Though I usually use Twitter for these, let’s blog about this one this morning. Dump truck versus house in Harnett County. Happened in the 4500 block of Highway 210, near Angier, near the schools. Car collided with truck which collided with building. Says this WTVD story, the structure suffered such heavy damage it will likely …
Bakertown Volunteer Fire Department volunteer firefighter James “Jim” R. Varnell, 53, died at the fire station on Webb Lake Road in Elm City on Tuesday. He was attending training and became ill as he was preparing to depart. His fellow firefighters quickly came to his aid and performed basic life-support measures. As additional resources arrived, …
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The Garner Fire Department this week moved their administrative offices to 120 E. Main Street, a former police substation. It’s also a historic building. The one-story, 2100 square-foot structure was built in 1918. And renovated in 2006, say tax records. Car 1, Car 2, Car 3, and the administrative assistant were relocated to new office …
Here’s another vintage news article, again via North Carolina Newspapers. Date line September 1, 1950. Brevard Fire Department as featured in The Echo, as digitized by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. The two-page story includes a nice picture of their gorgeous 1945 American LaFrance 500 Series triple combination. They still have …
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Last month, an update on Salisbury’s restoration of their 1941 aerial ladder was shared in this Facebook posting by the Carolina’s Chapter of SPAAMFAA: Rekindle Society group. The truck is a 1941 American LaFrance Type M-190 mid-mount aerial ladder (65-foot), registration number L-1627, shipped February 13, 1942. No pump, but was equipped to carry 1,000 …
Continue reading ‘Restoration Update: Salisbury’s 1941 American LaFrance Aerial Ladder’ »
Happened upon the Ash-Rand Rescue building in Asheboro on Sunday, after a zoo visit. Found a school bus-turned-command post in the parking lot. The two-story building was chock full of rescue and EMS vehicles. (Something no longer seen in Wake County, where rescue services are nearly exclusively performed by fire departments. The exception is R.E.D.S, …
For your Saturday viewing pleasure, here’s a new version of my Raleigh Fire Department Downtown History Map. We’ve seen this before in an earlier blog post. There’s also a PDF copy on my RFD history site. This version displays fire department facilities from the volunteer era only. From the first engine house erected in 1853, …
Continue reading ‘History Map – Raleigh Fire Facilities, 1853 to 1912’ »
Saw this on Twitter this morning, from WCIV4 reporter Rob Mallia as retweeted by FDMaps.com. Feature of North Charleston’s new Station 2 at 2800 Carner Avenue. (They’re the third-largest city in SC, incidentally.) Formal opening ceremonies were held today. The 18,000 square-foot station houses two engines and a ladder company, has five “engine bays,” plus …
From the North Carolina State Archives comes this picture of the Spencer Shops Fire Department (competition) reel team in 1924. They’re posed “in town” and beside the Methodist church at the corner of Fourth Street and Yadkin Avenue. The industrial fire brigade protected the Southern Railway’s Spencer Shops, once the railroad’s largest steam locomotive repair …
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Here’s an interesting slice of social history, beginning with the provocative headline “Negro Firemen Acquit Themselves Well In Few Dixie Cities; Durham Hasn’t Warmed Up To Idea.” It was found via North Carolina Newspapers, a neat site with access to hundreds of digitized newspapers from around the state. Below is the front page of Durham’s …
Continue reading ‘Vintage News Story on Black Firefighters – Carolina Times, 1952’ »