Wake County Fire Department Updates – January 2023

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Here’s a new “armchair update” on what’s news and new at the various fire departments around Wake County. Thanks to the various fire chiefs that shared their information. 

Apex

  • New Station 6 nearing completion, 1206 Wimberly Road. Expected to open in late March or early April. See drawings in this blog post. 
  • New E-One Typhoon pumper on order, for the station. Expected around June, delayed due to build delays.
  • Academy 3 graduates April 21, with 12 firefighters to help staff the new station and new Engine 6.
  • Second battalion and three battalion chiefs will be added, when Station 6 opens.
  • New Spartan Gladiator/Smeal aerial platform also on order, 2000/400/100-foot.
  • Preparing to spec new replacement engine for next budget year.
  • Currently advertising for third assistant chief, new position. Assistant Chief of Professional Standards and Accreditation.

Cary

  • Four Pierce Enforcer pumpers on order, 1500/500.
  • Station 4 renovation plans are nearing completion and will be bid soon. The project will completely remodel the 1988 facility at 1401 Old Apex Road. Everything will be new within the existing footprint, plus some modifications to interior walls. Plus a 1,500 square-foot addition, for a fitness room. The station will be closed during the project and crews moved to a modular unit.

Durham Highway Continue reading ‘Wake County Fire Department Updates – January 2023’ »

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Two Alarms on Logger Court

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See more photos by Mike Legeros.

Two alarms were struck on Friday night, January 21, 2023, at 1100 Logger Court in north Raleigh. Two-story, garden-style, office condo building with 3,600 square-feet, if calculating correctly. Built 1981, say tax records.

Dispatched 10:02 p.m. as a multiple residential structure fire at the intersection of Falls of Neuse Road and Carlos Drive. Engine 15 first-arriving with fire showing through the roof of what initially appeared to be a residential structure. Engine 19 with supply line from hydrant at Falls of Neuse and Logger Court.

Interior attack, with two lines taken into the second-floor of a rear unit. One of the lines started leaking, due to fire damage, and that crew was backed out to the breezeway. Subsequent partial collapse of the roof, over the fire unit. Also at least one exterior line deployed, to protect exposures. 

Ladder 15 positioned and raised in the front of building, but used just for lighting. Ladder 4 deployed in the back of building, in a parking lot from Ridgefield Drive, and flowed water. Supplied by Engine 4, from a hydrant at Ridgefield and Spring Forest Road [?].

Medical monitoring and rehab by Wake County EMS, in the parking lot on the northeast side of the structure. Decon of firefighter PPE at Engine 15. 

Special call for additional two engines. Upgraded by command to full second-alarm assignment, which added three more engines and two ladders. 

Controlled 10:43 p.m. Extended overhaul, extinguishing hot spots. First pic about eight minutes into incident. 

Run card included:

First alarm:
E15, L15, E4, L4, B5, E19, E9, R16, B1, SO14
EMS11

Working fire:
DC1, Air28, INV1
D3, EMS12, T1

Added:
EMS72
E11, E22

Second alarm:
L22, E18, E27, E17, L6

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New Morrisville Fire Station 3

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The town of Morrisville recently broke ground on a new Station 3 at 1021 Harris Mill Road. The facility will replace current Station 3, which is co-located with Cary Station 7 at 6900 Carpenter Fire Station Road.  

From this town project page: the town acquired 6.3 acres of land at 1021 Harris Mill Road to construct a new fire station, and approximately 2.7 acres will be used for the station. The remaining property will be available for other uses, as yet to be determined.

The building is expected to be approximately 15,700 square feet, with double deep bays and administration and personnel quarters for four to nine staff per day. The overall site work will also include landscaping improvements.

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New Holly Springs Fire Station 3

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The town of Holly Springs is planning a new Station 3 on Cinder Station Road off Woods Creek Road. The fire station currently occupies a converted house at 4112 Friendship Road. Below are conceptual renderings from this town project page. 

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New Garner Fire Station 5

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Ground was recently broken on Garner Station 5  at 7816, AKA the Caddy Road Public Safety Building. Here’s some project information and a rendering, from this Wake County project page. 

Project Summary
The Caddy Road Public Safety Station is a co-location of Garner Fire-Rescue, Town of Garner Police and Wake County EMS. The construction contract award was approved by the Wake County Board of Commissioners and the Town of Garner Council in September of 2022. The plans for the project include a total of 16,816 square feet including four full apparatus bays, company day rooms, offices, a conference room, an exercise space, a full size kitchen and dining areas, support space, and 1,400 square feet of future building pad for the Town of Garner. Construction is scheduled to begin in November 2022 and the facility should be open for service by the winter of 2023.

