Jan. 13—JAMESTOWN — A 73-year-old firefighter who has been with the Jamestown Fire Department since 1985 has attended the most calls for the 25th time in his career.

James “Jim” Johnson, also known as “JJ” to other firefighters, was on 100% of the calls — 102 of 102 — from Oct. 1, 2021, to Sept. 30, 2022. From Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023, he attended 103 of 104 calls.

“He’s got enough (plaques) to wallpaper a wall probably,” Fire Chief Jim Reuther said. “We just want to get our name on it once.”

Johnson of Jamestown, is originally from Wahpeton, North Dakota, where he graduated from Wahpeton High School and attended the North Dakota State School of Science, which is now the North Dakota State College of Science. He was in the military for three years and wound up in Montana for six years.

“I was basically looking for a job to get back to North Dakota,” Johnson said because he had family in the state. ” … I found a job in Jamestown as a television repairman.”

Johnson said he worked with the assistant fire chief prior to joining the Jamestown Fire Department in 1985.

“I was having coffee with him one day and I was kind of giving him grief,” Johnson said. “That’s back when they blew the whistles for fire calls. I was giving him grief. You wake me up.”

Johnson was asked to join the Jamestown Fire Department but he said he thought the department was fully staffed and had waiting lists. After being told the Jamestown Fire Department had two open spots, Johnson filled out an application and the rest is history.

Johnson made nearly every call from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023. He missed one call because he was getting his annual checkup at a Veterans Affairs clinic.

During the ice storm, Johnson missed multiple calls because he was in Arizona with his wife visiting their son.

Reuther jokingly said he told firefighters at the department’s annual awards banquet that he had a plan to force Johnson to miss multiple calls.

“I didn’t know Mother Nature was going to help me with that,” Reuther said.

He said he was going to take Johnson off the department’s dispatch list so he could relax while he was on vacation.

“But I thought if we get some calls we should just leave him on there,” Reuther said. “It’s not like he’s going to respond from Arizona.”

He said Johnson is a dedicated firefighter who enjoys helping the community.

“Our whole group here is very dedicated,” Reuther said. “If we didn’t have this group, we’d be in serious trouble but at the same time, I don’t think you are going to see the years of service and years of dedication like we see with some of them we have now.”

Reuther said every firefighter brings expertise that can be used at an incident. For example, with Johnson’s previous work experience at Lifestyle Appliance, his knowledge can be helpful for issues with washers and dryers or other electronics.

“Just the other day up at that apartment house, I knew it wasn’t the dryers because I couldn’t smell anything,” Johnson said about a recent Jamestown Fire Department call. “I opened that one washer and looked at it, and it was plump full of clothes. Well, they overloaded and burned the belt off, and that’s why it smoked the laundry room up.”

Reuther said Johnson’s experience also goes a long way where he can help new firefighters.

“It’s important that we have that experience,” he said. “There is something for somebody to do one way or another. It doesn’t mean you have to have them necessarily going in and fighting the fire.”

Johnson said he might not be around if the department wasn’t so shorthanded. The Jamestown Fire Department just lost another firefighter and is down to 26.

He said used to rush to the calls but now the department has more younger firefighters. He said he might not be the one fighting the actual fire but he can change air packs or get other items for the firefighters.

Johnson said the most memorable calls he has been on include a grain elevator fire on the south side of 7th Avenue and 3rd Street Southeast in his first month as a firefighter and the 2005 Orlady Building fire in downtown Jamestown.

“I live in the northeast. I came down the hill and I could see fire coming out of the top of this thing,” Johnson said about the grain elevator fire.

Johnson has also logged 2,093 training hours.

“There are some training hours prior to that that weren’t documented,” Reuther said. “I’m sure he could easily be up in that 2,500 some place.”

Johnson is trained for hazardous materials, being a first responder and even an air rescue firefighter among various other things.

“When I first joined, we still had the drills, two drills a month and a meeting,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot more now than when I joined. When I joined, there wasn’t even an agility test.”

Johnson said his first goal was to be a firefighter with the Jamestown Fire Department for 25 years.

“I thought I might as well go for 30, then 35,” he said. “I might as well make it to 40.”

He said his kids, when they were younger, enjoyed that Johnson was firefighter.

“My wife, she was all for it I guess,” he said.

Reuther said he appreciates Johnson’s service to the community.

“I appreciate his dedication and so does the city of Jamestown,” he said.