Logan Morris of Canton kneels last week beside the mock window he designed for the Canton Fire Station as part of his Eagle Scout project. The design works as either a basement window or a second-floor window where firefighters can practice entrances and exits in full gear. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times
CANTON — Volunteer firefighter Logan Morris has earned the rank of Eagle Scout for designing and helping build mock windows at the Canton Fire Station, allowing firefighters to practice escaping basement and second-floor windows in burning buildings.
Eagle Scout and volunteer firefighter Logan Morris of Canton stands last week with Canton Fire Chief Jason Vaughn under a mock window at the Fire Station. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times
A member of Troop 199 in Jay, the Canton teen was conferred the honor in mid-May.
To attain Eagle Scout status, the highest rank given by Boy Scouts of America, scouts must earn at least 21 merit badges and complete a final service project they planned and developed. It must be approved by their scoutmaster and the local Boy Scouts council, and they must explain its usefulness.
Last week, he and Fire Chief Jason Vaughan met at the station to discuss how the windows are used to practice evacuation procedures. The openings allow firefighters to practice setting up ladders and climbing in and out of them with their gear on their backs, Vaughan said.
Morris said they help firefighters become “just a little more comfortable with our gear on going through the windows.”
“Lots of firefighters have been killed in basement fires,” Vaughn said. Sometimes they can’t get out or stairs collapse, so a basement window is the only way out, he said.
Morris, whose father, Johnnie Morris, is also a volunteer firefighter for Canton, said he was drawn to the profession.
“My whole life I have been following this higher calling living the sense of altruism, with the Boy Scouts, with building these windows, as a follower of Jesus Christ and my beliefs there, as a firefighter, helping people and most recently enlisting in the U.S. Army. I genuinely enjoy helping people,” he said.
Scoutmaster Tracy Wiggin said his “responsibility is to lend assistance in some of their planning. We’re here to make better citizens.”
The organization prepares scouts to be good citizens by teaching them the 12 points of the Boy Scout Law, traits that include trustworthiness, loyalty, friendliness, kindness and reverence, Wiggins said.
Morris will take those traits to the U.S. Army boot camp in Oklahoma this summer to begin a six-year enlistment.
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