Eileen Pickering

‘It’s Bittersweet’: Career New Canaan Firefighter Jim Pickering Retiring

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Town native Jim Pickering, a 1980 New Canaan High School graduate, recalls the exact day he started as a New Canaan firefighter. 

It was July 3, 1989, and Pickering was 27. “The fire department is a brotherhood,” Pickering told NewCanaanite.com Monday. “I have made some great friendships over the years.” At the end of this month, Pickering will retire as a firefighter after 30 years of service with the New Canaan Fire Department—an agency he was inspired by his own family members to join. “My dad was a volunteer, and my uncle—my dad’s brother—was a career firefighter for the town of New Canaan,” he said.

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New Canaan Fire Department, Weed & Duryea Team Up for ‘Ash Disposal Bucket’ Giveaway

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New Canaanites starting now can avail themselves of a free promotion for a safety tool that experts call critical to avoiding home fires. By filling out and submitting this form—also available in person at Weed & Duryea and New Canaan Fire Department headquarters—residents can put in for one of four metal ash disposal buckets. Designed for safe disposal of hot embers and ashes from a fireplace, the buckets are “very important,” according to New Canaan firefighter Jim Pickering. “We have had, through the years, numerous fires with the misplacing of the fire ashes, either in the garbage, we have had a maid vacuum up ashes and put the vacuum in closet and the vacuum starts a fire,” Pickering told NewCanaanite.com. “And then we had the Stamford fire where the grandparents and kids passed, they say it was started because of fireplace ashes.

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New Canaan Fire Department Swears in Two, Promotes Two, Presents Special Commendations

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More than 100 town officials and residents joined New Canaan firefighters and their families Tuesday night for an awards, swearing-in and special commendation ceremony at Lapham Community Center. “Tonight means a lot to me because it’s something I’ve worked very hard to get, to be a career firefighter,” Damien Sheerin said after he’d been sworn in. “Tonight feels a little surreal, that all my hard work has paid off, to be a firefighter officially in New Canaan, Connecticut.”

See the photos and captions in the slideshow above for quotes and information about each honoree. They are:

Fire Commissioner Kerry Smith
Retired Deputy Fire Marshall Bill Dingee
Firefighter Jim Pickering
Firefighter Damien Sheerin
Lt. Duffy Sasser
Capt. Michael Baker

The ceremony was led by Fire Commissioner Jack Horner. Town officials in attendance included Selectman Beth Jones and Emergency Management Director Mike Handler.