Ben Tucker ran unopposed and was elected to lead the 45-member department last week, succeeding his father, Tom Tucker, who had served as the chief for the past three years. The PSGVFD has a three-year term limit for chiefs as an effort to let members move up in the ranks.

Ben has been the assistant chief for a handful of years.

He said he’ll have good mentors with his father and his uncle, Steve Tucker, as second and first assistant chiefs.

Ben grew up around firefighting. He was always at the firehouse after calls — helping roll up the hoses or washing the trucks. He remembers riding on the fire engines in parades.

Ben Tucker is the new Paul Smiths-Gabriels Volunteer Fire Department chief. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Ben wanted to join the department as soon as he could and signed up in his freshman year of high school in 2014.

The chief is the president of the corporation and is in charge of delegating duties.

“Everything goes through them,” Ben said.

He hopes to pick up where his father left off.

His goal is to listen to his members in making decisions for the department, to continue the forward momentum of the department and to gain more members. PSGVFD is an all-volunteer department.

Every fire department is always looking for more members, he said. People looking to join PSGVFD can reach out on Facebook at facebook.com/psgvfd, talk to a member or stop at the firehouse any Monday night at around 6 p.m.

“There’s a lot of different ways of helping out the fire department other than going out to fight the fire,” Ben said.

They have “social members” who help with fundraisers, cook food during major responses or assist with traffic control to keep firefighters and the public safe.

Having a volunteer department saves taxpayers a lot of money. A firefighting service would cost “a fortune” otherwise, Ben said. It also increases community involvement, with locals working together to serve their community.

The department gets $98,000 from the town of Brighton every year and around $120,000 from donations and fundraisers. Ben said they use their entire budget every year. The costs of firefighting equipment and turnout gear are always rising.

The department has pretty strong membership for how sparsely populated the area it serves is. This is, in part, because membership is bolstered by students at the college — especially in its disaster management program — volunteering. Ben said they have 15 PSC students volunteering currently. He said it’s awesome to see young people involved in the trade.

Because the department has so much manpower, he said PSGVFD responds to a lot of mutual aid calls for other departments.

Ben is also a paid fire driver with the Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department. He works three 24-hour shifts a week there. He’ll be able to continue this job along with being the PSGVFD chief.

Ben said he doesn’t do it for a “thank-you.” He does it because he loves helping.

On Sunday, PSGVFD members answered their 200th call of the year.

This includes one structure fire, three wildland fires, one chimney fire, 17 car crashes, one car fire, 42 medical calls, two water rescues, two backwoods rescues, 10 trees and wires down and 100 alarm activations, including three carbon monoxide alarms. There have been 15 more calls in the past week, including a rollover car crash.

Ben said this annual volume of calls does not happen often. He’s unsure of why exactly. The number of calls in a year is sometimes random. But he also said that they’re responding to more calls and more demanding calls as the years progress.

Part of it is that fire alarm systems are more sensitive now, to everything from cooking smoke to Febreze.

Part of it is that building construction is getting cheaper, giving residents a shorter amount of time to escape a fire, making quick responses more urgent.

Ben reminded people to check that their smoke and carbon monoxide detectors have full batteries, to make sure their windows and doors are clear in the case of an emergency, to make sure emergency trucks can enter their driveway without obstacles and to make sure they have a visible house number sign. Fire departments sell reflective 911 address numbers.

PSGVFD started as a bucket brigade for Paul Smith’s College in 1966. In 1979, the department expanded to become PSGVFD, operating out of a garage on campus. Now, it covers 68 square miles of Gabriels, Paul Smiths and parts of Santa Clara.