A Minnesota Man Decided to Visit all 775 Fire Departments in the State

We all have things on our bucket list and places we'd like to see someday. I've never heard of something quite as unique as this one, though. Minnesota man Hubie Widmer from Watertown set himself a goal to visit all of the fire departments in the state.

Think about that for a second. Every single fire department in Minnesota. Well, pretty much every town in Minnesota has a fire department. So that's a lot of places you have to go!

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In total, as far as we can tell from state records, there are 775 fire departments in Minnesota. And Hubie wanted to visit them all.

Minnesota Firefighter Visits all of the Fire Departments in the State

Hubie isn't a stranger to fire departments. He's a firefighter himself. He's been with the Watertown Fire Department for 43 years, according to KARE 11, and at the age of 71, he's finally going to be retiring soon.

Of course, he's sad to leave behind his work because he loves it so much. In his interview with KARE 11, he didn't seem to want to talk about his retirement too much.

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But before his retirement, years ago he made it his goal to visit all 775 fire departments in the state of Minnesota. His amazing wife, Denice, was along for the ride with him and took a picture of him outside of every department they stopped at.

14 photo albums, a pin-filled map of Minnesota, and 10 years later, Hubie and Denice visited their last stop on the list: the fire department at MSP.

During other department visits, they would just stop by, snap a picture of Hubie outside, and that'd be it. But when the fire department at MSP found out he was coming they made sure to make a big deal out of it.

He got to check out all of the fancy stuff they have at the MSP department and ride around in their tricked-out truck. Denice said to KARE 11, "He's just like a little kid!"

Why Did He Decide to Visit Every Fire Department in Minnesota?

It's super cool that Hubie was able to accomplish his goal, but why do it in the first place? He just has such a love for firefighting and the line of work that he's in that he just wanted to do it for fun!