A Tribute and Some Recent History

This morning, Gossips received the following comment from Neal Van Deusen. Van Deusen, who celebrated his 50th anniversary as a member of the J. W. Edmonds Hose Co. No. 1 in 2022, currently serves on the Board of Directors of the FASNY Museum of Firefighting. With his permission, I share his comment here.

Yesterday's fire at 742-746 Warren Street has drawn much attention from media in the area. The fire in three connected wooden buildings had the potential to consume other property if not for the excellent job done by the City of Hudson's ALL VOLUNTEER fire department and the various mutual aid departments that responded to the call.

Many of the 400+ fire calls HFD responds to annually are on Warren Street, with some of them being actual fires that are quickly extinguished by HFD.

The aggressive and professional approach by our volunteers has saved numerous properties from more serious damage over the years.

This being said, the last major fire on Warren Street that severely damaged multiple buildings was on Sunday, February 25, 1990, when "Charlie's Corner" at 5th & Warren streets burned. The day before the temperature in Hudson was unseasonably warm with temperatures near 60. However on Sunday the temperatures dropped to single digits with strong winds coming out of the northwest.

The severe winds hampered firefighters who also had to deal with dropped ceilings and other voids in the walls and ceilings of the structures involved.

Photo courtesy Neal Van Deusen

Photo courtesy Neal Van Deusen

Photo courtesy Neal Van Deusen

We should all be thankful and proud of our firefighters who have been serving the City of Hudson since 1794.