Lake Hiawatha Fire Department

Barrel Fight 16 July 2005

It's been 11 years since LHFD made our initial (and only) entry into the barrel fighting arena. It was a glorious day somewhere in south Jersey and we we're hooked. Upon return to civilization, er, I mean Morris County, we never heard of this event again. We would inquire at parades or Antique Musters and we would get strange looks. After years of stupid looks and more questions about this "bizarre ritual" we gave up our search.

A random browsing of  other fire departments websites blows our minds!  " Barrel Fight July 16" it boldly states! So we pack into 644 and make the journey to Good Will Fire Company #1 in Belvidere, NJ Sure Enough, they deliver on what the website claims, we got ourselves a barrel fight in North Jersey!

We received a warm welcome from all our brothers in Belvidere, they gave us a grand tour of the firehouse and spectacular does not do it justice. This fine building is filled with some really nice apparatus, all of it in parade shape. But the icing on the cake, they have their own Banquet Hall, The Belvidere Manor. It is phenomenal, easily  rivaling many of the large hotels here in Parsippany. They host wedding and other large events and do all the catering and service themselves, definitely some committed folks!

Back to the barrel fights... With no prior experience our guys made a valiant effort. Losing by a matter of inches, the general consensus was we did good for first timers. We intend to return next year and hopefully we will place a little higher on the leaderboard.