LAKEVILLE — Fire Chief Michael O’Brien said that open houses—like the one on Sunday Oct. 8 at the Lakeville fire station—are how a lot of firefighters get their start.

“If you talk to our present firefighters, for a lot of them this is where they get the itch to be a firefighter,” O’Brien said. “I’m sure we have a few future firefighters here today.”

Starting at 10 a.m., the Lakeville community came to the fire station to eat popcorn and other snacks, handle real fire fighting equipment, and look at different firefighting vehicles, including an old 1971 fire truck that was built by Maxim Fire Apparatus Company, a now shuttered company that used to make fire trucks in Middleboro.

“Everybody’s been itching to get out in the sun,” O’Brien said. “It’s been a while since we had a nice weekend.” 

At the open house, the fire department put on a demonstration showing the benefits of fire sprinkler systems in new constructions. The fire department lit two model homes on fire, one with a sprinkler system installed and one without a sprinkler system. 

The model home with the sprinkler system automatically put out the fire very quickly. In contrast, the model home without the sprinkler continued to burn. The fire department waited a few minutes before putting out the fire in the first model home, which simulated the amount of time it might take the fire department to get to a residence in the worst case scenario, when a residence is further away from a fire station.

Raffle tickets were also sold at the open house, with the proceeds going to the Lakeville Fire Association.

Firefighter Ryan Silvia said that seeing the fire trucks and being around the fire station at a young age was what inspired him to become a firefighter.

“That’s how I got into it, I was a second generation firefighter, I grew up going to the firehouse to visit my dad, climbing over the trucks, and it became a passion for me,” Silvia explained.

“The kids come up, they’re checking the trucks out, they’re going to take pictures with our little property out there, they put the gear on… I am sure that in ten years or so some of these kids are going to be joining us.”

Silvia said that the turnout at the event “has been awesome” and that the open house “is probably our best open house that we’ve ever had, with all the displays and the fun games.”

“This is something that we look forward to every year,” Silvia said. “This is a great way to get out to the public and show them what we do.”