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Perry Center Fire Department

© Robert Moyer

The Perry Center Fire Department is seventy two years old his year. It was first organized in 1928, resulting from a few meetings of the residents of the small hamlet to meet the locals needs of fire protection. The place where the fire department first came about was the second floor of what now is presently Kelly Motors, which was referred to as the "buzzard's roost."

The group named Lloyd E. Kelly, known as "Chub", as it's first fire chief. The men who backed the fire department, were inspired to form the department after being offered a very unique piece of fire fighting equipment. This piece of fire apparatus consisted of a large wooden tank that functioned something like a large fire extinguisher. It sprayed soda and acid on the fire in an effort to extinguish it.

Not soon after this it was mounted on a Hudson Super Six car body, which the men salvaged from a wreck. It was stored at Kelly Motor's to prevent it from freezing.

Around 1930, our department built a small two story fire hall to provide some much needed space. Beneath this structure sets a 10,000 gallon water cistern. The second floor was used for meeting and special functions. Volunteer workers, supervised by Matthew VanLoo, a Perry Mason, put the building together. This building is still standing and is used to house our mini-pumper and fire extinguisher filling service.

The first real pumper truck came from the Village of Perry in 1946. It was purchased from the Village for about $200. In August of 1952, this vehicle was retired and replaced by a $6500 pumper-tanker of about 1500 gallon capacity.

Currently we have one class A attack pumper, which has a 1250 GPM pumper and hold 1800 gallons of water. We also have a rescue-pumper, which carries a 750 GPM pump and 500 gallons of water, along with all of our rescue equipment, a water tender of 2300 capacity and a mini-pumper with a 750 GPM pump and 200 gallons of water. Our reserve water tender holds 1300 gallons of water. Bringing our fleet to 5 trucks in total.

Our current Fire Chief is James Brick, 1st Asst. Steve Mollnow, 2nd Asst. Doug Kelly Jr., Captain Robert Moyer, Lieutenant Tim Rosenberg, President Steve Mehlenbacher, Vice President Tom Page, Secretary Angela Holbrook, and Tresurer Doug Kelly Sr. We have about 60 members, consisting of Honorary, Life, and Actives.