Heart of the PWFD

One wanted to be a firefighter since he was a child. Another’s classmate talked him into it.

Nearly half a century later, Tom Sharbuno and Steve Schmidt are both grateful they joined the Port Washington Fire Department, and they are equipped with a catalog of calls and memories they are willing to share.

One of their most memorable calls was at the fire station itself in 1988.

An ambulance engine caught on fire while parked in the bay at the facility at the corner of Wisconsin and Pier streets. An ambulance captain inadvertently saw it while checking the service door, which had trouble latching. Crews could barely understand his panicked voice over the radio.

Schmidt jumped into the vehicle and was nearly overcome by smoke. He jumped out, got his breath, got back in and  barely got the engine turned over. The vehicle was parked right next to a gasoline-powered snorkel truck.

“I took a big deep breath,” he said, and pulled it out of the bay. Fellow firefighters, including Sharbuno, were responding.

“Everybody’s like putting it out with no gear on,” Schmidt said.

“We were breaking every rule in the book,” Sharbuno laughed.

He remembers seeing his landlord having cocktails on the way to the call, then again in the crowd watching.

“That drew an audience that night,” he said.

Firefighters extinguished the fire, but the ambulance, whose brand of engine was having trouble across the country —  the department wanted to upgrade it to a diesel engine but was told the city didn’t have the money — needed to be replaced, and the station needed a refresh.

“For two weeks all of us engineers were there with rubbing compound to get soot off. That was nuts,” Sharbuno said.

“The whole firehouse had to get repainted,” Schmidt said.

The pair now work in a newly painted station again in the city’s new Public Safety Building, something Schmidt said is decades late in replacing the cramped quarters of the old station. A 1950s fire truck is parked in the new building, and the size between it and the new trucks shows one reason the department needed a larger station. The old firehouse also wasn’t built for full-time firefighters and only had space for a makeshift fitness area.

“It’s been 35 years overdue. We’ve got a state-of-the-art building here, and I’m proud of it,” Schmidt said.

The public is invited to see the new building during an open house from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 11.

Schmidt joined in 1981 during senior year in high school. Sharbuno joined a year later, one year after he graduated. The two already knew each other; they were partners in driver’s education.

Their more than 90 years of expertise has proven invaluable, Chief Joe DeBoer said. He has known both since he was a teenager.

“Tom and Steve are really the chiefs who carry a lot of that institutional knowledge, not only of the department, but of the city as a whole. They’ve been around long enough to know the history, why certain things are done the way they are, and what’s worked or hasn’t worked over the years,” DeBoer said.

Schmidt and Sharbuno now say they learn as much from the younger firefighters as they impart to them.

Both made sacrifices to respond, leaving their families and careers at a moment’s notice. Schmidt, an assistant chief, is a retired head custodian at Lincoln Elementary School in Port. Sharbuno, a deputy chief, owns his family’s jewelery business in downtown Port.

The Wisconsin Street School fire, on what was to become the site of the recently vacated fire station, was one of Schmidt’s first calls. Sharbuno was working at Tri-Par and had someone buy all the film they had to get photos of the blaze. One firefighter was treated for smoke inhalation. 

Other calls had tragic endings, like the Martin fire in 1983 in which three children died after faulty electric wiring burned down the house while the parents worked in the nearby barn.

“It was very emotional,” Sharbuno said.

In addition to safety, technology, training and education, of the biggest changes the two have seen in their careers is the focus on firefighters’ mental health.

“I’ve made calls and gotten calls, ‘How are you doing?’” Sharbuno said. “Everybody kind of keeps an eye on everybody.”

As the city has grown, directions to calls have gotten more specific.

“Back in the day,” Sharbuno said, it was ‘Turn at the Biever house.’”

“Who needs addresses?” Schmidt said.

They didn’t need one for the Allen Edmonds factory in Belgium in 1984. They did, however, need warm clothes in wind chills reaching 40 below zero.

“We were walking Popsicles that night,” Sharbuno said.

Those were the days when paid-on-call firefighters and emergency medical technicians were in ample supply. They were paid about $1 an hour to stay in town while on call, and many members worked in or near the city and were allowed to respond quickly. Those were the days when firefighters could ride on the outside of the truck. One member still putting on his gear would chase the truck as it was leaving and get pulled onto it by two others.

“It was an unwritten rule,” Sharbuno said.

Both received their stork pins, given for helping deliver a baby. Sharbuno’s was in a living room. Schmidt’s was in the back of an ambulance.

Schmidt was on the call that helped relocate a bear that had been roaming around the city in 2010, and he helped get a pet iguana out of a tree in 2019, using a ladder truck, basket and butterfly net. He thought Chief Mark Mitchell was kidding when he sent him on the call.

That kind of thing isn’t covered during training.

“Ninety percent of the time you’ve got to think outside of the box,” Schmidt said.

Being next to Lake Michigan requires expertise inland departments don’t need.

Schmidt has scuba training and Sharbuno used to be on the dive team. They recommend respecting the lake. Conditions turn deadly quickly.

“People dodge the waves,” Schmidt said.

“You’re going to lose,” Sharbuno said.

They’ve responded to other water calls, including floods. Sharbuno remembers an exposed basement filling with water against French doors.

“If those fail, we’re dead. I threw everybody out of the house,” he said. “(the owner) was pissed at me.”

Schmidt has avoided serious injuries, save for a scratched cornea that had him wearing a patch and looking like his high school mascot for a day. Sharbuno tore his rotator cuff fighting one fire and broke his foot and injured his knee when a ladder slid out from under him at another one.

By the end of the year, Schmidt will become Port’s longest-serving firefighter, eclipsing Leo Bruecher, who began serving at age 18 in 1924.

“I just can’t believe it’s been 46 years. The time has gone so fast,” Schmidt said.

“Blink of an eye,” Sharbuno said.

But they have no plans to retire.

“As long as I’m healthy, I have no desire to retire yet,” Schmidt said.

“I’ve got a few more years in me,” Sharbuno said.