  • Site Acreage: 5.19 Acres
  • Parking: 40 Parking Spaces
  • Building Area: 16,816 SF
  • Number of Vehicle Bays: 4 Full Apparatus Bays (8 Vehicles)
  • Programs Offered: Emergency Response – Fire & EMS and Police
  • Architect: adw architects, PA
  • Contractor: Engineered Construction Company
  • Construction Budget: $10,225,330
  • Projected Opening: Winter 2023

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Fuquay-Varina Planning Fourth Fire Station

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January 22, 2023
Renderings added:

November 27, 2022
News from southern Wake County. The Town of Fuquay-Varina just closed an RFQ for the design and build of a fourth fire station. From documents on the bid page, the combination fire and EMS facility will be located at 4821 Wade Nash Road, which is a 4.65 acre site located just west of North Broad Street on the north side of town. Sealed proposals were due by November 25. 

The planned facility will be some 12,000 square-feet in size, with three drive-through bays. It will also house the Fire Prevention Division, with office and work space for the Administrative Chief, the Fire Marshal, and four Deputy Fire Marshals. Plus “antique truck storage and history room,” notes the project overview. How cool is that?!

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Durham County Truck History

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This is a blog version of a Facebook posting from December 21, 2019.

Top photos from Durham Herald Company Newspaper Photograph Collection, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bottom photos by Lee Wilson.

First County Pumper – 1948 Mack

Durham’s first “county fire truck” was delivered in August 1948. It was purchased in the fall of 1947, cost $13,945, and was equipped with a “high pressure pump” capable of creating 600 pounds of pressure, and a 600 gallon tank. With a pair of 250 foot high-pressure hose lines and special nozzles.

The truck was first housed at Station 3, with a new company of ten men, with four “members of the truck’s crew” who were “on hand at all times.” It was placed in service on August 16, 1948. “Cooperation of residents in area[s] outside the city limits” was encouraged, notably for maintaining roads and bridges. Also, for “forest and grass fires in outlying areas,” requests should be “relayed through the county fire warden.”

Both the city and county contributed to its operation, each allocating $5000 in their budgets that year for operation and maintenance. Early staffing included a Captain, driver, and two men assigned to the truck. Some runs were as far as 25 miles (!) from Station 1. And as DFD history guy Tom Fowler once noted, it was a given that any structure would be fully involved by the time of their arrival.

It was totaled in a collision with a car on December 22, 1957, that killed the driver of the car and injured three family members. See photos at legeros.smugmug.com/History/Durham/County-Truck/

Second County Pumper – 1958 American LaFrance Continue reading ‘Durham County Truck History’ »

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Durham’s First Black Firefighters

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This content first appeared in a Facebook posting on December 13, 2019.

Durham Herald Company Newspaper Photograph Collection, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Here’s a bit of hidden history of the Durham Fire Department. Below is a photo the Bull City’s first black firefighters. They were hired in October 1958 to staff a new Station 4 on Fayetteville Street that served the preserved predominately black Hayti neighborhoods.

But as the subsequent clipping from 1949 notes, found last week, the City of Durham consider adding black firefighters nine years earlier. It details a special meeting between DFD, the City Council Safety Committee, and the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs. As expected, there were objections. [Then what happened? Good question. Future research topic.]

Two years later, the first modern-era black career firefighters were hired in Winston-Salem, with eight reporting for duty at Station 4 on Dunleith Avenue. They operated as an integrated fire company but with segregated living quarters. They became an all-black fire company by 1957, and the entire department integrated by 1967.

Continue reading ‘Durham’s First Black Firefighters’ »

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Wake County Fire Districts Commission, 1954

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In 1954, the Wake County Board of Commissioners created the Wake County Fire Districts Commission. This was the first group to govern the new rural-serving volunteer fire departments that were being organized in the county. Below is the resolution that created the group, from county minutes. View those minutes on this site. 

RESOLUTION

September 7, 1954

WHEREAS, by G.S. Section 153.9 (39) the Board of County Commissioners of Wake County is authorized and empowered to provide for the organization, equipment, maintenance and the governing of fire companies; and

WHERAS, the Board of Commissioners of Wake County is of the opinion and have found and determined that it is for the best interest and necessary for the protection of the citizens of said County and their property to encourage and financially aid in the equipment, the maintenance and government of volunteer fire departments in said County for the protection of the public school buildings and farm buildings, and to establish a protective fire fighting organization for the purpose of civil defense; and

WHEREAS, certain fire departments, as specified in the fire districts of Wake County, meet the qualifications and regulations as outlined in this resolution and will, therefore, be established as fire districts under the minimum qualifications as specified by the North Carolina Fire Insurance Rating Bureau;

Continue reading ‘Wake County Fire Districts Commission, 1954’ »

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Garner Merger Community Meeting

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Merger alert. The Garner Fire Department and the Town of Garner are holding a pair of community information meetings this week, about a possible merger between the two organizations.  They’ll be held on January 11 and January 12, see announcement below for times and locations.

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