HARLEYVILLE - Esprit de corps, that's what wetting down a new fire truck is all about. It's one of those old firefighter traditions that resound like a bell.
Harleyville Fire Department welcomed its first ladder truck on Saturday with a ceremony that dates to the days when the trucks were wagons that had to be unhitched from the horse and backed into the station.
For the ceremony, firefighters push the truck into its bay as hoses spray it down.
Firefighting is one of those services imprinted with traditions, everything from the Maltese cross that is the emblem of fire departments everywhere to the hair-raising "last alarm" bell toll or wail of the fire siren when a fellow firefighter is buried. Tradition fosters community.
"We're brothers and sisters in every sense of the word. We have each other's back," said Tres Atkinson, Dorchester County fire coordinator.
"There's a great sense of pride. It's almost a calling. You have to want to risk your life to save other peoples' lives."
Individual traditions tend to morph from department to department, but make their way into nearly every occasion. Weddings, for instance, sometimes include an ax to cut the cake.
Partly, it's a flourish to the nature of being a firefighter, the day-after-day ritual of equipment checking, drills and training. But it's more.
Instilling tradition breeds camaraderie as well as efficiency, said Paul Hashagen, a retired chief and fire service history author.
"It's the passing of the legacy of what we do, mostly as a way, I think, to impress the importance of what we do on the newest people," he said.
The Harleyville truck is a refurbished one, but it's a giant step for the little town. The long need for a ladder truck was driven home this spring when ladder trucks had to be called in from two other towns to fight a towering pre-dawn blaze at the Argos USA cement plants.
Donations from Giant Cement and others helped the town pay for the truck, Atkinson said.
Reach Bo Petersen at 937-5744,
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