Fire Training at the Monastery
/Temple and other local Volunteer Fire Departments complete their training at the Cottage
The small cottage the monastery had inherited as part of the property, which was situated at the end of the driveway that loops down from Derbyshire Ln, had become unsafe over the years with mold, rot, and animal damage, and needed to be demolished. Initially some monks had used it as a kuti, but not for the last few years. The building was anyway slated to be replaced in the Master Plan by a double-kuti with accessible bathrooms for older monks (this will happen this summer: called Aroga Cottage, the replacement building will be situated behind it at the end of the back field). Therefore, last year we invited the Temple Volunteer Fire Department to use the old cottage for their training, which they did throughout 2025. Their grand finale and main training day took place on April 18, when they and other local volunteer fire and emergency services all descended upon the cottage to send in team after team to practice while they burned it to the ground.
By coincidence, that morning was also when we celebrated the Thai New Year, or Songkran, and the Thai Consul-General had come up from New York for the traditional hand-washing ceremony. This was, needless to say, an interesting combination of activities, and the visiting diplomat was quite pleased to see that the monastery could help the local community in this unusual way.
The firefighters expressed much gratitude to the monastery for providing a rare opportunity to practice their life-saving skills. And we are delighted to have been able to do so for our brave volunteers, the neighbors who look after the community in this vital way. Hopefully we’ll never need their services (smile-emoji).