04/03/2026
Enjoy your well earned retirement!
Cousins and born-and-raised Falmouth residents Stephen DeMatos and Daniel L. Lopes Jr. will both be retiring from the Falmouth Fire Department on June 6 after 31 years of service. The cousins have public service in their DNA. Their pride in serving their community runs three generations deep.
Their fathers, Daniel L. Lopes Sr. and Custodio DeMatos, were also employees of the town. Lopes Sr. was a Falmouth firefighter from 1966-1998 and Custodio DeMatos worked at Morse Pond School from 1968 to 2003 as a custodian. Their grandfather, Adelino M. DeMatos, worked at the Lawrence School from 1966 to 1986.
Over the course of their lives in Falmouth, Lopes and DeMatos said they have seen the town evolve. During an interview with the Enterprise, the pair recalled walking to Teaticket Elementary School together as kids, playing on the firetrucks while visiting Lopes Sr. at work at the Woods Hole Fire Station and listening to WCIB Cool 102 on the radio while cruising down Surf Drive with the windows of their car down.
After retiring from the Fire Department, Lopes and DeMatos hope to plan a family trip together to Portugal. Although they said they will miss the department, they said they will not miss the near-constant alerts and alarms on their phones reporting department calls. After their official retirements on June 6, DeMatos will continue operating his landscaping company and Lopes will continue working in the Falmouth Hospital Emergency Room as an ER technician.
For our full profile on the cousins' careers in Falmouth, visit our website here → https://conta.cc/48dIPnv
