Bower Hill Volunteer Fire Department celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 1974. From August 7th to August 10th, the department grounds hosted a festival in honor of this milestone. The “Monte Carlo Week” and parade were very well attended. This was the first such fair and parade in Bower Hill since the 1930s. The community once again saw its fire department as a source of pride, and a public asset. The commemorative booklet published to mark the event contained historic and current photographs, a history of the department, the Ladies Auxiliary and the Junior Fire Brigade and advertisements from local businesses and well-wishers. It is a snapshot of the department and the community.

The department was particularly proud if its new 1973 mini-pumper and light rescue truck, which had replaced the old Jeep power plant and the GMC Panel Truck that had been relegated to mini-pumper and squad duties since 1969. This apparatus was built by Pierce Manufacturing Company on a Ford chassis, and had a pump capacity of only 300GPM. It was emblematic of the era. The department had embraced the concept of “quick and light fire attack” which said that light vehicles, minimally equipped and with pump capacities of less than 500GPM were capable of faster response and could contain and extinguish most fires more economically than a full-size heavy-duty pumper. This concept depended on the constraints of the vehicle technology of the day, when a full-size fire engine was in fact comparatively slow. Technology would soon overtake the “light attack” concept. This vehicle would be the last pumping engine the department would own that had a manual transmission and gasoline engine. All subsequent pumpers would be diesel powered and equipped with automatic transmissions, and would have pump capacities of 1500GPM or more.

Though the fire apparatus got the attention, the ambulance was still answering most of the calls. The early 1970s saw another new acronym enter the department’s vocabulary: EMS, which stands for Emergency Medical Service. Until this time, the ambulance was merely a vehicle that provided rapid patient transportation. Any care that was given by the ambulance crew was simple first aid. It was presumed to be true that only licensed physicians and nurses were capable of providing more advanced care. But during the Vietnam War, the military began to train non-medically-licensed soldiers, soon known as paramedics, to provide advanced care in the field. This, they found, saved lives. Now, instead of the ambulance rushing the patient to the hospital, it rushed care to the patient.

The department suffered a serious loss at the close of the year when Chief Dick Choura died from cancer in early December. Dick was a career firefighter for Allegheny County as well as a Chartiers Valley school board member. The department had a fully capable replacement, though, as Assistant Chief Bob Berdnik had ample qualifications and energy, and had the full support of the department.