The Town of Logan honored its own last night when several members of the Logan Fire Department were congratulated for completing the rigorous certification process for firefighters.

The firemen showed up for Tuesday's council meeting bright and early in their parade dress blue uniforms, which came in for a lot of comments.

"I think you guys do an outstanding job," said Councilman Jim Guy. "You have always been very professional."

Fire Chief Scott Beckett announced that Jason Conley, Tony Casey, Chris Hatfield, Nick Ferrell and Jeremy Steel had recently finished the state and federal requirements for certification, which included a 36 month training program and required 3000 hours experience on the job among other requirements from the state and the US Department of Labor.

"Now all of our firefighters are certified," Beckett said. "So far as I know, that's a first for this department."

Beckett noted that requirements for firefighters have become stricter and stricter and that hardly a week goes by when a firefighting agency is not contacted by FEMA or the Department of Homeland Security about training and other public safety matters.

Beckett noted that the city's building inspector Ray Perry had recently spent a week at a flood plain management course required by the federal government.

"We are required by Homeland Security to have a flood plain manager," Beckett explained. "Ray passed the class and now we have one of the six flood plain managers in the state. ... We will be attending a national incident management class this weekend."

The firemen didn't stay in their dress blues very long — Shortly after the meeting they changed into their work clothing and headed to another area where they routinely respond to accidents and fires to help out the residents there.

The town of West Logan had been stymied when several traffic lights at the Peach Creek exit burned out and the state Department of Highways informed the municipality that it was up to the town to change out the lights, not the DOH. One resident attending a town council meeting noted that the Logan Fire Department used to change the traffic lights in the City of Logan and asked Mayor Darren Akers about getting the Logan Fire Department — which is usually on site within a few minutes to answer fire calls and auto accidents in West Logan — for assistance in changing the lights. Town employees did and the Logan Fire Department brought out their ladder truck last night to change the traffic lights.

West Logan Police Chief Robert Ward said he was grateful to Fire Chief Beckett and Firefighters Ray Perry and Chris Hatfield for their assistance in changing out the lights.

"This has become a major safety issue for us, and we are glad that they came to help us and got all the lights back in working order," Ward said. "Since the lights burned out there has been a lot of worry that it would cause a major traffic accident and we feared somebody would get hurt. These guys coming out here tonight to help us may have saved somebody's life by doing this. We are very appreciative to them for helping us with this problem."