Next week, for the first time in some 75 years, the Pickering family will not have a presence in the New Canaan firehouse.
After 30 years on the job, Firefighter Jim Pickering is retiring. His official last day is Sunday, Aug. 25.
“I would have stayed if not for an opportunity that fell in my lap,” Pickering said.
Jim Pickering volunteered to be a firefighter on Sept. 11, 1980, and was hired to start a paying job July 31, 1989.
“I think fires burn hotter and faster,” Pickering said of changes in his decades as a firefighter. ‘Look around, everything is plastic.” A positive, however, is in the increased use of fire alarm systems in private dwellings.
“We used to get a call from a neighbor that a house was on fire, then get a half dozen more calls,” Pickering said. “With alarms there is earlier detection.”
Alarms also detect the presence of carbon monoxide, causing more responses, but saving lives.