YORK, Maine — Fire engines will stream from the harbor into downtown York once again this month, as the York Village Fire Department Field Day returns.

The tradition of Field Day, set this year for Aug. 20, goes back more than a century, this being its 106th year. Miss Flame will preside over the Field Day parade as it winds its way from Trinity Church to the York Public Library, while firefighters and other community members will have a chance to compete in a firefighter muster.

“It’s really exciting. It’s a great event for the community,” said this year’s Miss Flame, Gianna Cilley. 

The role of Miss Flame is given each year to a family member of the department who graduated high school that year. Cilley is the stepdaughter of York volunteer firefighter Zach Apgar.

“I’ve been looking forward to it since I was little,” Cilley said. She said she has been waiting for years to dress up in red and ride with the chief in the parade.

“We’ve been waiting since she became part of our lives,” Apgar said. “It’s a deep-rooted family tradition.”

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This is the second of two firefighter field days the town of York sees each summer, as the York Beach Fire Department held its Field Day in June. Their field day goes back decades as well, at least 90 years based on metal trophies that date back to the early 20th century. Many of the York firefighters that grew up in town went to the parades and musters as kids, including York Village Chief Chris Balentine.

“We have to keep it alive,” Balentine said of the field days.

The parade starts at noon, after which the events move to Moulton Park where a traditional firefighter muster is held, and teams of firefighters are tested on their skills.

The muster will include a dry hose exercise in which teams assemble a hose before running to the finish line. They then compete in the wet hose competition in which a hose is assembled, and water is then sent through it, teams tasked with hitting a target first. The third contest is a race up a fire ladder to the rung where a flag is located.

The water is released fast and hard in the wet hose contest and is known to catch team members by surprise when a hose is not secured before the stream comes.

“There’s usually one good explosion of water,” said Apgar. His father David, the department’s deputy chief and fire inspector, added it’s a good way to get someone wet “if you don’t like your partner.”

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The musters once drew dozens of departments looking to compete. Balentine and the Apgars said the 1970s and 1980s were the last time that as many as 35 departments regularly gathered for musters. Balentine said the times have changed and people are much busier than they used to be on the weekends.

In recent years, the musters have included teams of community members and other guests to make up for the lack of participants. The crew of the USS California brought a team during the vessel’s stay at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard when the town of York was serving as their host community. Last year the York Police Department also had a team, and Apgar said they did pretty well in the hose exercises.

“We don’t get the 10 or 20 departments coming in,” Apgar said. “Now we’re trying to form new rivalries, new challenges, between groups that are close.”

The Field Day is a family tradition much like the department itself for those who work there. Apgar, also a full-time firefighter in Old Orchard Beach, is Balentine’s nephew. Balentine said his father and grandfather also served in the York Village Fire Department, and he looks forward to his grandchildren getting involved eventually, possibly through the department’s youth explorer program.

Cilley is not looking to go into the fire service, but rather to study elementary education at the University of Maine. Her 9-year-old brother Aiden is the one who Apgar expects will carry the family torch forward.

“He’s got gear, he’s got helmets, he’s got pictures. Any parade we can get our hands on, we go to,” Apgar said.

“I kinda wanna continue the family tradition,” Aiden said. “It also sounds kind of fun.”

“Quite frankly, it’s probably because he doesn’t really know any better,” his father said. “It just becomes a part of your life.”

Balentine said he was a lot like Aiden when he was that age.

In the upstairs of the firehouse, a framed newspaper article with images from the parade’s 50th anniversary is on display. One photo shows a papier-mâché float depicting a whale. Inside the whale was a young Balentine, shooting carbon dioxide foam from a fire extinguisher to look like a whale shooting water from its blowhole.

“That was me,” Balentine said, pointing to the whale. “I was riding fire trucks when I was his age, too. It’s in your blood.”