A 36-year veteran of the Bart Township Fire Company, Hart, 52, and several of his fellow officers, tried to restore some order to West Nickel Mines School, where 10 Amish girls were shot in a massacre that killed five of them and ended in the shooter’s suicide Monday.

“We worked with environmental cleaning crews from Harrisburg and Syracuse,” Hart says. “We took out items that needed to be destroyed and cleaned the children’s books up, set the school up as it was that morning and then we boarded it up.”

The young teacher who had escaped and called police, returned to the school while Hart was there.

“She came to retrieve a few items that the children had given her,” he says, his voice trailing off.

It wasn’t the first time Hart had been at the one-room schoolhouse.

Every fall, members of the fire company head out to the local schools to teach the kids about fire safety.

West Nickel Mines, nestled quietly along White Oak Road, was just like the other Amish one-room schools in the area, filled with kids eager to see the fire truck and excited to try on the boots and helmets.

Some of their dads are members of the Bart Township Fire Company, which has about 70 active members, many of them Amish, and covers a 10-mile radius around Bart Township, parts of Colerain Township, Sadsbury, Paradise and Eden.

“Yeah, the kids loved it,” says Hart, who is a facility supervisor at the Jay Group in Ronks. “No matter what the culture, a child’s a child. You’d pull in with the firetruck, and you’d see the kids in the window, excited to see you.”

Tuesday’s cleanup was the saddest part of an overwhelming week for Hart and the other members of the fire company, which is, in so many ways, the heart and soul of Bart Township.

During this long, hard week, the fire company has served as command central for the hundreds upon hundreds of firefighters, state troopers, fire police and other volunteers who have been helping the community deal with an unimaginable tragedy that has become a huge news story around the world.

“I’d say 500 to 700 people a day are here,” says Hart, who is the public relations officer for the company. “Most of the people coming are here to support the state police. We’ve got fire police from five different counties, and Maryland and New Jersey. Other companies from Lancaster County, as well as Berks and Montgomery counties, have called out to us to help.

“Our volunteers arrive at 5 a.m. to begin preparing meals for everyone throughout the day,” Hart says, noting they have prepared thousands of meals. The building is usually busy until about 8 at night.

Briefings are held to figure out the logistics of the day ahead, and many people in the Amish community have been congregating there.

“They need to do their grieving and their talking,” Hart says. “And, of course, many of them are helping with the meals.”

Hart, who lives in Nine Points, says the biggest mission for the fire company this week was making sure their Amish neighbors could mourn and bury their children in peace.

That meant shutting down roads, keeping the media at bay, securing the homes of grieving Amish, and feeding everyone, including the families who had to prepare for their children’s funerals and their many guests.

In all, Hart says between 1,200 and 1,500 people have been helping in one way or another.

Mike Hoober, who is the quick response service coordinator for the company, is overseeing the entire effort.

“Mike’s doing an incredible job,” Hart says. “Thursday (when there were four funerals) went off without a hitch. The Amish bishop who we are working with, who is a part of all of our briefings, was very satisfied with the way things went Thursday.”

Hart says everyone was working toward giving the Amish community the space it needed. And that meant keeping the press at a distance.

“We set all our goals around giving them some privacy, and as far as the officers of the fire company and the Amish bishops are concerned, the press handled things well and respected the wishes of the Amish,” Hart says. “Of course you always have a few bad eggs, but overall, I think the press respected our wishes.”

Hart says the response from the outside community has been overwhelming.

“We are so appreciative of the donations, but at this point, we have more than we can handle,” Hart says. “We are just inundated with food products. If you’d like to help, we suggest offering monetary donations to the families.”

It’s been an emotionally draining week for everyone at the fire company. For many, the girls who died were their neighbors, the daughters of their friends.

And the brutality of the shootings has left everyone numb.

“I just can’t imagine the pain and suffering these families are going through,” says Hart. “A lot of our officers have kids the same age, they just can’t imagine how they would handle it.”

Hart, who with his wife, Naja, has two children, ages 19 and 25, says he’s learned some amazing lessons during this week about the power of forgiveness.

“That’s all you hear around here, that we must forgive and support the shooter’s family,” Hart says. “I’ve learned so much about how strong their faith and commitment is to each other. I told the bishop I feel like a part-time Christian compared to them.”

Being a volunteer firefighter has been a way of life for Hart, whose father, the late Norman Hart, was president of the company for many years.

“I lived right in town, the fire house was in my backyard,” Hart says. “I’ve got three brothers, so you can imagine when that whistle went off, what our household was like.”

An official member since 1970, Hart says he’s seen a lot in the last 36 years.

“I’ve seen farm accidents and motorcycle accidents, but nothing compares to the magnitude of this.”

Counselors have been circulating at the fire house every day, talking to people, urging them to share their feelings.

“We have a meeting each day to help everyone cope, especially the first responders,” Hart says. “At each meeting, you’re seeing more and more people talking, getting the load off their shoulders.”

The only time Hart choked up during this interview, held Friday morning, was when he talked about Hoober.

“Finally, on Thursday night, he did what he needed to do for the last three days,” Hart says, pausing for a moment to regain our composure. “He opened up and talked about it. We all need to talk about it.”

Hart isn’t sure what will be happening in the days and weeks to come. There may very well be more funerals.

“If we have to provide the support for another funeral, we’ll do nothing less than we’ve done this week,” he says. “The call will go out to everyone and everyone will take their place again.”

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