A historical look back at Lum Fire Dept.

Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part series on the Lum fire department and it’s history. Our thanks to Shelly and Ray Swain for sharing information and photographs they have assembled over the years.

LUM (ARCADIA TWP.) — The following is a compilation of the history of the Arcadia Township Fire Department.

Also affectionately known as the Lum Fire Department.

The first part of the story was reported by the late Oscar Vincent, one of the original firemen.

Oscar spent 22 years on the department, serving for a time as Assistant Chief to Chief Ray Utley until 1960, then as Fire Chief from 1960 to 1972.

The second part was shared by Shelly Swain, with plenty of help from her husband, Ray Swain, and former Fire Chief Tom Knaggs.

Swain has been on the department for 51 years, first joining in 1974 at the age of 19. He served as Assistant Chief from 1982-1985 under Pug Seybert and after that, as Chief from 1985-1995.

Tom was on the department for 56 years before his retirement in March of 2025. Knaggs first joined the original fire department back in 1969.

He served as Assistant Chief from 1977-1981 under Herb Ware and again from 1995-2002 under Bob Johnson.

Knaggs then took over as Chief from 2002-2025 when he retired from that position, but not from the department.

In gathering information on the Lum Fire Dept., Shelly Swain said, “I have been a firefighter’s wife for 48 years. It was quite a chore for me to go back five decades to gather as much history as possible.”

She added, “Some of the dates could very well be wrong and there may also be other inaccuracies, but I did my best. It is my hope to continue to keep this up as best as I can and that somewhere in the future when I can no longer do this or do not want to continue, that someone within the department will carry it on into the future.”

The story of the late Oscar Vincent and his recollections spans from 1940 to 1973.

In the years since Vincent wrote his story, many changes have come about in his beloved Lum Fire Department.

Shelly stated. “I did my best to pick up where Oscar left off.

She said with the help from many, including her husband and Chief Knaggs, and many hours of looking back through old pictures and picking their brains, “I have come up with as much information as possible.”

Swain said she started where Oscar left off in 1973, with the historical lesson.

In 1973 (when Oscars story ends and mine begins) Herb Ware was Chief and Nelson Stone served as Assistant Chief.

In 1978 the Arcadia Twp. Board and the Fire Department purchased a Darely F700 pumper, 13-21, to add to their emergency response fleet.

The truck, according to those on the department at the time, was the only truck they ever had that was not red. Some felt the truck was “ugly”, with it’s yellow color (a fad of some sort at the time).

The eye-catching “yellow” truck replaced the 2-ton Ford pumper mentioned in Oscars story.

According to Swain’s information, they then took the chassis from the Ford and put the tank from the old tanker on that chassis and it became the new tanker, 13-31.

In the mid to late 80’s they then acquired a Dodge 5/4 ton 4 x 4 pickup as a grass rig to add to the jeep fleet for fighting grass fires. These jeeps are an essential part of the fire department, especially in the spring grass fire season.

In 1981 John Sollman became Chief & Pug Seybert became his Assistant Chief. Shorty after that, in 1982, Seybert became Chief and Ray Swain became the new Assistant Chief.

In 1985 Seybert stepped down and Swain became the Chief and for a few months Doug Lowe became Assistant Chief until the firemen elected Gregg Watt to fill that position. In 1988 Watt became ill with cancer and stepped down and Mike Gonda became the new Assistant Chief.

In 1986 a new fire hall was built just around the corner at 4900 Spencer St., also known as “Pig Tail Alley” back in the day.

This fire hall was built as an addition to the Township office building which used to be the 4th and 5th grade Lum School until around 1963.

The new fire hall was big enough to house 2 tankers and a pumper. The grass rig jeeps were still being housed in the old original hall in downtown Lum

The new fire hall had two 6,000 gallon milk tanks buried out behind the hall for water storage, and they were fed by the twp well. Later on, the two tanks were removed and a larger one was buried there.

Prior to 1987 the way a fireman got notified of fires was through a box about 12 x 12 square and about 3-4 inches tall with an antenna on it called a Plectron.

In 1987 the firemen and the township board went together and bought pagers for all of the firemen. Those pagers have been updated since then and now the department has radios in which the firemen can speak to central dispatch and other fire departments on a fire scene. Each of the department’s officers has a radio.

In February of 1989 the department had a major fire at the Lum International Golf Course (known now as Castle Creek). The fire department was called out around 9:25 p.m. on a Monday night on February 21 to the castle like club house.

Three area fire departments were called to assist in fighting this huge fire. On hand to help was Goodland Twp., Attica and Imlay City with their ladder truck. 50 firefighters in all worked hard to get the fire out.

It was believed to have started on the west end of the building. The front door glass was broken and the door was open. Empty liquor bottles were found outside the building. Arson was suspected.

We will have Part #2 of this series about the Lum Fire Dept. history in next week’s edition of the Tri-City Times.