Orcas Fire Department’s pancake feed brings community together
Published 1:30 am Friday, August 15, 2025
By Darrell Kirk
Sounder contributor
The smell of pancakes and syrup filled the air at the Orcas Island Fire Department during the Orcas Fly-In the first weekend in August, but for volunteer firefighter Buddy Wright, the sweetest part wasn’t the breakfast — it was watching children explore the fire engines and learn about fire safety.
“You know, I can’t say anything about the pancakes because I paid no attention to it, but I ran a lot of kids through the fire engines,” Wright said with a laugh. “They’re covered in syrup. And I have a lot of switches to reset to the correct position.”
The pancake feed, a beloved tradition during the annual fly-in, offered more than just a hearty breakfast. It provided an opportunity for local children to get up close with the fire department’s equipment and meet the volunteers who serve their community.
Jackson Beacherly, a rising seventh-grader at Orcas Island Public School, had a different perspective on the equipment.
“It felt very heavy, like if you shove all your school books into it at once, and you’re just ready to fall over,” he said, describing the breathing pack. When asked about the equipment’s purpose, Jackson demonstrated his understanding: “It’s for when firefighters go into a burning house, so they can breathe through it for air and don’t breathe in the smoke.”
For Wright, these interactions with young people represent what he values most about his volunteer service. His journey with the Orcas Fire Department spans decades and reflects the evolving nature of volunteer service on the island.
“I joined Orcas Fire in the late 90s and stayed until the early 2000s,” Wright said. “And then took a 17-year break to raise two kids. And then the kids grew to the point where they didn’t need me anymore. And so I had less to do and rejoined the fire department last year.”
His return to service wasn’t coincidental — it was specifically because of Fire Chief Chad Kimple’s leadership.
“I was campaigning for him to be the fire chief for quite some time. I’m actually rejoined as a volunteer because of Chad. When he became the chief, I told him I would do whatever he needed me to do, and he called me back the next day and said, ‘I need you to come back as a volunteer.’”
Recognizing the challenges of traditional firefighter training, Chief Kimple has introduced a new approach to recruiting volunteers.
“They have an onboarding program right now for firefighters,” Wright explained. “So if you wanted to join and be a firefighter, you can actually start hanging out at the fire hall and learning tasks as you go, and they’re working on a way to integrate volunteers that way as opposed to a 13-week fire training academy, which is a big commitment for somebody who has a family and a property to take care of and a full-time job.”
The importance of volunteers becomes clear when considering Orcas Island’s unique geography and the personal connections within the community. Wright, who was previously a training officer at the fire department, shared a sobering example of why local volunteers matter so much. He recalled responding to “a double fatality motor vehicle accident that took place, and a husband and a wife were both killed. It was on New Year’s Eve.”
“I knew the people who were in the car. I knew their children,” Wright said. “So we all, you know, there aren’t very many calls that go out where there isn’t somebody in the fire department that doesn’t personally know the people that we’re interacting with.”
This personal connection extends to the practical challenges of emergency response across the island’s geography.
“Well, I mean, it’s pretty important when you think about the geography of Orcas. You know, you could staff this station with as many people as you wanted, but being in East Sound, your response times to Spring Point or to Point Lawrence or Doe Bay are quite long, and that’s where the volunteers are really necessary,” he said.
Wright, who lives near Moran State Park and is assigned to Rosario Fire Station (Station 23), has responded to about 30 emergency calls so far this year.
The island’s seven fire stations, each staffed by volunteers living in their respective areas, provide crucial coverage that a centralized paid department simply couldn’t match.
As the pancake feed concluded and Wright began the familiar task of cleaning syrup off switches and resetting equipment, his message to the community was clear: “Everybody should join the fire department.”
With Chief Kimple’s new onboarding program making it easier than ever to get involved, the fire department is ready to welcome new volunteers who want to serve their island community.
The sticky fingers and reset switches are just part of the job for Wright — small prices to pay for the opportunity to serve his neighbors and inspire the next generation of island protectors.
