BERNE — An old photo of Berne-Knox-Westerlo graduate James Dutton shows him as a toddler, wearing a red plastic firefighter’s hat. His senior photo is similar, he is wearing his uniform as a member of the Westerlo Volunteer Fire Company.

Dutton, 18, graduated from BKW on June 23. Nearly two weeks before, on June 11, he graduated from his interior firefighter training, along with several other BKW graduates. Four graduates belong to Westerlo’s department, including Dutton, Will Creter, Samantha Filkins, and Ryan Haller, according to Kelley Keefe, the president of the fire company.

Liam O’Connor, a recent graduate of Hudson Valley Community College, and Sarah Zwack also completed the firefighters’ training.

Dutton has been volunteering for the fire company since April of 2016, but has known the Westerlo fire department far longer.

“I’m a fourth-generation volunteer firefighter … ,” Dutton explained; his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were volunteers before him. “I’ve been around fire trucks since I was born.”

Growing up, Dutton was cared for by his grandfather, the late Clifton J. Dutton, known as “Sonny,” who would take him along in the fire truck during a call.

“During the summer, when I had no school, he was the only one watching me, so he had to take me … ,” said Dutton. “I remember him coming to my preschool and picking me up in the fire truck and going to a call.”

Dutton got used to seeing fires, accidents, and hearing the chatter on the radio and sirens, as well as seeing firefighters helping people.

“It just made your adrenaline pump … ,” he said. “I still get it every time we go to a call.”

His father, Eric Dutton, and brother, Christopher Dutton, both continue to serve as firefighters, and his grandmother, June Sherman, is in the ladies’ auxiliary.

“We don’t think as family at the time,” Dutton said, of getting called to a scene with his family. “We just try to concentrate on the people in need at the moment.”

Fellow graduate Samantha Filkins, 18, is a third-generation firefighter. Both of her parents — Donnie and Debra Filkins — and her aunt and uncle — Lisa and Andy Joslyn — serve on Westerlo’s fire company, and her grandparents — Rosemarie and Ralph Filkins — are life members. One of her sisters has also recently joined.

“I was basically born in the fire department,” said Filkins.

Like Dutton, Filkins began as a volunteer two years ago when she was 16, but her memories of the fire department go back much farther.

Her parents often had to leave dinner to respond to fire call, and Filkins recalls hoping that her parents wouldn’t need to leave during a storm when her two younger sisters would be scared. Her parents both left for a call the night Tropical Storm Irene devastated the Hilltowns, and she remembers having to comfort her sisters.

Her memories of the fire company are more often happy, however. She has helped prepare picnics, barbecues, and fundraisers for the fire company for years.

“That’s my favorite, the summer picnics,” she said.

For the last two years, Filkins and Dutton were known as “redheads,” or “junior,” due to having to wear a red helmet instead of a black one before they were certified, said Filkins. Prior to the courses, volunteers like them were restricted to only passing equipment to other firefighters, she said.

They and other new firefighters completed Basic Exterior Firefighter Operations, or BEFO, in the fall of 2017, and Interior Firefighting Operations, or IFO, this spring. The two courses total over 100 hours, and are held in the evenings two times a week.

This year, the state instructor for the last course happened to be Westerlo’s fire chief, Kevin Flensted, said Dutton. This made Dutton and other department members work even harder at the course, he said.

“Because with him as instructor, he’s always asking more from us; he wants us to set an example,” said Dutton.

Filkins said the courses were tough, in part because she is petite, and doing the same grueling tasks as her fellow firefighters of various sizes. These tasks include extinguishing fires, maneuvering through courses while wearing breathing apparatus, and dragging another person in full firefighter gear.

Dutton served as a team leader during the course. One of his tasks, he said, was to read the names of firefighters who had died in the line of duty. Last year, 96 firefighters died in the United States, and over 30 have died so far this year. He said this fact does not worry him.

“We’re basically learning from the mistakes that they made,” he said.

Firefighters in the course ranged in age from 17 to 36, and included volunteers from throughout the capital region. At BKW, Dutton said it is not unusual to be a volunteer, and Filkins agreed, noting that the volunteers are a close-knit group at school.

Both Dutton’s and Filkins’s plans for the future are close to home. Filkins, who is going to attend the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill for equine science and a minor in either physical therapy or business, has eyed a foreclosed stable on Cole Hill where she used to work.

She hopes to someday run an equine-assisted therapy stable, and has thought of opening it there, but also intends to travel for some time after college to “the big horse states” like Virginia, before returning to the Hilltowns. She hopes to continue serving as a firefighter.

“I see myself being a firefighter wherever I go,” she said. “If it’s going to be in a different department, it will be a different department.”

Dutton has applied to several different jobs to start work after graduation, hoping to eventually get into construction work or operating heavy equipment. He plans on staying in Westerlo, where he can continue volunteering for the fire company.

“I plan on volunteering until the day I die,” he said.