MA Fire Chief Marks 40 Years of Service

Nov. 7 -- To say firefighting is in his blood would be an understatement.

Hanover Fire Chief Jeffrey Blanchard's father, Wendell Blanchard, not only was on the Hanover Fire Department, but served on the board of fire engineers and eventually became chief in 1975, holding the position for 10 years. His oldest brother, Ken, became fire chief shortly after their father and Jeff took over the position after Ken. His older brother, David, was a call firefighter in Hanover for several years as well, according to Jeff.

Blanchard, who is celebrating his 40th year with the department this month, joined as a call firefighter in November 1978 shortly before his 18th birthday. He quickly became trained as an EMT and dispatcher and eventually took the position as a permanent part-time firefighter, working holidays and weekends. In 1985, he was able to reach his goal of becoming a full-time firefighter.

"I felt like I was always going to go down the route of being a firefighter, but it didn't always seem like I was going to be able to find a job in Hanover," said Blanchard. "It was a very small department back then with a very large call department and a very small career department. The positions were very hard to come by and you had to wait for an opening."

During his father's time as chief, there were six different firehouses throughout the town and each one had a deputy chief that served as a board member. One of the members was elected to be chief of the department.

Currently, the 32 Central St. fire station is their headquarters and the 925 Circuit St. building is used only on occasion. The 207 Broadway and 1160 Main St. buildings are used for storage only.

To get an idea as to the size of the department, when Blanchard first joined part-time, there were eight part-time, eight full-time and nearly 100 on-call firefighters, he said. Currently, there are 23 full-time, along with three recruits, and 15 on-call firefighters.

The town grew as he did, with many people moving from Boston to the South Shore during his childhood.

"We saw a lot of housing developments and the town was really growing," said the lifelong Hanover resident. "Hanover continues to grow even today. Maybe not the huge housing developments, but it's still growing. Just as a resident, the character of the town has changed quite a bit. Being on the fire department, the demand for service has changed a lot as well."

Due to Hanover's smaller population in the 1970s and 1980s when Blanchard was new to the department, there was more downtime between calls that allowed firefighters to complete maintenance on equipment and prepare for calls.

When he first started as a full-time firefighter, the department averaged 1,200 calls each year. The department averages more than double that amount in 2018 with more than 3,000 calls each year.

"It's not just Hanover that has grown, but the communities around us that have also grown," he said. "The traffic that goes through our community is much higher now, along with more businesses where people might need our services. Communities rely on mutual aid a lot more now than they did before."

Community outreach has also increased over the past 30 years. Beginning in the late 1980s, the Student Awareness of Fire Education (SAFE) program was implemented that regularly brings firefighters into classrooms to teach young people what to do during a fire and how to create an escape plan.

"The continual growth of the town will require the department to adapt to the needs of the growing community," he said. "We have an aging population and we have more of a demand on our ambulance. Roughly 60 percent of the calls that we do annually involve the ambulance, with some sort of EMS response whether it's motor vehicle accident or someone who's sick."

The remaining 40 percent is fire-related, as well as responding to hazardous material calls.

Blanchard believes the community prevention efforts could be a contributing factor in the decrease in fire-related calls. Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors allow residents to know in advance when a problem is occurring and could result in them airing out their homes that result in them not needing to call the department.

With the number of residents in town and the amount of calls the department receives, Blanchard said he believes the department is properly staffed for now and the immediate future.

"The town needs to address our facilities, as we are in desperate need of another facility to operate out of," he said. "Hopefully that is a project that is on the horizon and I have been working to secure a site for a fire station and I think hopefully before the year ends, I might have some good news on that."

Blanchard was honored for his four decades of service to the community and the fire departmen during the annual Hanover Town Hall cookout held at the beginning of October.

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