The site doesn’t feature political news, town board information, or anything of that ilk. Rather, it is solely a resource for news and information for the county’s nearly three dozen fire departments. The site posts photographs of fires and accidents, a calendar of fundraising events and other fire company activities, and useful links to other emergency service resources.

“I think—I hope—it is used by the general public as a resource to see what’s going on in with their fire companies,” said Lindmark. “I started it because it filled a void. Newspapers can only show a picture or two of an incident. I wanted to be able to show the whole story.”

Over time, the site grew from photos only Lindmark was able to take to photographic documentation of nearly every major incident in the county—and some lesser ones. That’s a result of the word of mouth that accompanied the website and the desire of a handful of area residents to “get the word out” about the area’s volunteer fire service.

A number of amateur and semi-professional photographers—this writer included—submit incident photos to Lindmark, who posts them online nearly immediately.

“That’s when the site took off … when others started sending me their pictures, because I couldn’t be everywhere,” he said.

The website collected its most “hits” in one day in the wake of a devastating fire in Stottville on November 9, which roared through a four-unit apartment complex and left twenty-six people homeless. Numerous photos of the incident were posted to ColumbiaPage while firefighters were still on the scene and, as a result, more than 600 website hits were logged in a 24-hour period.

“People are now turning to the website to see what happened,” Lindmark said.

The ice storm and the devastation it caused earlier this month was another prime example of the site’s popularity. Even as the county remained under a state of emergency on Monday, pictures of some of the ice storm’s destruction were available on ColumbiaPage, courtesy of two photographers, as well as photos of two major fires that occurred as a result of the storm , courtesy three other photographers.

Lindmark, who spent dozens of hours in his primary job as a Columbia County 911 dispatcher during the ice storm and recovery effort, nonetheless took the time after work to post the photos to his website and detail some of the information about the incidents. Lindmark’s involvement in the emergency services is extremely deep. A current member of the Canaan Protective Fire Company, he is a past member of the East Chatham and Red Rock fire companies, joining the latter in 1981. He is also a life member of the Chatham Rescue Squad and a past member of the Chatham Police Department. He started dispatching for the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office in 1988 and transitioned into Columbia County 911 when the agency was created in 1995.

Lindmark also has an extensive resume as an amateur photographer, having photos published in the Chatham Courier, Register-Star, The Independent, Albany Times Union, Berkshire Eagle, Firehouse Magazine, the New York Trooper magazine, the Empire State Sheriff magazine, and 1st Responder newspaper and website.

Lindmark said it’s important for the public to know and appreciate what volunteer firefighters do for the county. “Just look at what took place this past weekend [during the ice storm and aftermath],” said Lindmark. “Imagine if, instead of people volunteering to perform those duties, we had to pay for it. . . . We would go bankrupt.”