On the Force

Since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, Dartmouth students have pitched in to help fight fires on the Hanover Plain - undergraduate attempts to extinguish the 1904 conflagration at Dartmouth Hall with "a vigorous application of snow" come to mind - but their cooperation has been formalized in recent years, especially since last spring's addition of the new fire house on Lyme Road.

At present students comprise almost one-third of the Fire Department's roster and several of them live in a dormitory at the station, paying nothing for their rooms and receiving a flat monthly salary for their services. Volunteers are paid $2.50 an hour for time actively engaged on a call; some take regular shifts on weekends, to supplement Hanover's ten full-time firemen.

The students, who undergo regular training sessions before they join the volunteer roster, report immense job satisfaction from their work and applicants far outnumber available positions. Cooperative faculty members scarcely pause in mid-sentence of a lecture when the whistle blasts and one or more of the fire-eaters bolt from the classroom.