Once again the June Lake Fire Department serves its famous smoked beef barbecue with all the fixin's on the second saturday of August. The firemen's bbq is June Lake's long-standing local summer event and reunion since the early 1950's. As always, many prizes are awarded to raffle ticket buyers throughout the day, and the Grand Prize winner will receive a fishing boat with motor and trailer.
A little bbq history ...Up until about two decades ago, the event was held at the June Mountain Ski Area Parking Lot, a large portion of which remained clear for the festivities, which always included a competition involving engine teams from other nearby fire departments, including Mammoth, Crowley, Bridgeport, Benton and Lee Vining. The departments' teams would compete in pairs, tournament style, starting with the crew loaded on the engine and driving a few yards, then stopping to deploy a hose, the first team to gain pressure at the nozzle being the winner. In the earlier days the teams would then compete with the live hoses, each team impinging water pressure on an empty 50-gallon drum in order to cause it to roll across the team's respective goal line. The barrel-rolling practice proved to be a bit dangerous, however: one year a bystander was struck by the rapidly moving barrel. There was a perpetual trophy circulated among the local communities' fire stations for the winning team each year.
There would often also be live music, and a very wide variety of activities (it used to be a lot easier to miss hearing your raffle number, too).