FIREHOUSE ROAD

Craig Blakesley Past Chief, Current Assistant Chief
Summitville Fire Company

Years in service: 18

Occupation: Owner, Mountaintop Landscape

 

The first rescue Craig Blakesley responded to was a call for help from the Summitville Fire Company. 

It was 2005 and the company, one of, if not the smallest, fire departments in Sullivan County, was short staffed and on the verge of closing. He was a late bloomer compared to some of the other firefighters, folks who had joined in the early teens and already had decades of service under their belts. But they appealed to his sense of neighborliness and civic duty, and he simply couldn’t refuse them.

Now, it’s impossible to calculate the hours Blakesley has dedicated to the department, rising up the line from probie all the way to chief.

He has no plans on stopping any time soon.

Says Blakesley,  “It grew on me.”