Brasel served as NYM Fire Chief for the past 11 years, to serve as assistant chief

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

Nick Roder was recently elected to be New York Mills’ newest fire chief at the fire department.

Roder, who has served at the fire department since 2011, will be filling Ryan Brasel’s position. Brasel has served as fire chief for the past 11 years, originally starting with the NY Mills fire department in 2010 after serving the Bluffton Fire Department prior to that. Brasel will continue as assistant Fire Chief to aid Roder in the transition.

“Just to help with the future members as they go up the years of service and future officers on the department,” said Brasel of what he’s looking forward to. “Not a whole lot is gonna be different, I can make more time for the kids’ activities and sports.”

Roder credits Brasel for being a positive and effective fire chief during his time at the department.

“Ryan left us in a really good place,” said Roder, “so, I just look to further that. We have a good group of people. We’ve always provided good service since Ryan’s been chief, even since the previous chiefs, we’ve always had a reputation for having good turnout for calls, just furthering that.”

Roder also said that the fire department’s support staff is essential to the Department’s success. Working together to find the best solution among the group is always more effective than with only one at the helm. The fire department has 20 members at present, which is just two short of a full department.

“We have a great group of officers that, it’s not just me calling the shots, it’s everybody putting their heads together in emergency situations to best figure it out because I might think one way and somebody might see something completely different and just being able to talk through those situations and lean on each other is another thing that I have the benefit of.

“We have some really great officers,” he continued. “Ryan’s going to be there too as assistant chief to help me transition, I can’t thank him enough, he’s been great.”

In the future, Roder plans to incorporate additional trainings for the department to keep up with the changing of technology and its potential for causing dangerous situations for firefighters across the world.

“Things are changing with technology,” he explained. “Electronic vehicles and all those kind of things. With that comes some nice conveniences for some people, but there’s also some added dangers to dealing with those situations, so keeping everybody on our fire department safe, number one, as well as trained. So those are some thing’s we’re going to look at in the future, additional trainings.”

When Roder moved to NY Mills, one of the first questions he was asked was whether he would join the fire department. It was a question that had never crossed his mind before then.

“It’s a lot of little kids’ dreams to grow up and be a firefighter and when we moved back, one of the first things I was asked, ‘well, are you interested in joining the fire department?’ I had no thought of doing that. I’ve always been a person that’s looked to help where needed, I feel like I have good situation awareness when it comes to emergency situations.

“I think it’s the general feeling of wanting to help,” Roder continued. “I don’t fault people for not wanting to deal with those kind of situations, but there’s a certain group of people that want to jump up and help where they can in emergency situations. It’s not something small town members do for the money, it’s just a general consensus of wanting to help when emergencies arrive.”

Throughout Roder’s tenure at the fire department, he has come to appreciate some of the integral parts of being a firefighter. One of the most important is the closeness of the department members and their willingness and motivation to always check in with each other to make sure every member is doing okay.

“I think the camaraderie that comes around it,” said Roder of his favorite part of being a firefighter. “The stories—granted, we’ll have one or two bad calls a year—but we’ll also have probably 20 to 30 funny calls. You can look back and kinda laugh about situations that either people get themselves into or we as a group get ourselves into. There’s a real strong bond when going through those emergency situations, those tough times, tough calls. You can really see people from all walks of life.

“There’s a real strong bond among the people that are on the fire department and wanting to make sure that everybody’s okay,” continued Roder. “With stressful situations, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a real thing. Just being there for each other and just checking in with each other to make sure we’re doing okay. That bond is something that I’ve really learned to appreciate.”

Roder himself had a few firefighters, that are now retired, when he started that helped him through his first few tough calls. Being a firefighter is no easy job, so fellow members find it important to be able to lean on one another when they’re in need. He also mentioned that he would have never met many of his friends if it weren’t for joining the fire department 12 years ago.

“It’s kinda hard to believe that I’m on the upper end now,” laughed Roder. “It’s going fast.”

Roder said that the fire department runs as smoothly as it does because of the City of NY Mills and the area townships of Big Pine, Butler, Deer Creek, Homestead, Leaf Lake, and Newton for their continual support of the needs of the department.

“I want to thank the City of NY Mills and all the townships that we serve,” said Roder. “The’ve been great with the support for our fire department. I like to think that we’re pretty good about watching our expenses and budget and those kind of things, but when a need has arisen, we’ve always had the support of both the city and the townships that we serve. I’m excited to continue that partnership.”