By BIrgitta Wolfe, Managing Editor
BORDENTOWN CITY Although John Walls says he’s been chief of the Consolidated Fire Association “forever,” his colleagues at the Bordentown City Fire Department did the actual count and came up with 17 years as chief and a total of 30 as a firefighter.
So on Feb. 18 about 100 of them got together for a dinner at the Hope Hose Humane Fire Company to celebrate the chief’s dedication and service to the community.
”I was totally surprised,” said the 47-year-old veteran fireman who joined the company as a junior member at the age of 16 when he was still a student at Bordentown Regional High School.
”They talked about how I was always there for them and how they appreciated my service and general bs like that,” he chuckled.
They also presented him with a big plaque with a huge fire ax attached to it. That’s going in the living room he said, noting his wife, Nancy, was OK with that.
Understanding of the firefighting life runs in the Walls family. Mr. Walls’ grandfather, Clinton Evans, was chief of the Consolidated company in the early 1940s. His two uncles were firefighters.
His 21-year-old daughter, Nicole, joined Consolidated as a junior member when she was 16 and now rides the rig when she is home from college at William Paterson University where she is studying to be a physical education teacher and sports trainer.
Junior members can’t fight fires, but they can roll hose, clean equipment, help out with chores and fundraising and get training, Mr. Walls said.
His wife of 25 years is a member of the fire company’s auxiliary, as is his 16-year-old daughter Chelsey, a junior at Bordentown Regional High School.
It definitely runs in the family. So when they’re seated at the dinner table at their Spring Street home and the pager goes off and both father and daughter head for the door, his wife understands, he insisted.
He also remembers the time before firefighters had pagers and had to depend on the town’s siren ensconced in the clock tower of the Old City Hall.
The siren has been removed because the vibrations were causing the old building to deteriorate, said the chief who is employed by the city’s Public Works Department.
Siren or pager, either way, the Consolidated chief gets to where he needs to be.
The worst scene he’s come across was on Washington Street in Fieldsboro where a love triangle resulted in a triple murder suicide. “All three were dead and the house was on fire when we got there,” he recalled.
The biggest fire he witnessed, he said, was the one that gutted the Bordentown Military Institute when he was still a junior member.
For 30 years the Ms. Walls has responded the calls for help from town residents whenever they needed him anytime, anywhere. It seems only fitting that on Feb. 18 they finally got their chance to do some responding of their own by singing his praises.

