Dwight “Red” Whitfield started driving the fire engine with the Swepsonville Fire Department before a lot of the firefighters there were born. Last week, he retired.
“I’m sure I’ll miss driving the truck and people and things,” Whitfield said at Swepsonville Fire Station 10. “I think I’ll like it.”
Whitfield, 71, used to work at the mill across the road from where the firehouse stands. The mill is gone now. Whitfield started coming over to help out and became a volunteer in 1974. Three years later, it became his job.
In those days, the department handled about 80 calls a year, Chief Drew Sharpe said. Now, it handles more than 1,000 with 85 firefighters, most of them volunteers. Whitfield’s son, David, is one of those volunteers, and his grandson, Lane, won’t be old enough to be an explorer in three years, but already has his own turn-out gear.
While Whitfield started fighting fires, Joe Covington, the chief at the time, said he wanted him driving the fire engine.
“I said, ‘I haven’t been here long enough. I don’t know the area that well.’ He said, ‘I’ll tell you where to go,’” Whitfield remembered. “From then on I was driving.”
The job was more than driving. Whitfield got good at operating the pumps on the truck, which matters in a fire.
“Most guys wanted me on the truck pumping for them,” Whitfield said. “They trusted me because I knew how to get the water to them.”