By David Fleet
Editor
Roscommon — On Sept. 16, veteran Firefighter/EMS Assistant Fire Chief Dave Borst was honored at the 44th annual service for the Michigan Firemen’s Memorial, Roscommon, Mich.
Borst was one of 168 firefighters including four who died in the line of duty honored during the weekend gathering. In total there are now 3,634 firefighters remembered at the memorial.
Borst, 74 , died Dec. 14, 2022 following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Borst was born in Pontiac, April 5, 1948, and grew up in Oxford and graduated from Oxford High School in 1966. He served in the Army and received an honorable discharge in 1972.
Borst became a paid on-call firefighter with the Brandon Fire Department on May 1, 1973, a year after coming to Ortonville. He would actively serve for the next 36 years until his retirement from the department in May 2009.
Borst was hired as a full-time firefighter on Jan. 27, 1975, making him the longest-serving full-time township employee. He moved up in the ranks as a sergeant and lieutenant, then captain, before becoming assistant fire chief to Fire Chief Bob McArthur in the summer of 1997.
“We worked for many years on fire calls and investigations,” said McArthur, who served as Brandon Fire Chief from 1997-2009. “We did a lot together with our families and as friends. We had plenty of play times too, worked hard and accomplished a lot for the community. Our years at the department were full of all types of adventures, some good, some bad. Our need to help someone is what carried us through some very exciting, and very depressing calls.”
Borst was asked to begin the fire prevention program in the schools in 1975 by then Fire Chief Jim Frantz. He became extremely interested and started with third grade classes, eventually expanding to include more grades and four visits per year to the schools, teaching low crawling, fire escape and the importance of not playing with matches. He was instrumental in the Fire Prevention Program with the Brandon Schools which later expanded into several other school districts. He was a member of the Michigan Fire Chiefs Association and a former Chaplain of the Michigan State Fireman’s Association. David retired as the Assistant Fire Chief of Brandon of Township.
Other Brandon Firefighters on the memorial:
Robert Chambers was a part-time firefighter and part-time administrator for 37 years with the Brandon Fire Department. Chambers died Oct. 4, 2012.
Robert J. Thompson was a part-time firefighter for 17 years with the Brandon Fire Department. Thompson died Aug. 26, 2021.