I enjoy the “Looking back” piece in the Sun Journal. The one printed Dec. 12 prompted me to wonder whether the new safety rules for fire departments are good or bad.

There is quite a contrast in safety between 100 years ago and 25 years ago. Twenty-five years ago a department denied permission for a drive-up service for a business due to safety concerns. A hundred years ago a wild demonstration of speed by the fire department was reported, with “fifteen pieces of fire apparatus drawn by galloping horses, swinging around corners and going down the streets at breakneck speed, was a most thrilling feature of the big fire department.”

How times have changed.

Today, safety is a must with fire departments and, like a pendulum, it has swung so far in the direction of safety that most small towns can’t afford full-time departments. The present rules call for expensive training and equipment, to the point that most small towns are having a rough time finding volunteers.

Officials in the Oxford Hills are all trying to foster cooperation between towns so that when mutual aid is needed, all the towns fund the cost just to ensure that enough firefighters show up to put out fires.

Lots of the small towns used to employ many local workers, which allowed workers to leave the job to fight a fire. Today, those jobs are gone and people need to work out of town. How times change, and I think not always for the best.

Jerry Ellingwood, Norway