Dargaville fire chief notches up 41 years
Dargaville fire chief Jeffrey Palmer can still clearly remember his first call-out with the volunteer brigade 41 years ago.
A then 18-year-old Palmer was on his way to the pictures with his girlfriend when the Dargaville crew got the call about a house fire.
“We got there and smoke was coming out the windows,” the 59-year-old builder said.
Soaked in adrenalin, the novice was quick to take action with the hose in a bid to extinguish the blaze.
“The chief came over, gave me a clip around the head and said, ‘you don’t squirt at smoke boy’.” “He had a point,” Palmer said. It was the first of more than four decades of firefighting experience undertaken by Palmer in the Dargaville Volunteer Fire Brigade – nine of which were in his current role as fire chief.
He is one of the longest-serving members in the brigade, alongside “great mate” the late Hardie Gary Murdoch.
Murdoch spent 42 years donning the Dargaville Fire Brigade uniform and received a Queen’s Service Medal (QSM) for services to Fire and Emergency New Zealand and the community in 2017. Mates — like Murdoch — are a big part of why Palmer has stuck around the service for so long.
“It was awesome in the fire service, I met some really nice people who became good mates and like family who you got to help the community alongside.”
But the “cool” factor was how the teenage building apprentice fell into it after meeting a Dargaville firefighter who introduced him to the brigade.
“It was the coolest thing you could’ve ever done as a young fella,” Palmer said. “Once you get a taste of it, it’s hard to let it go.”
The fire station houses a lot of special memories for Palmer, who lived there unbeknownst to the fire chief at the time.
“It was fine as long as the chief didn’t catch you,” he said.
Although it was fun and games a lot of the time, Palmer said it was equally full of sobering moments.
“Being a small brigade, if you’re going to a motor vehicle accident where someone’s seriously hurt or someone has died usually one of us in the truck will know who they are.”
Palmer said in those moments when “s*** hits the fan” it’s “all serious and straight up” and he makes a note to lead by example.
Despite his reels of anecdotes about lifesaving call-outs and hilarious antics, Palmer said his main highlight would always be when his three kids — the two sons and a daughter, all teenagers at the time — joined the brigade.
“It made the brigade feel even more like a family thing.”