Matt Sobecki, longtime New Kensington volunteer firefighter, dies from cancer

Matthew S. Sobecki, a life member of the New Kensington Fire Department with nearly 50 years of service, has died.

The New Kensington Bureau of Fire announced Tuesday that Sobecki, 64, died from cancer at 1:25 a.m. He died at UPMC Shadyside hospital.

Sobecki served in many line and administrative positions at Engine-Truck Company No. 1. He most recently was an assistant chief and in charge of fire prevention.

Fire Chief Ed Saliba Jr. said he knew Sobecki since the late 1970s.

“He’s a great person. He’s a very honest and true person,” Saliba said. “He’s a person that always told it the way it was and never sugarcoated anything.”

Saliba said Sobecki worked more than 20 years for Kmart, where he was loss prevention manager. He went on to work in security at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

Sobecki had worked a few years in the city’s code enforcement office.

“Matt was just a genuinely good person. He did so much for our community being a firefighter and a code officer,” Mayor Tom Guzzo said. “Everything he did, he did without fanfare. He honestly wanted to always make our community better and safer.

“I will certainly miss Matt as a friend and as a pillar to our community.”

Sobecki was a “great interior firefighter” and had been an emergency medical technician for many years, Saliba said.

As a firefighter, Guzzo said Sobecki organized the city’s Christmas parades and other firefighter parades. He taught fire safety programs to schoolchildren for many years, including fire prevention week activities at Martin Elementary School.

Saliba said Sobecki also went to the city’s senior high-rises and the senior citizens center. The Western Pennsylvania Firemen’s Association recognized him for fire prevention efforts.

“He was aggressive in fire prevention,” Saliba said. “It got to be so well (received) that he got other volunteer firefighters involved. He would schedule when they would go to the different schools and the senior citizens centers or high-rises to carry on a short seminar on fire prevention.”

Sobecki’s father, Joseph, was a captain at Engine-Truck Company No. 1. He had two brothers who died before him. Dennis, who served as an assistant fire chief with the same company, was 74 when he died in June 2020; and Mark, who also died from cancer at the age of 42, in 1999.

Matt Sobecki and his wife, Kathy, were married for 36 years. She worked in the city’s tax department for many years and is now a payroll administrator, Guzzo said.

The couple have twin daughters, Krista and Kelsey.

“His wife and his daughters were the most important thing of his life,” Saliba said. “And the fire department was second.”

Visitation is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Giunta-Bertucci Funeral Home, 1509 Fifth Ave., Arnold. Services will be at 10 a.m. Friday in Mount St. Peter Roman Catholic Church, 100 Freeport Road, New Kensington.

Burial will be private.