Raleigh Retrospective – 2006 to 2019

The city of Raleigh has been served by sixteen career Fire Chiefs since 1912. And effective [tomorrow, November 1, 2019], Fire Chief John T. McGrath has retired. That’s a historical milestone, as he’s the city’s second-longest serving fire chief, with 13.8 years of service. Only Chief Keeter (1955 to 1973) had a longer tenure, with …

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North Carolina Firefighters to be Honored at National Fallen Firefighters Memorial – October 6, 2019

The 38th National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service will be held in Emmitsburg, MD, on Sunday, October 6, 2019, to honor 92 firefighters who died in the line of duty in 2018 and 27 firefighters who died in the line of duty in previous years. The North Carolina firefighters being honored are: Michael Gene Goodnight West …

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Wake Forest Plans Merger with Town

The Wake Forest Fire Department is planning a merger with the Town of Wake Forest, effective July 1, 2010. From this web page: Like many communities in North Carolina, the Town of Wake Forest is experiencing significant transition and growth in service demand, thereby increasing the challenges of providing core local government functions, including fire and …

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New Book on New Bern Fire History

New book alert! History of Firefighting in New Bern, North Carolina – Colonial Days to the 21st Century has been published. The author is Daniel Bartholf, a 45-year veteran of the volunteer fire service (NY, NC, WV) and a member of the staff at the New Bern Firemen’s Museum. His bio is below. The softcover …

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New Source of Digitized Conference Proceedings

There’s a new source of digitized proceedings of the early conferences of the North Carolina State Firemen’s Association. The Internet Archive (archive.org) has digitized a portion of the proceedings in the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina. The direct links are listed below, and each year’s proceedings is fully-searchable. There are also …

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Running Across America for Firefighter Cancer

Meet Matty Gregg, pictured below (center left) at Raleigh Fire Station 2 yesterday. He’s running across America for the Firefighter Cancer Support Network. For seven months and nearly 4,500 miles, he’s been spreading the word about firefighter cancer and the national support group.  The Firefighter Cancer Support Network is active in 35 states and growing. …

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Cary + Apex + Morrisville – New Fire System in Service

Change log. May 10. Evening. New map, updated with response districts instead of municipal and ETJ areas as base map. May 10. Morning. Slight edits. Noting that existing Cary P25 radio system being used. Annotating map, noting that shaded areas are municipal and ETJ boundaries. Etc. Introduction On Tuesday, May 7, the fire departments of …

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Raleigh Fire Department – Digitized Yearbooks from 1984 and 2002

Whoops, this posting was originally planned in November. Let’s catch up… The Raleigh Fire Museum in partnership with the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center in November 2018 announced the digitization of two fire department “yearbooks” from 1984 and 2002. These commemorative volumes are no longer in print, and document the personnel, facilities, equipment, and history of …

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Meet Raleigh’s New Firefighters

On Wednesday night, December 5, twenty-seven new firefighters will join the ranks of the Raleigh Fire Department. Recruit Academy 43 will graduate in a ceremony at 7:00 p.m. at the Fletcher Opera Theater in the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South Street. The new firefighters have completed 32-weeks of classroom, practical …

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