still see when the lights go out. That is not weakness and it is not something to outgrow. It is what happens to people who keep showing up for their neighbors on the worst day those neighbors will ever have.

What we owe each other is simple. Notice when somebody goes quiet. Ask twice. Sit with a member after a bad one instead of leaving them to lock up alone. The work of taking care of this crew does not belong only to the officers — it belongs to whoever is standing closest.

I am here for all of it: a hard call, a hospital visit, a funeral, a wedding, a baby, a marriage that is struggling, or a cup of coffee with nothing attached to it. No appointment, no paperwork, and nothing you tell me goes into a file. That offer stands for members, for their families, and for anyone in this township who needs it.

And if you are reading this as a resident: when our people come to your door, they carry what they see there. A thank-you at the grocery store does more than you would think.

1. Smoke alarms, every level, tested monthly. Press the button until it sounds. Replace the battery at least once a year unless it is a sealed ten-year unit. Replace the whole alarm at ten years from the date stamped inside the cover — the sensor wears out even when the chirp does not. Put one inside every sleeping area and one on every floor, basement included.

2. Three feet of nothing around every heat source. Space heaters, wood stoves, fireplaces, kerosene heaters. Three feet of clear floor and nothing draped over the top. Space heaters plug directly into a wall outlet — never a power strip or an extension cord. Turn them off when you leave the room or go to bed.

3. Chimney and flue, inspected and swept once a year. Creosote builds up invisibly and burns hot enough to crack a liner. If you heat with wood, get it looked at before the first hard freeze, not after.

And one more: carbon monoxide. You cannot smell it. A CO alarm near the sleeping areas costs less than a tank of gas. Furnaces, water heaters, generators and vehicles idling in an attached garage are all sources. If the alarm sounds, get everyone outside first and call 911 from there.

Forty pages of fire-safety lessons a child can actually use — stop, drop and roll, how to call 911, what a firefighter in a mask looks like so a kid does not hide from one — mixed with scenes from Abington Township and a twelve-month family safety calendar.

It goes to classrooms, the open house and every public event, free to families. Sponsor pages pay for the print run. Published by Valor & Ventures Media.

Saturday, February 20, 2027, 6 p.m. EST — Moose Lodge, Richmond, Indiana.

The first one. Dinner, dress blues, recognition for the members who earned it this year, and a chance for the township to sit down with the people who answer its calls.

Ticket sales are not open yet. Watch this newsletter and the Ball page at abingtontwpfd.com — subscribers hear first.

Sponsors, three ways in: sponsor a table setting and your name sits in front of the guests at that table all evening; take a vendor booth in the hall and meet the township face to face; or hang a banner where every guest walks past it. Every dollar goes to training, gear and the gear extractor. Reply to this newsletter to claim one early.

Two meals that have funded this department for years and will again. The spring chicken fry and the annual hog roast are back on the calendar, dates to be confirmed.

We need cooks, servers, setup and teardown, and people willing to sell tickets to their neighbors. You do not have to be a firefighter to work a fundraiser.

The next step after the extractor is a learning management system of our own: coursework, check-offs, certification tracking and expiration reminders in one place, tied to each member's record in the portal. A new volunteer would walk in on night one and have a path in front of them instead of a stack of handouts.

Departments our size usually cannot afford that. We are raising the funds to stand it up anyway, because a well-trained volunteer department is cheaper for a township than an under-trained one, and safer for everybody inside the borders.

If this department can run it, the next department can copy it. That is the point.