Assistant Chief Lanter has 25 years of service with the Swansea Fire Department. Matt was a charter member of Explorer Post in 1991 and was sworn in as a Firefighter in 1993. When the Lieutenant position was created in 1997 Current Chief Chris Tell & Current Assistant Chief Matt Lanter were the first to be promoted to that position. He was promoted to Captain in 1999, and most recently promoted to Assistant Chief in 2019. Matt served as the Treasurer of the Swansea Firemen Civic Association for over 20 years and has been Treasurer of the Foreign Fire Insurance Board since the inception of that Board Matt was born with a desire to help others because his parents were very charitable/giving people so he was raised with a strong desire to give back. He found the Fire Department to be the perfect place to do that. When asked about memorable calls he responded with, “So many memorable calls, but two that stick in my mind are a house fire on Viburnum in the late 90’s. I was riding in an Officer’s seat in 5419 and we were first on the scene of a fully involved attached garage fire. I had never seen a body of fire that big in my life. We had a great crew and knocked down the garage fire and saved the house (although they ended up tearing the house down). Another memorable fire was a duplex on Owl Creek on a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning. This was before EH2 was built. Dutch and I were the only two guys on old 5411 and we could see the smoke from 159&161. We pulled up to a duplex under construction that was fully involved. Biggest body of fire I have ever seen. So much radiant heat we could only get about 3 houses away. Other units were just going en route when we arrived on the scene so we knew they were about 5 minutes behind us so laid our line and knocked it down with a deck gun. Join us in thanking Assistant Chief Matt Lanter for his dedication to The Village of Swansea and the surrounding communities.