WESTWOOD—The Borough Council chamber filled with dress-uniform firefighters on Dec. 16, as the mayor and council paused a busy year-end agenda to honor three of the borough’s own for a milestone that’s getting rarer by the year: 50 years in the fire service.
Daniel O’Brien, JayMee Hodges, and William Quinn were presented with certificates of achievement from the New Jersey–New York Volunteer Fire Association, recognizing a half-century of service with the Westwood Fire Department.
Pat Conner, president of the association, told the room that in today’s environment, longevity like this is almost hard to wrap your head around.
“It’s hard to get anybody to join … and get five years out of them,” Conner said — and that Westwood has three members reaching 50 years is “unbelievable.”
The moment drew visible support from beyond Westwood, too: the audience included firefighters from neighboring departments, including Haworth, who came to Borough Hall to stand with their colleagues.
Surprise second honor — and a $500 check
After the 50-year certificates were presented, Conner called O’Brien forward again for an additional, unexpected recognition: a Certificate of Distinguished Volunteer Service, along with a $500 check.
“I don’t know how this guy does it,” Conner said of O’Brien, praising him for balancing work, firefighting, and what Conner described as sustained humanitarian trips to hurricane-hit communities in the South.
“I know it’s not a lot,” Conner said of the check, “but it’s something … just try to offset some of the cost that you have absorbed.”
O’Brien, speaking from the front of the chamber, described how the work began after he traveled to North Carolina after Helene and saw devastation he called “mind boggling.”
“Communities were just completely washed away,” he said. “Fire departments, the rescue squads, the houses, people — it was just total, total devastation.”
He said the experience left him feeling he “had to do something,” and that he was able to make multiple trips back down with equipment — not on his own, he emphasized, but with help from other towns, departments, municipalities, and private donors who answered his call.
Among the items he said he transported: a 100-foot aerial ladder, a 1,500-gallon-per-minute pumper from Emerson, as well as generators and other tools and equipment.
“If it wasn’t for the towns around here that made the donations … I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did,” he said, adding that donations reached “as far down as South Jersey.”
The experience, O’Brien told the room, reinforced his belief in the volunteer fire service — especially after seeing the lack of equipment many departments faced even before the storm.
“It just instilled to me the whole volunteer thing,” he said. “That’s why I felt I had to do something.”
A mayor’s thanks
Mayor Ray Arroyo, speaking after the presentations, framed the 50-year recognition in everyday terms: the sound of sirens, the constant calls, and the hours that service pulls volunteers away from home.
“All of us, we hear the fire sirens going off constantly,” Arroyo said, noting the council receives regular reports on call volume.
He said, “It’s a lot of time away from your families to protect our families. So congratulations, and thank you for your remarkable, dedicated volunteer service … I mean that sincerely.”