For your Monday enjoyment, vintage images of Greenville and Pitt County rescue trucks, as photographed by the Daily Reflector in the 1950s and 1960s, via Joyner Library at East Carolina University, via their Digital Collections.
See individual images on the Facebook side, in this photo album.
Here’s something interesting. Couple stories from 1874-75 suggesting that the Charlotte Fire Department’s famous 1866 Jeffers hand engine–see in recent years at special events statewide–was once named “Crazy Hannah.” The articles are attached below. See what you think.
CFD reacquired the engine on March 28, 2012. It was originally purchased by the city in 1866, and was their first pumping engine. It was built by the William Jeffers Company and served the city from 1866 to 1901.
More views of the engine, as photographed by Legeros in 2012 at the South Atlantic Fire Rescue Expo in this Flickr album.
With the South Atlantic Fire Rescue Expo starting next week in Raleigh, here’s a visual history of the prior conference locations. In the style of a heat map.
Needs a little work. Starting with a better base map. Also, Winston (2) and Winston-Salem (9) are merged into one, with Winston-Salem (11). Also, also, tournaments were conducted for the first few decades. Could be fun to add those, in some fashion.
Another idea, create a second map–or interactive map, with layers–showing the locations and counts of the “colored” firefighters association, which also held annual conventions for decades.
Source data included below. 
North Carolina State Firefighter’s Association
Counts of conference locations. Note that the event was cancelled three times during World War II.
15 – Raleigh
13 – Greensboro
12 – Asheville
11 – Charlotte
11 – Wilmington
9 – Winston-Salem + 2 – Winston
8 – Carolina Beach
8 – New Bern
7 – Durham
6 – Fayetteville
6 – Morehead City
4 – Salisbury
2 – Boone
2 – Goldsboro
2 – Hendersonville
2 – Hickory
1 – Gastonia
1 – Greenville
1 – Hamlet
1 – High Point
1 – Lumberton
1 – Pinehurst
1 – Statesville
1 – Wrightsville Beach
North Carolina Volunteer Firemen’s Association
Counts for conference locations. From 1890 to 1978, though the source data is incomplete. Need locations for a number of years. Also, this convention was cancelled a number of times during World War II:
9 – Wilson
7 – Warrenton
6 – Tarboro
5 – Greenville
5 – Oxford
3 – Concord
3 – East Spencer
3 – Elizabeth City
3 – Farmville
3 – Wake Forest
3 – Washington
3 – Winston
2 – Charlotte
2 – Durham
2 – Enfield
2 – Greensboro
2 – Monroe
2 – Raleigh
1 – Fayettville
1 – Henderson
1 – Louisburg
1 – New Bern
1 – Rocky Mount
1 – Salisbury
1 – Wilmington
This is an ongoing blog posting about the relocating of Fire Station 14.
See Legeros updates below. See also ongoing Legeros photos. And here’s the official project site from the city.
August 10, 2019
Walls are going up!
June 25, 2019
Site work is nearly finished on new Station 14 on Harden Road. Sediment monitoring is nearing completion for the back fill of the retaining wall and footers and under-slab utilities should begin in July 2019.
Continue reading ‘Relocating Fire Station 14 – August Update’ »
Question from reader Dave Parker, asking the age of this North Carolina Pump School booklet, that someone at his station received from a retired guy some time ago.
Answers Legeros, it likely dates from between 1953 and 1966. Those were the years that the North Carolina State Firemen’s Association conducted an annual pump school separate from their annual fire college and drill school.
The fire college was first held in 1929, and ended in 2002. Or maybe later. Legeros is still researching.
