Ceremony marks the end of an era

A formal retirement ceremony commemorated Nate Marvin’s 23 years as chief of the Weiser Area Rural Fire District and 40 years of total service with the fire department. 

 Marvin turned over fire chief duties to Tim Atwood in September in what all said was a seamless and smooth transition of leadership. Also a veteran fireman, Atwood spent 27 years with the Nampa Fire Department.

 The retirement ceremony for Marvin included three members of the Nampa Fire Department color guard in full dress uniforms. The three lowered a flag flying over the firehouse and presented it to Atwood, who then presented it to Marvin.

 Another poignant moment came at the end of the retirement ceremony, when a final dispatch page came over the department’s radio thanking Marvin for his service. Marvin borrowed a handheld radio to answer the call. 

 Fireman Ron Bruce and Marvin go back a ways together. They graduated in the same high school class. Marvin got Bruce on the fire department in 2001, when the department built a satelite fire station to park a truck on Mann Creek. 

 The station was a mile from Bruce’s house, an easy commute to jump in the fire engine if he got paged out on a fire. Before the Mann Creek Station was built, Bruce lived too far out to join the rural department.

 He credited Marvin, who was promoted to chief in 1995, with building a men’s club of sorts into a professional fire department during his tenure as fire chief.

 Dennis Cooper is a fairly new fire board member, one of three elected to oversee the finances and operations of the fire district. 

 He has served in the elected office for more than two years. Marvin also provide leadership and guidance for the board as fire chief.

 Marvin got him interested in the board position, he said. Both worked for the city at the time, where Cooper worked for Marvin, the city’s public works supervisor, a position he held for more than 30 years.

 “I think the thing that impressed me most about Nate was the way he interacted with and managed people. He had a real gift for leadership,” Cooper said. 

 Fire board member Mike Johnson agreed that Marvin has built a professional department over the past two decades and has assembled “a really good crew.”

 Marvin said he joined the department all those years ago for the friendship and comaraderie with the other volunteer firemen. It kept him interested in the department for 40 years. 

 “A lot of people work for the ambulance or they volunteer with the Lions Club. This was my way of giving back to the community,” he said.

 Darwin Adams was the chief when Marvin started out as a volunteer fireman on the department in 1978. Back then, there was a rule that the firemen had to live in town. When he got married, he and his wife moved into Weiser and he was asked to join.

 Back then, the fire department operated out of the old building that collapsed a couple of winters ago from the snowload on the roof. The new fire station with its big bays for fire trucks was built in 1977. 

 The department had two or three used fire engines from other departments and a roster of 20-22 volunteers. 

 In the past two decades, the department has updated all of its equipment – fire engines, airpaks, turnouts to keep firemen safe. 

 In 40 years on the department, and the last 23 years as chief, Marvin has been to hundreds of incidents, from car crashes to house fires to wildfires in the district. 

 One fire he remembers started as a grass fire in steep country near Rock Creek outside of any fire protection district. Overnight, the wind changed directions and it turned into a raging range fire with flames racing toward homes in the old springs area. 

 “I started calling Payette and Ontario and Fruitland and everybody we could get because there was a whole string of houses from Jenkins Creek to Rock Creek,” Marvin said. “We didn’t lose any homes.”

 All firemen experience the thrill of the call, the adrenaline pumping when jumping into the fire engine or the command vehicle.

 Based on the page out, the mind races with questions, scenarios. What are you going to find? Are the power lines down? Are you going to have people trapped in the house that’s on fire?

 “That’s always a big fear, somebody trapped in the house,” Marvin said. 

 As fire chief Marvin said he always tried to get to the fire first to assess the situation. He would be the incident commander who had to quickly devise a plan to fight the fire and keep his people safe doing it. Would he need help? Would enough people show up?

 Another fire board member, Seth Matthews, has been a fire commissioner for 15 years and has known Marvin for 50 years. He served as a volunteer for a while and when he left Marvin asked him to seek a board seat. 

 Matthews gives Marvin credit for his efforts to constantly improve the department in equipment and training. 

 “Nate is fully in charge and understands what needs to be done. He is an excellent fireman and made this department one of the best anywhere in the state,” Matthews said. 

 “There have been a lot of stressful times on fires when people’s lives were in danger and he has lived up to his command position.”