Four call firefighters to join Nahant FD

NAHANT – The Nahant Fire Department will welcome four new firefighters to its ranks to fill out the department?s call/volunteer list.Matthew Canty, Christopher Dent, James Lowe and Steven Scaglione, all lifelong Nahant residents, graduated from a six-month program at the state volunteer academy along with 21 others in a ceremony at Georgetown High School on Dec. 30.Nahant Fire Lt. Dave Doyle said the four will bring youth to the department – Lowe and Scaglione are recent high school grads, Canty is 26, and Dent, a former Marine, is the former chairman of the Finance Committee.?It?s a big commitment, but they all did well,” said Doyle. “We got a great review from the academy, and they?re going to be a great addition to the department.”The four will round out the call list to a desired 15 to supplement the department?s full-time staff of eight. As call firefighters, they will carry a pager and respond to calls where extra personnel is needed, Doyle explained. In order to be considered for a full-time position, call firefighters would need to take the civil service exam and be put on a list for hire, though Doyle said with a small department like Nahant?s, hiring doesn?t take place too often.Canty said he may take the test to get on a department full-time someday, but for now he?s just happy to be working for Nahant and to be graduating. “It was a lot of work, both with books and physically,” said Canty of the Firefighter I and II courses. “The tests were not easy, I did a lot of studying.”Canty, a graduate of St. John?s Prep and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is just one more in a legacy of firefighting in his family, as he mentioned some of his grandparents and uncles were also firefighters. “I?ve always been interested in it,” he said.