There was the usual camaraderie. The sharing of beers and stories that always happens when Williamsport firefighters come together once a year with retired city firefighters for a meal, for an evening of good times and fellowship.

A skit, put together each year by firefighter Stephen Younkin, had its funny moments.

After Younkin was done with that, the IAFF 736 Union president gave a brief talk, recapping all the challenges the union faces and all that the executive board had done in the last 12 months.

There was the solemn-dignified ceremony by the fire department’s Honor Guard; the ringing of the bell for three retirees who died in the last year. There was of course the raffling off of many door prizes.

However there was a very special moment Saturday night when retiree and former city fire chief Todd Heckman took the podium for a few minutes to recognize a friend and mentor, Jimmy Karnes, now in his early 80s, who faithfully served the Williamsport Bureau of Fire from 1967 to 1991. As Heckman told the audience, back then there were no such calls for “lift assists.”

In Karnes’ time with the Bureau, and much of Heckman’s as well, city firefighters were just too darn busy handling real emergencies, fighting one fire after another after another…..sometimes wearing air packs, oftentimes not.

What really sticks in his mind, Heckman told the crowd, were the times he saw Karnes exiting a burning building — after the fire was extinguished — only to come out and light up a cigarette.

Karnes, sitting at a table with a daughter who brought him to the dinner, along with his friends, retiree William “Pete” Logan and wife, Rebecca, listed as Heckman delivered his moving tribute which ended with him walking to Karnes’ table, giving him an affectionate hug and handing him his original firefighter helmet.

The crowd jumped to its feet with applause. Karnes’ daughter, overcome with emotion, wiped tears from her eyes as she witnessed first hand what the brotherhood in the firefighting family was all about – it is a group of men and women who develop a very special, unique bond through their life in the firehouse and their work on the fireground.

The helmet presentation brought back a vivid memory for “Pete” Logan, who was a city firefighter from 1970 to 1989. “Jimmy was wearing that very helmet when he helped me as I came down a ladder head-first at a house fire over on Scott Street in the 1970s,” the retiree told a guest at his table during the applause.

Recalling that day, Logan, wearing a heavy air pack, suddenly found himself trapped on the second floor and was forced to bail out a window moments after the entire first floor erupted into flames.

With the weight of his body, Karnes stabilized Logan’s body on the ladder as he safely brought him to the ground.

Thanks Lt. Jim Karnes for your service to the city, and thank you Todd Heckman for giving all of us there Saturday a memorable night for sure.

Philip A. Holmes is the police and fire reporter for the Williamsport Sun-Gazette and has covered that beat for more than 35 years.