As for the pump school, these were those dates:
1953 – 1st – Charlotte
1954 – 2nd – Charlotte
1955 – 3rd – Charlotte
1956 – 4th – Charlotte
1957 – 5th – Charlotte
1958 – 6th – Charlotte
1959 – 7th – Charlotte
1960 – 8th – Charlotte
1961 – 9th – Charlotte
1962 – 10th – Charlotte
1963 – 11th – Charlotte
1964 – 12th – Charlotte
1965 – 13th – Greensboro
1966 – 14th – Raleigh
1967 – No more separate pump schools
Notes for the archives. Two alarms were struck on August 2, 2019, at Crossroads Fellowship Church at 2721 E. Millbrook Road. Dispatched as an automatic fire alarm at 11:03 p.m. for Engine 19 and Ladder 2. Units arrived at a one-story, concrete, warehouse-type building with 220,000+ square-feet.
Nothing showing on arrival on Engine 19. As engine company personnel entered the front of the structure, they encountered moderate smoke conditions. Engine 19 upgraded the incident to a working fire. Ladder 2 circled the building on their arrival, and also observed smoke coming from a roll-up door.
Crews entered with hand lines, and began searching for the seat of the fire. Ladder 2 also deployed, in preparation for aerial operations. As heavier smoke conditions were encountered throughout the building, and due to the size of the structure, a second alarm was requested early into the incident.
Engine 19 established their own water supply in the front of the structure, and second-due Engine 15 established a secondary water supply in the rear, and supplied Ladder 2.
Once the seat of the fire was located, and with additional sections of hose added, the fire was extinguished. The building’s sprinkler system had also activated, and extinguished other areas of fire, with just hot spots remaining.
After the fire was controlled, second alarm companies were brought in, and rotated with first-alarm units. Crews were subsequently rotated to complete ventilation, which required extended operations to clear the large structure of smoke.
Fire Alarm: E19, L2
Structure Fire, Working Fire: E15, E27, E21, L1, R1, B1, B5, A2, C20, C402
Second Alarm: E16, E4, E22, L8, L3
Dispatched: 11:03 p.m.
Arrived: 11:08 p.m.
Controlled: 12:59 p.m.
No injuries were reported. Cause was undetermined.
For your Friday enjoyment, here’s a montage of Raleigh Fire Department aerial apparatus. Every one from the beginning but not complete. The gaps start after the 2004 tiller.
Photo credits are Raleigh Fire Department, Lee Wilson, Mike Legeros, Jeff Harkey, Joel Woods, Tommy Rich, and Elizabeth Reid Murray.
See more photos in this Flickr collection from the Raleigh Fire Museum: https://www.flickr.com/photos/raleighfiremuseum/collections/72157709997252341/
See more info in Mr. Blogger’s historical apparatus registry: https://legeros.com/ralwake/raleigh/apparatus
Here’s another addition to my (very) slowly growing digital library at https://www.legeros.com/history/library. Charlotte Fire Department millennium history book from 2000. Scanned from my personal copy.
Believe this was their second history book, with an earlier one in… 1990, or abouts. Will get/borrow a copy of that sometime.
Charlotte Fire Department – Millennium History 2000 was published by the fire department and printed by Fine Books Publishing Company. It has 160 pages.
Have added a pair of Greensboro Fire Department history books to my digital library at https://www.legeros.com/history/library.
Both are 96 pages in length, and were published by the Taylor Publishing Company, which produces school yearbooks. Scanned from personal copies.
Forthcoming is Greensboro’s 2002 history book.
This is an ongoing blog posting about the rebuilding of Fire Station 6.
See Legeros updates below. See also ongoing Legeros photos. And here’s the official project site from the city.
Contents
July 14, 2019
Then & Now
June 25, 2019
June Update
Construction continues on rebuilding Station 6 on Fairview Road. Concrete masonry unit walls are finished on the first story, and construction continues upward with the second-floor slab placed. Planned completion January 2020.
The 1949 engine house was closed in May 2017, and Engine 6 was relocated to Station 5. Project progress has been slower in all phases, alas. During site prep, there was fuel contamination from an underground storage tank, as well as unsuitable soils for compaction and structure.
And as the walls have started going up, the pace is slower due to the very small site size, which adds a limit to on-site materials and activities at any time.
Continue reading ‘Rebuilding Raleigh Fire Station 6 – Then & Now’ »
