By Kevin Shea
nj.com
EWING, N.J. — In 2015, a house in Ewing burned out of control as volunteer firefighters struggled mightily to get water on the fire during the critical initial moments of such a blaze.
Under duress and mounting frustration, the chief on the scene resorted to calling for help from the career Trenton Fire Department.
And it was caught on a cellphone, footage of which made the rounds among residents, firefighters – and township officials.
Nearly a decade later, such a fire would likely look different, as Ewing has grown from nine career firefighters who worked day shifts to a 31-member department that operates a crew 24 hours a day.
Town officials told NJ Advance Media they continue to grow and would like to one day staff the firehouse at Trenton-Mercer Airport, the county-owned airport that is inside Ewing’s borders.
Behind the growth is the mayor, Bert Steinmann, who was elected in 2010.
During a recent meeting with the mayor, his business administrator, Aaron T. Watson, and Fire Director Marc Strauss, they described the fire landscape in town.
While the 2015 fire, on Stowman Avenue, was a turning point, the overall issue is familiar in many areas of New Jersey – the decades-long, gradual decline in volunteerism in firefighting.
Signs in front of the volunteer firehouse always seem to beg for members to join. But once they do, they must undergo not only initial training but regular and annual drills and refresher courses to remain active.
“They were almost impossible to keep up with,” Steinmann said of the training.
Ewing was long served by three volunteer fire companies in town, Prospect Heights, Pennington Road and West Trenton, stations 31, 32 and 33, respectively. Each had their own firehouse.
The town, like many others, did employ career firefighters starting in the late 1970s, but it was only one at each station, and they were referred to as “paid drivers,” whose job was to swiftly get the fire engine to the scene and meet up with volunteers.
By 2015, Ewing had grown to nine career firefighters, three at each station, to augment the volunteers. But the paid crews stopped working at 4 p.m. each day. The Stowman fire that year was at 5:30 p.m.
By 2016 and 2017, the town knew they had to act, after trying other moves, like an inventive program that paid volunteers $5 per call.
It didn’t lead to a boon of new firefighters.
“We had to change the culture of how we fight the fires,” Steinmann said.
That meant hiring them as full-time, career professionals.
The issue came down to a simple fact, Steinmann said. “If there’s a fire, a firefighter needs to show up.”
The town eventually took over the Pennington Road firehouse after officially declaring the company as an ineffective firefighting force via a township council ordinance, passed in 2019.
The town hired Strauss that year too. He is a former police officer in Hunterdon County and served as Union Township’s public safety director prior to Ewing. He also was a volunteer fire chief in Hunterdon.
The town then purchased the building from the volunteer company in 2022 for $1.5 million. They renovated the building, adding new living quarters for men and women, plus other firefighter spaces and amenities.
It is now the headquarters for the Ewing Fire Department, which carries the radio call sign of Division 30.
They employ 31 firefighters, who work 24/7 shifts from the building, as well as daytime ( 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. ) crews that operate from the West Trenton and Prospect Heights firehouses. The annual budget for the department is $2.3 million.
The headquarters building also houses Ewing EMS and the township code enforcement offices, which were added in the renovations.
The next step?
The airport, is planned, but preliminary, officials say.
Due to the fact that the airport lies within the township’s boundaries, they see it as a logical progression, Steinmann and Strauss say.
Airports of a certain level, like Trenton-Mercer, require a full-time crew of firefighters trained in responding to aviation incidents, a classification called Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting, or ARFF, which is required by the FAA.
That service is currently provided by a private company, Pro-Tec Fire Services, which has for years been operating on a renewable annual contract with Mercer County. (They use Station 34 on the radio.) The latest was extended from June 1, 2024, to May 31, 2025, for $1.1 million.
Mercer County has been planning for years a major expansion of the airport, which was given the green light by federal officials in 2022. Part of that plan includes a new fire station.
In June, the Mercer County Board of Commissioners awarded a $17.8 million bid to Epic Management, of Piscataway, to build the station. The county plans a groundbreaking for the building on Oct. 9.
Ewing sees two opportunities. First, they would like to move career firefighters into the station as a geographic move for that part of the town, who would respond to non-airport structure fires and other emergencies like they do currently from the nearby West Trenton fire station.
The West Trenton station is not part of future plans for career firefighters, Steinmann said.
Second, Ewing would one day like to provide the ARFF service as well.
Steinmann and Watson said that the move is preliminary and will require some “delicate” maneuvering in the future.
They are, though, laying the groundwork.
Ewing, starting in 2021 and aided by federal grants, has been sending all their career firefighters to ARFF training in Pittsburgh, including their latest academy class which underwent the training in late September.
Meanwhile, when the airport station is opened, the staff that responds to Ewing fires would be separate from the staff dedicated to the airport, no matter who is providing the service – Pro-Tec or Ewing – as the aviation firefighters have to remain dedicated to airport operations, Strauss explained.
Pro-Tec’s Mercer location did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Mercer County Executive Dan Benson is on board. He said the county is excited about the new fire station and opportunities to collocate services with Ewing.
While the county currently works with Pro-Tec, “We are in conversations with Ewing Township to see what role they can play in supplementing and complementing those services in the future. We appreciate the opportunity to partner with Ewing Township and its fire services,” Benson said.
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