MISQUAH — The disputed chair — the good oak one that by long, unwritten arrangement spends its summers in the city hall meeting room and its winters at the fire hall — was removed from city hall on Thursday, six weeks ahead of custom, by parties the fire department has identified as the fire department.

In a statement delivered verbally, at the Daybreak, fire chief Gary Sundberg cited “elevated operational tempo” arising from the smoke week: the department has been fielding haze calls, monitoring the burn ban, and “standing by generally,” all of which, he argued, is standing-by best conducted from a decent chair. “The folding ones are for people who are leaving,” he said. “Nobody at the fire hall is leaving.”

City hall’s response came through official channels, the channels being Clerk Donna Skoglund, who noted dryly that the chair’s summer residency dates to an arrangement “older than my minutes, which go back to 1994,” and that the city expects the chair returned “when the tempo de-elevates.” Asked to define the arrangement’s actual terms, Skoglund confirmed there are none in writing, which both sides regard as the strongest part of their case.

The chair itself has weathered the controversy well and is reported to be holding the fire hall’s day shift adequately. Mayor Gloria Vik, asked to intervene, declined with the practiced calm of a mayor who has intervened before. “The chair has two homes and everybody knows the schedule,” she said. “If the smoke wants to move the calendar up, I’m not going to be the one who argues with the smoke.” The matter is expected to resolve itself in October, the way it always does, by nobody mentioning it.