Stepping Forward
It takes a firefighter to know what firefighters need, sometimes even before they do.
Take the boot jack. This tool is largely unknown in many circles, including among firefighters.
But Tim LaSitis, a volunteer firefighter in Armstrong County and a wood manufacturing teacher at Butler Intermediate High School, had seen boot jacks online.
“I saw them online, and I made my own,” LaSitis said. “The guys liked it, so I decided it would be a good project.”
The boot jack is a precisely cut slab of wood that fits around the heel of a fireman's boot. By clutching the heel, the boot jack allows firefighters to step out of their boots with less struggle.
Sixty intermediate high school freshmen and sophomores spent about 720 hours making between 25 and 30 boot jacks for 12 local companies, including engraving each with a company's insignia. Each company will receive two or three boot jacks, LaSitis said, including eight companies who gathered Thursday to receive them.
“If your house caught on fire, would you want your neighbor to help you?” LaSitis said to students. “Would you want to help them?”
Representatives of Butler, Connoquenessing, East Butler, Greenwood Village, Herman, Lick Hill, Oneida Valley and Unionville fire departments accepted the boot jacks on behalf of their companies.
“We used a router to put the logo on,” said Dakota Wolfe, a student who worked on boot jacks for the Greenwood Village Volunteer Fire Department.
The computer-controlled router the students used worked in concert with AutoCAD software that drew the three-dimensional design.“They (students) needed to know the dimensions to make it to size and scale,” LaSitis said.The router uses an x- and y-axis, like a regular graph, and a z-axis that moves up and down, he said.“We'll keep them in front of their (firefighters) lockers,” said Bob Covert, Connoquenessing Volunteer Fire Company training and maintenance officer. “They (students) did a nice job.”
