Residents of Koontz Lake and surrounding communities turned out Saturday afternoon to honor 50 year Koontz Lake firefighter Robert “Lynn” Fraine.
It all began for Lynn in August of 1960 when he made a commitment to help protect his community. Actually, it began a little earlier when the fire department would recruit high schoolers to help fight fires.
“When we were in high school, our Principal would let us go out and help the Department,” remembered Fraine. “People would call the school and say ‘the junior and senior boys are standing along the highway’ and they’d drive by and pick us up. We were used to carry in the tanks and mops and stuff like that. We enjoyed it. When I went in to service after I graduated, I came back and said ‘this is what I want to do’.”
Lynn was asked what the department was like in the early days.
“When I started, we had two pieces of equipment and a one car garage. We didn’t have much in terms of gear and if we needed something, we didn’t buy it. We made it.”
Ted Hayes asked Lynn to remember one of the thousands of calls he went out on.
“Two of my sons, Randy and Keith, they got out of the apartment. It was a big fire. I had to pull Randy out the fire. The other boy, I sent him around back with a barn fire to make sure the animals were not in danger. He had to wade through the cow pasture, so to say, and when we got home, mother wasn’t very happy with us.”
Robert “Lynn” Fraine a man who saw his duty, and did it for over 50 years.
