Firefighters, kids and Easter eggs

Firefighters with the Lincoln Volunteer Fire Department arrived at Hooper Park at about 11:15 a.m. Easter morning to set up for their annual Easter Egg Hunt.

As the firefighters trickled into the park, they got to work scattering the brightly colored, candy-filled plastic eggs throughout the three different areas of the park for the different age groups.

Ward Roberson said it took the firefighters about two hours to fill the plastic Easter eggs with candy on Thursday night, and that was after several of them returned from a single vehicle accident on Flesher Pass involving a fertilizer truck that tipped over on a corner.

Roberson joked that it takes them a couple hours every Easter to put all the easter eggs out, but only seconds for the kids to gather them all up.

Although scattering the eggs isn't particularly challenging, since most are strewn about in the open, some of the firefighters find spots like gaps in the bark of trees or piles of pine needles to add to the challenge, particularly for some of the older kids.

Derek Perez, who recently took over as assistant fire chief from Aaron Birkholz, said he likes to put several of the eggs in "nests" that are a little more difficult to spot, but that have a big reward.

Scattering the eggs this year presented some challenge for firefighters since some of the cheaper plastic eggs in their inventory have developed a tendency to pop open at random. The better made eggs can last several years, but the lower quality ones tend to take a beating in just a couple years.

Perez said they have some plastic eggs donated every year, and firefighters also pick them up when they go on sale after the holiday. This year, they're going to be on the lookout for the good ones.

No one counted the exact number of eggs scattered around this year, but an estimate put the number at between 5000 and 10,000, and the Fire department spent about $700 on bags of candy to fill them all for the hunt this year

Fortunately, the quality of the eggs didn't seem to be much of a concern for the dozens of kids who braved the chilly weather and swarmed the park during the Easter Egg Hunt. At the sound of the fire truck's siren, kids scoured the park and retrieved all the eggs, and the candy that may have spilled out of them, within just a few minutes.