WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Craig Pedercini can only hope that his retirement party will not be as memorable as that of his predecessor.

 

"The day of Chief [Ed] McGowan's retirement party, which was the 17th of January, we had a structure fire kind of early afternoon if I remember right," Pedercini recalls. "I was here, and I remember running out the door, and Chief McGowan happened to be popping in to say hi or whatever.

 

"I said, 'If you want to talk to me, you're going to need to get in the car because I'm going to a fire.' He jumped in, and we had a fire at what at the time was called the Chimney Mirror motel, which is now the Williamstown Motel. They had a laundry room fire. It wasn't terrible. We went in and put it out pretty quickly.

 

"But it was freezing out. We had water coming out of the truck because the hydrant was pushing so much to us, and the water was skating down the driveway out onto Route 2, and it created this big thing of ice. Having to deal with all that and getting a sander out there to make the road safe again and things like that.

 

"As you can see, I can remember the day and date. That was kind of memorable because it was my first one as a fire chief."

 

But certainly not his last.

 

Of course, he hopes he has had his last fire as the days count down to his retirement after 37 years with the Williamstown Fire Department — the last 22 as its chief.