For more than half a century, Gerald “Jerry” Sleater helped battle fires in Benton County Fire District 1.
Whether it was from a seat in a fire truck or behind a board table, Sleater left his mark on the 320-square-mile district that runs south of Kennewick and Richland.
The longest-serving member and current fire district commissioner died Wednesday at the age of 86.
His firefighting career started in 1964 when a group of local firefighters came into Ray’s Grocery, the Richland store he had recently purchased from his father. At the time, he was looking for ways he could serve the community. “They demanded that I come help them,” he told the Herald shortly after his 50th anniversary with the district. “I wasn’t going to say no. That’s how it was back then.”
He began volunteering at the station in the Richland Wye, which was the fourth station in the district, and eventually became the assistant chief at Station 3 and the acting chief in the 1980s.