STRENGTH: Tony Leibelt

QUINCY – After 36 years as a firefighter, Tony Leibelt has seen it all. He’s stood on the front lines of wildfires, he’s rescued rock climbers on the cliffs above the Columbia River and once he even delivered a baby on a bathroom floor. Some of the calls are routine, some are tragic, and some are just plain weird.

“(We got a call for) a car fire,” Leibelt said. “I think I was on command, which means that I live out here, so it’s pretty quick (getting) out there. I get there, the car’s on fire. (There’s a) single occupant, he’s outside the car and he’s not hurt. He said ‘I hit something in the road and fire was following me.’”

It turned out the driver had run over something that tore a hole in his gas tank and set it on fire, Leibelt said. 

“He literally had a fire trail following him up the road. He jumped out and the car burned up. (It was) like (something) out of a cartoon.”

Leibelt is the fire chief at Grant County Fire District 3, which includes his lifelong hometown of George. He’s been a firefighter with the department since 1988, and the chief since Chief Don Fortier retired in 2021. 

There’s not a whole lot Leibelt doesn’t know about his hometown and the surrounding area; he spends some of his free time looking for remnants of the region’s history, like the missile silos and World War II plane crash sites, and the Sunset Highway, which was established as the east-west route across Washington in 1913.

“They were using Blewett Pass in the summertime to get into Wenatchee,” Leibelt explained. “But in the wintertime you couldn’t, so they had to come around Vantage, through here, to Trinidad and back into Wenatchee. Little bits and pieces of that road are still out there. And I’m still kind of looking for some of that.”

Being a small-town firefighter means getting involved in the community a lot. Leibelt was one of the first on the scene on Thanksgiving in 2018, when a bus carrying University of Washington athletes and band members crashed outside George in the snow. Leibelt was looking for ways to transport patients to hospitals – the ugly weather meant flying them out was impossible – while his wife Carol, a custodian at George Elementary School, warmed up the school building and got it set up for the students who weren’t hurt but had no place to go.

The whole community pitched in, Leibelt said.

“People went downtown, they went to their freezers and they brought in their chickens or turkeys,” he said. “I'll never forget watching a neighbor out here. They .. started up the ovens and they were cooking burritos. I don't know where they found the burritos; I think they went down to the stores, maybe they found them in the freezer there. And they're chopping them up after they're heated into thirds or fourths, feeding these kids.”

Carol Leibelt was nominated the next year for the Recognizing Inspirational School Employees, or RISE, Award for her actions in caring for the more than 200 college students who were stranded that night, and she and Tony got to go to the U.S. Capitol for her to receive it.

Helping out is just what Leibelt does, said George City Clerk-Treasurer Amy Grace. Leibelt is at all the city council meetings, offering helpful suggestions. And when a problem arises, he’s first on the spot with a solution.

“We had our community hall flood last week, so we couldn’t do the council meeting there.’ Grace said. “So I needed to get a hold of him to see if we can use the fire hall. And the first thing he asked is if (Community Hall Manager Debby Kooy) needed any help. (He said) they have some pumps available, and he’ll get ahold of her to see if she needs any help pumping out the water. I mean, that's the first thing he thought of, was helping her right away.”

Leibelt has also arranged for CPR and first aid training for city staff, Grace added.

Leibelt hasn’t decided yet when he’s going to retire, he said. He’s got some things he’d like to devote more time to, like riding dirt bikes and exploring the dusty corners of history. He’s currently trying to track down the elusive identity of a Civil War veteran who survived the Battle of Gettysburg and was living in Quincy in 1913. He’s also got a long-term goal of seeing George have its own library building.

“When I'm looking at the future, I don't look backwards too much,” he said. “I'm looking forward.”

Joel Martin may be reached via email at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.

    Grant County Fire District 3 Chief Tony Leibelt, left, presents lifesaving awards to Quincy Police Department Officer Stephen Harder, left, and QPD Sergeant Jazzlyn Silva, center in February 2023. The two officers entered a burning house and saved a woman inside.