When retired Bangor firefighter Phillip “Jethro” Dow realized his Palermo home was on fire Saturday night, he pulled his bedridden father-in-law out of the house and got four other people to safety.
Dow was supposed to be out of the house at a military-related commitment when the family noticed a hot, electrical smell around the furnace and then discovered the roof of the house was on fire around 10 p.m., said Jared Willey, a Bangor firefighter and president of Local 772 of the International Association of Firefighters, who spoke on behalf of Dow.
Dow’s 22 years with the Bangor Fire Department meant he knew how to calculate the risk of saving people and was able to make sure everyone got safely out of the house, Wiley said.