Suburbanization Triumphant: 1957 - 1967

In the late 1950s, the character of the community and the demands on the department would change again. In 1958, the John J. Kane Hospital opened. This was a nursing home for the aged and disabled indigent residents of Allegheny County, who had previously been cared for at Mayview and Woodville Hospitals, previously known as the Pittsburgh City Poor Farm and the Allegheny County Home. When the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took over responsibility for caring for the mentally challenged, they took over the Mayview and Woodville facilities. The county still had the responsibility for caring for the aged and disabled indigent, so the John J. Kane Hospital was built. This complex contained the first true high-rise in the Bower Hill area, the eight-story Tower Building. The county provided on-site fire protection with full-time county firefighters and ambulance transportation services with county nurses. Bower Hill would be the first back up service for both. As a benefit, the Allegheny County Fire Department station at Kane took over the responsibility for answering the emergency telephones and dispatching the fire departments in the Chartiers Valley. By this time, radio monitors were beginning to take the place of the fire siren as the primary means of alerting the volunteers to respond. Bower Hill became “Station 4” on the new radio system, and the number “4” soon adorned the department’s vehicles and fire helmets.

The Bower Hill community continued to grow as more farmland fell to suburban development. A new shopping center was built at the corner of Bower Hill Road and the new North Wren Drive, next to St. Clair Memorial Hospital. A redrawing of the border between Scott Township and Mount Lebanon Township put this center entirely within Scott. (The other part of this redrawing put the Virginia Manor Shops on Greentree Road entirely in Mount Lebanon.) These new buildings demanded upgrades in the department’s equipment. In 1957, the department added a new American LaFrance 800 Series Invader pumper capable of a 750GPM flow. The donated ambulance and the old White pumper were both replaced in 1960 by a new GMC Panel Truck ambulance that also incorporated a small booster pump and water tank, and in 1962, the CJ2A Jeep was replaced by a new specially built rescue and 20KW power plant unit on a Jeep FC170 chassis.

One of the negative effects of suburbanization was the loss of the sense of the fire department as a community center. In the 1930s, most of the population of the community lived and worked near the fire station, and membership in the department as a volunteer was a source of pride and conveyed a certain prestige. By the 1960s, a much larger population lived throughout the department's service area in many different neighborhoods, and worked throughout the Pittsburgh region. The new suburbanites saw themselves as “Pittsburghers” or South Hills residents, but felt no particular identity with Bower Hill. In fact, since Scott Township had no post office of its own, and since the forced consolidation of schools in 1956 eliminated the township school district (though the high school remained until 1960), many residents were completely unaware that they lived in Scott Township, much less as part of a community called Bower Hill. These people belonged to many different church groups and civic organizations, each with its own focus and agenda. The fire department needed to work much harder to stay in the eyes and hearts of the community. Nor was the volunteer firefighter any longer an honored or prestigous member of the community. The  suburban mass-consumer culture disdains all volunteer service as "menial," and is more likely to show contempt rather than honor to those who risk themselves to serve others. So, a much smaller proportion of the residents had any interest in volunteering to serve the community that they didn't identify with anyway. They were "takers," not "givers." So, at the same time, these same people placed more insistent and persistent demands on the department than ever before. The department began actively recruiting members for the first time.

Through the 1960s, ambulance service accounted for the majority of the department’s call volume. Firefighters were trained in Red Cross Advanced First Aid and later, in Pennsylvania’s Ambulance Attendant Course. The letters CPR, which stand for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, were seen for the first time. The fire siren was still used to alert members to calls, and it blew nearly daily and sometimes more, to announce another need for emergency care and transportation. Still, fire service was never neglected. Though the number of fires in the Bower Hill area remained small, the firefighters trained constantly to be ready for anything. Mutual Aid responses to neighboring communities continued to be frequent. When a fire did start in Bower Hill, it was fought with speed and skill, and fire losses in the community remained very low. Firefighters were better protected than ever before. The introduction of plastics and other petrochemical based materials in household goods meant that fires now produced more toxic gases than ever, and often burned hotter. The old rubberized canvas coat and metal helmet were replaced with the heavy cotton duck “bunker coat” and the fiberglass helmet. Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) became mandatory for entry into a burning building. These early units used heavy steel compressed air cylinders, and coupled with the increased weight of the cotton duck coats, added about 40 pounds to the load each firefighter carried on each call.