#fire station | yatescountyhistorycenter (2024)

By Jonathan Monfiletto

The best thing – indeed, probably the only good thing – to come out of the fire at the Penn Yan fire station on Wednesday, December 20, 1967 was there was only one major injury, that to a firefighter who suffered a dislocated shoulder from flying debris caused by an explosion after the fire started. Otherwise, that day – called Black Wednesday in local lore – well earned its moniker and reputation as a tragic moment for Penn Yan and Yates County.

Firefighters are heroes, period. The firefighters of Penn Yan, Yates County, and surrounding communities display their courage and bravery every time they respond to an emergency scene, especially those who are volunteers and must leave their homes and jobs to answer the call. And the firefighters of Penn Yan and beyond certainly showed their fortitude on Black Wednesday.

Ten years later, Harry Monnin – a firefighter and the janitor at the firehouse, then located on Main Street in Penn Yan, in the present-day location of the Penn Yan Elks Lodge – told a Geneva newspaper he was the last person in the building on the morning of the fire. It felt unusually hot inside the building, he said; after walking through the building but finding nothing, he turned down the thermostat thinking someone had left it up too high. According to the chief’s log book, the fire started at 8:06 a.m. that day and later was determined to have been caused by an overheated furnace boiler.

John Banach, the fire chief at the time, operated a barbershop around the corner on Elm Street and – with a handful of other firefighters who worked in the downtown vicinity – was one of the first firefighters on the scene. Having heard one blast of the fire horn warning system before the fire consumed it and seeing the building engulfed in flames when he went around the corner, Banach knew what it meant and rushed to the scene. He called the Yates County Sheriff and ordered every other Yates County fire department – Bellona, Benton, Branchport, Dresden, Dundee, Kashong, and Keuka Park – to provide mutual aid. He also called fire departments in Geneva, Ontario County, and Wayne, Steuben County, for help, and other area departments provided support at the fire stations of the departments that responded.

Meanwhile, at the scene, firefighters opened the front doors of the blazing building; Jim Shamp reached inside to give one more pull of the fire horn to alert the community, and Bernard Linehan managed to grab five lengths of hose so the firefighters could begin battling the blaze at their own firehouse. Those hoses ended up being the only firefighting equipment saved from the fire. At one point, a burning pumper truck rolled on its own through the open front doors and into the street; bystanders with the presence of mind to toss a garbage can in front of the truck stopped it from crashing into the Beaumont and Stork Insurance Agency building across the street. Another firefighter with quick thinking rescued some equipment from the truck.

Despite the odds stacked against them, with hopelessness and futility, Penn Yan firefighters valiantly fought the fire for 20 minutes while awaiting the arrival of other fire departments. Two firefighters manning a hose at the rear of the building were hit by flying debris when there was a second explosion inside the firehouse; Levi Titus suffered a dislocated shoulder in the incident. Three other firefighters suffered minor cuts and bruises, and other responders were treated for smoke inhalation.

Dresden firefighters arrived on the scene first and Geneva firefighters made it in record time, dispatching an aerial truck with a 75-foot extension ladder and an emergency truck. Also serving at the scene were two aerial trucks from Harvard Tree Surgeons, of Canandaigua, which happened to be working in the village at the time, and from the village Department of Public Works. A total of 150 firefighters assisted that day, according to one report.

At the time, the Penn Yan firehouse was wedged on the east side of Main Street between the A&P Supermarket on its north side and the Thompson Furniture Store on its south side. Like the firehouse, the grocery store was destroyed, while the furniture store sustained smoke and water damage. Ironically, all three buildings were scheduled for demolition under the village’s urban renewal projects of the period and plans for a new firehouse were underway. The firehouse and the grocery store buildings were each about 110 years old, while the furniture store building was around 75 years old. Village residents had recently approved a bond issue for the construction of a new firehouse, and the village board voted two days before the fire to seek bids for the project.

The north wall of the grocery store was in danger of collapsing onto the Lincoln Rochester Bank, so the bank stayed closed that day. Nevertheless, the alley in between the buildings helped contain the blaze, and a vacant store stood on the other side of the furniture store. While the fire blazed out of control for three hours, firefighters manned the scene until at least 8 p.m. Banach himself stood on duty for 14 hours and still fielded phone calls and returned messages when he got home that night. Though one newspaper report indicated a temperature of 29 degrees that day, another item expressed thanks for no snowfall, high winds, or sub-freezing temperatures during the wintertime fire.

A tow truck hauled a second pumper truck out of the burning fire station, while a third pumper and a ladder truck remained inside the firehouse. An emergency truck and a tanker truck stored at a subsidiary station on North Avenue were the only vehicles the fire department had after the fire, though offers to loan trucks and equipment poured in from firefighting companies and fire departments around the area. The fire departments that responded to the scene left behind some of their firefighting equipment for use by the Penn Yan firefighters. Along with the North Avenue station, temporary housing for the donated vehicles and equipment was made at Penn Yan Express, the Mobil Service Station, the Comstock Cannery, and the Dairymen’s League plant.

The Chamber of Commerce took up a collection from the community to meet any of the volunteer firefighters’ personal needs after the fire. Tones Garage, which removed the destroyed firetrucks from the scene, salvaged the wrecked vehicles and gave the money back to the fire department. Village officials and local residents also contributed to the fire department and firefighters in various other ways. The insurance companies worked cooperatively with the fire department as well, Banach said.

The fire knocked out the alarm system in place at the time to alert first responders of emergencies in the village. It was announced that fire calls would have to be phoned through the Yates County Sheriff’s Office to the fire department; phones would ring simultaneously in the homes of some firefighters, and their wives would alert other firefighters of the call. In an emergency meeting shortly after the fire, the village board authorized purchases of a new alarm system that could be installed a little more than a week after the fire and of any immediately needed equipment.

According to several newspaper reports, estimates of the losses in the fire range from $250,000 to $1 million. One-and-a-half-million gallons of water were used to conquer the blaze. Fortunately, though, there were no fatalities and only relatively minor injuries, and the Yates County community rallied around the Penn Yan fire department in the wake of the tragedy.

Yes, Black Wednesday was a dark day, but it was also a bright day in some regards. John Tusch, the mayor of Penn Yan at the time, summed it up this way 10 years later: “Some people referred to December 20 as Black Wednesday. In the early and mid-morning, it did appear to be just that. But out of the black smoke of disaster, there blossomed a bright radiance of warmth and kindness from human hearts which will surely be remembered as long or longer than the black smoke.”