Fire company to serve first breakfast
By: Sue Kramer
LAMBERTVILLE – Long known for its Lenten Fish Fry, the Columbia Fire Company is expanding its culinary offerings to include all-you-can-eat breakfasts.
"The first one is going to be Sept. 24," company President Richard Fleming Sr. said this week.
The breakfasts, which will offer pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, juice, coffee and tea, will start at 7 a.m. and run until 1 p.m. The cost is $5 for adults; $4 for children 12 and under; and no charge for children under five.
"If somebody wants takeout," Mr. Fleming said, "that’s a dollar extra." But, he added, unlike the Lenten meals that company members deliver throughout the area, Columbia won’t be offering delivery of the breakfasts.
"This will be the first one," he said of the breakfast, "and we certainly plan on having others as we go along. We may run them once a month or once every two months, but we’ll continue to have them. We’re not going to run them in competition with anybody else – Stockton runs one and you see other organizations – and so we’ll schedule ours so we’re not competing with another nonprofit organization."
As company members prepare for the breakfasts, others are working hard behind the scenes to complete the specifications for a new fire truck. The new truck, which will replace the 1976 Light and Air truck that is currently in use, will be put out to bid next year.
The current truck, which is used to fill firefighters’ air bottles and supply lighting at fires and other emergency situations, has been plagued with generator problems over the years. The generator is used to run the air compressor that supplies the air and to run the lights.
"We’ve had to overhaul (the generator) four or five times now," Mr. Fleming said. "We’ve had to do a lot of work on it. It’s not the right generator anymore. We’ve had to put new starter boards in it and everything."
Because of the generator’s problems, Columbia added a second back-up generator to the truck.
"The small generator will light just two lights," Mr. Fleming said. "It won’t handle the air compressor."
The truck committee members, Chairman and Fire Chief Ronald Tillett Jr., Patty Parsons, Richard Fleming Jr., Patrick Eckard, Jack Lindsley, Fred Huffman, Richard Fleming Sr., Lester E. Myers Sr. and Fire Commission representative Richard Anthes, are looking at features that would give them a state-of-the-art truck that would be used not only in Lambertville, but at the many mutual-aid fires where the truck provides service.
"One of the things we’re talking about with state-of-the-art," Mr. Fleming said, "the new air systems are designed better. With a newer system, you can fill bottles a lot quicker.
"When you get a big major fire, we usually get called in after the fire’s been going for a while," he continued. "When you get there, there’s a pile of bottles (waiting to be filled) so you’re behind as soon as you pull up."
Ideally, Columbia would like two "fill stations" on the new truck, which would allow it to fill two air bottles at once.
"You’ve got to get these bottles filled, so the firemen can wear them and get back in (to fight the fire)," Mr. Fleming said, adding, "Everybody only has so many bottles.
"There are now different ways of generating the air," he continued. "The new generators are different, the lights will be different – smaller with just as much illumination – which gives us room to carry other stuff."
Columbia is hoping to have its specifications ready to present to the Fire Commission by the first of the year. After that, voters will be asked to approve the expenditure, even though the money to buy the new truck already has been saved by the commission and the purchase won’t affect taxpayers.
Mr. Fleming said he hopes the bids for the truck will go out late next year, with a projected 2002 delivery date.
The Columbia Fire Company is located at 177 N. Union St.