Volunteer Fire Company Of The Week – Big Tree Volunteer Fire Company in Hamburg, N.Y.

Congratulations to this week's Volunteer Fire Company of the week: The Big Tree Volunteer Fire Company in Hamburg, NY. Thank you for the wonderful job you do. You folks are this week's Hometown Hereos.

The old Big Tree Community Hall was purchased from the Forbush Lumber Company to serve as our first firehall. The amount of $366.93 was the amount of liens against the building. The members themselves built the garage to house our apparatus. This building served our needs until 1947 when our current Station 1 was built on South Park Avenue. Again showing their dedication to their community, the members built most of this station. Constantly looking to better our service to our community, the men made several additions to the station. In 1962, under Chairman Francis X. Doherty, office space for the Chief and President, a meeting room, an additional apparatus bay, and record storage areas were added. In 1979 a renovation was completed to make the building more energy efficient. Again in the 1990s an addition was made for energy savings. This Station continues to serve us as our Headquarters. In the late 1960s it was decided that we should add a second station due to the size of our district and increasing number of calls. We purchased an old gas station at the corner of South Park Avenue and Bayview Road. We renovated it to meet our needs as a substation. In the late 1980s we deemed it necessary for a bigger substation as our district and call numbers continued to grow. A new plot of land was purchased next to Frontier High School on Bayview Road. This new 4 bay station was state of the art with a training room, weight room, and even a day room for our members to use. Station #2 currently houses our two engines, our rescue, and our ambulance. Recently we have purchased property at the corner of Big Tree Rd. and Bristol Rd. This area is very close to the exact center of our current district. Our hope is to consolidate both of our current stations into one central station. This is an effort to provide a more efficient and rapid response to our community when needed as well as to have a state of the art and energy efficient station so as to be fiscally responsible to our district members. We hope to break ground soon.