CHIEF JAKE DOTY didn’t plan on being associated with the fire service for very long when he first joined as a volunteer with the South Prairie Fire Department. “I was just a kid. I wasn’t thinking about retirement benefits,” he said. The retirement for a volunteer firefighter with 25 years of service in the early ‘60s was $100 a month – a pitiful sum for a young buck with his whole life ahead of him.

“It’s only $300 a month now,” Jake noted with a hearty Jake-laugh.

But it was fun. Even getting to a fire was exciting. “If you made the truck, you stood on the tailboard,” he said. Volunteers who missed the truck followed it in their personal vehicles. “If it was really cold, you made sure you didn’t catch the truck,” he said.

Firefighting was different when Jake started. The only light at night for the firefighters was the glow of the fire. “Most of the time you’d shoot [the water] through a window,” he said. Occasionally, tall tales from those days describe how the firefighters crawled way into a burning building. “The hell we did,” Jake boomed. “We kept our toes on the door!”

Fortunately, there weren’t many house fires in South Prairie. But there were a few, especially in the late 1950s when Ashley heaters became popular. “It was nothing but a creosote fire,” Jake said of the heaters. “There were a lot of chimney fires because of that heater.”

Later, when home owners began purchasing dryers, the vents would catch fire. “Most of the time those were just smoke,” he said.

The volunteers didn’t respond to emergency medical calls until the 1980s. “When Johnny and Roy come on the TV, that started it,” Jake said.

Born in Tacoma, Jake’s family moved first to Ashford, Washington, then to South Prairie when he was a toddler. He grew up and attended school in South Prairie.

On June 1, 1962, at the age of 20, he officially became a volunteer firefighter. Previous to that, he could be found hanging around the fire hall with his dad, who was a South Prairie volunteer firefighter.

Jake explained that he was not allowed to join until he was older. “It didn’t have anything to do with safety or nothing,” he said. The rule was he had to be of legal drinking age to be a firefighter. The local tavern owner would bring a case of Rainier to the fire station for drill and the station refrigerator was always well-stocked with beer.

Along with the beer, the fire station housed a 1927 Howard Cooper. Behind the double-hung barn doors of the small station the town had built around the rig, the volunteer firefighters practiced their skills. They didn’t have bunker gear or air packs. First aid equipment consisted of two oxygen bottles kept in a box. The regulator and hose were stored in an old suitcase.

Eventually, the firefighters and town members purchased a wrecked 1952 fire engine from a man in Seattle. They bought a used chassis from a dealer in Enumclaw and re-built the truck themselves. Later, they purchased a 1968 Diamond Rio, but were forced to sell it in the 1970s when the town couldn’t afford to maintain it.

In 1966, Jake married Sue. They moved into the house on Lower Burnett Road, where they still reside. There they raised three children and a lot of chickens. After 10 years as a chicken farmer, Jake decided to return to college to become a welder. Upon his graduation, he opened his own fabrication business, called “Jakes Welding.”

“I took one of my chicken houses and made a welding shop,” he said.

More than 30 years later, Jake's Welding is still in business.

Although Jake continued to volunteer for the fire department, he didn’t consider making it his career. “I had a business going,” he said.

However, he did begin to move up the ranks – from lieutenant to captain and assistant chief. When the South Prairie fire chief passed away on the scene of a fire, the mayor asked Jake to replace him. By then, Jake had been a volunteer for over 20 years.

Jake was the chief when the new station – the current Station 19 in South Prairie – was dedicated in 1984. He served as the fire chief for South Prairie from 1983 until the District began the process of merging with East Pierce Fire & Rescue. The last year as fire chief, he was also the chief for Pierce County Fire District #12.

Everything changed late one night when then East Pierce Fire & Rescue Fire Chief Dan Packer called Jake on the phone. The East Pierce Board of Fire Commissioners had just terminated the existing Volunteer Chief. Dan informed Jake that he was the new chief of the volunteers. “I agreed to it. I had no choice,” Jake said. But he told Dan he wouldn’t do it alone. This would have to be a team effort.

The District 12 volunteer firefighters were proving to be a challenge. They were not in favor of the merger. But the times were changing. The citizens expected a level of fire and emergency medical service that went beyond what the volunteers were used to providing. Prices of the homes in the area had shot up and so had the citizen’s expectation of their firefighters. Demand on the firefighter’s time increased as they were required to participate in more training than ever before. In addition to the fire calls, the firefighters were trained to provide emergency medical care.

“We went from ‘come all, play all’ to a professional, modern-day fire department,” Jake said.

He spent the ensuing years leading the East Pierce volunteer firefighters. Under his watch, the volunteers became a well-trained resource to the career firefighters, providing essential back up during major incidents and playing an important role in the District’s fire and life safety prevention efforts. The volunteers improved their credentials by attending classes to become emergency medical technicians (EMTs). As a result, dozens of volunteers have been hired as career firefighters and the foundation has been laid for a strong and productive future.

Today, Jake is enjoying his time away from the fire department, although the scanner still squawks in the living room. After all these years, the house would be too quiet without it, he admits.

It’s probably not a coincidence that Jake’s retirement coincided with hunting season and he has been taking full advantage of that fact, hunting from Washington to Montana.

After hunting season is over, his wife Sue informed him that she has her own plans for all of his free time. “I guess I have to go back to honey-do jobs,” he laughed.

For nearly 50 years, the citizens of South Prairie and beyond have depended on Jake Doty to be there during an emergency. His towering frame has been a fixture at fires too numerous to count and he has been a leader for hundreds of volunteer firefighters.

It is with mixed feelings that we at East Pierce Fire & Rescue watch him leave. For all of the many sacrifices he and his family have made in order to serve his community, he certainly has earned his retirement. We thank him for his exceptional dedication and commitment and wish him many years of happy hunting.