After 27 years, Conway's fire chief is going fishing

Larry Wade, Conway Village's first full-time firefighter, is retiring

Besides being a fireman, Larry Wade's other passion is fishing.Wade, who has served on the Conway Fire Department for 27 years, including the last 21 full-time and the past 17 as the fire chief, will pursue that passion in Florida next month when he retires.As Conway's first full-time fireman, he's seen a lot happen over the past three decades, including the calls for service triple. Still, he's one of those rare people who can say he's loved his job and wouldn't want to do anything else.At 48, and in good health, Wade said the time is right to enter another facet of his life. He plans to move to Marathon, Fla. (located 40 miles from Key West) at the end of November, but will keep his house in Conway, where he wants to return every June and enjoy all this area has to offer. "This is home and always will be," he said, smiling, during an interview at the Conway Fire Station on Wednesday.Wade became the town's first full-time firefighter in 1986. "When the Whites got out of the ambulance business in 1986, I came to the fire department working as the first full-time firefighter in the Town of Conway," Wade said. "I did the ambulance and fire then and Tommy Steele was the chief. He was a volunteer chief and what happened after a few years and the town-wide fire movement moved on, the town hired their first fire inspector then that's when I went to the town as the full-time fire inspector in 1988 or '89, I don't recall. I worked there until '93 when I was hired as the full-time chief here."Fire is still fire, but Wade admits the job has changed over the years through the evolution of new firefighting apparatus."Technology has advanced," he said. "The responses have gone way up. When I started we were at 380 calls (per year) to now we're close to 1,200 calls a year."The number of full-time personnel has also increased to help cover the bases. Keith Noble, Chad McCarthy and Matt Leavitt are all full-time. It had been just Wade and Noble up until five years ago. The department is staffed almost 24/7. "The call folks that do the ambulance at night many of them sleep here so we're pretty close to full-time 24 hour service," Wade said. "We have one full-time person in the station every day because of the way the schedule works. Matt works on the weekends, he's off Tuesday and Wednesdays but he works every Saturday and Sunday."One of the big changes during Wade's tenure as chief has been the renovation and expansion of the firehouse in 1999. "It was kind of bittersweet to see the old station go," Wade said. "The new station was the exciting part of all of it. We worked well with the general contractors we were really only out of the station for 11 weeks. We were lucky working with the contractors we had. Everything ordered was basically here on site so there were no construction delays. One of the things when we built the station was we basically hired all local contractors. We used a lot of town folks except for the steel portion, everybody else was local which made it more meaningful to have them be a part of it."One of the more memorable moments at the fire station according to Wade occurred in 2001 when the community gathered for the one year anniversary of 9-11. "That came together pretty well," Wade said as more than 500 people including firefighters and law enforcement personnel from across the valley attended the ceremony. "There were a lot of tears that day, it was very emotional for a lot of us."When it comes to highlights, Wade immediately mentioned the support of the community. "We've gotten huge support over the years," he said. "You know the apparatus replacement, the hiring of full-time people, the building construction those things, things that could not be done without the support of people we serve, hopefully, we serve them well because they keep giving us the funds to enable us to grow."Asked if he loves his job, Wade with a big smile, responded quickly. "Absolutely," he said. "The thing I don't want is people to think it's all about Larry Wade it's the fire department and I was lucky enough to work here. This place was here long before me and it'll be here long after me. Again, I look at it as I'm just a small part of what transpires during the day to day realm of the fire service here. We have talented people. We've been lucky that we have a pretty good call force. Our roster is basically full. We can have 45 people and we're at basically 44 or 43 people. Not to say that we haven't had some down times but we've always seemed to be able to bounce back."There have been days Wade recalls where the department has been nonstop. "I think our busiest day was when we had 17 runs in a 24-hour period," he said. "Those are the anomalies, it's not like that all the time. Our average is about three or four calls every 24 hours. You think about that the calls and we're lucky to have folks who can leave their jobs or their families, to help, it happens almost consistently."There's a lot to the job behind the scenes, such as clean up after a run, drying hoses, replacing supplies and cleaning everything for the next trip. "(Laughing) The real work is obviously putting out the fires, but there's a lot of work after that," Wade said. Memorable fires include Fox Ridge Resort; Lucy Lumber and Hardware, where there were three buildings on fire at once; and The Majestic movie theater spring to mind."We've had some pretty good sized fires," he said. "I guess probably what I think was one of the best department saves was The Majestic theater. It was a large fire with a lot of occupants and no one got hurt. It had great potential for a problem but the guys did a great job of getting in there and putting the fire out. There's 11 businesses in that building complex and 10 of them were open two days later that's a great testament to the department."Aside from fires, Wade is also one of the first on the scene at rescue scenes proving a calm presence. "I guess I've said it a lot of times, no one ever really calls us and says, 'Hey come on over and have a cup of coffee because everything is okay,'" Wade said. "What they do is call when there is a situation in their life, be it a medical emergency, or some type of a fire emergency that they can not control. They want us to come fix it and that's what we do. These guys and gals here really do a good job."How do you teach calm?"That comes with years of service," he said. "You can't teach calm. It's something you either develop over a period of time because you've seen it before or something like that."Wade said the time is right to hang up his hat. "For the last eight years we've (he and Stephanie Franz) been vacationing at the same campground (in Marathon, Fla.)," Wade said. "It's a nice campground and it's right on the ocean and they have a deep water harbor where you can keep your boat basically tied up to your camper. I've been fishing down there for awhile and really liked it. It's what we had planned on doing and the opportunity arose to do it now. I'm going to be working at the campground, starting around Thanksgiving."Wade said it won't break his heart not seeing any snow again, which is odd because he might be the best broom hockey player in Mount Washington Valley. "We had some good times playing that," he said. "I've got a picture, I don't know who took it, it may have been you a hundred years ago, at my house during one of the broom hockey games and I was falling down hitting the ball."At the campground, Wade will work as a bartender in a Tikki lounge. "It's right on the beach, five nights a week so I have all my days to fish or do whatever I'd like to do. I'm actually trying to get another job now working on a fishing boat two days a week to try to gain a little bit more experience. You can never have enough experience fishing. I'm finishing up my Coast Guard captain's license."No successor has been named to replace Wade. "According to the district policy we have posted the job opening in-house and we'll see what we get for applicants and the commissioners will make some decisions whether we go outside or not."What will Wade miss the most? "The people, definitely the people," he said. "It's been a pretty good ride."