Bring Out Your Buckets! – Hillsborough, 1777

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In 1777, the state legislature passed an Act for the Regulation of the Town of Hillsborough, which included that every household have two buckets and one ladder, and keep them “in continual readiest” in case of fire.

This pre-dates by decades the 1848 references in town minutes to fire equipment. See that history here, by Legeros. 

What other gems can be found in the old session laws, pertaining to own towns and their fire companies or fire departments? 

Tool over to Mike’s page on historical fire laws, to see what the’s lately found, with excepts added going farther back in time, now the 1740s forward: 

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Two Alarms on Crossroads Arbor Way

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Evening update: See Legeros photos.

Two alarms were struck yesterday at 1723 Crossroads Arbor Way. Two-story, garden-style apartment building with sixteen units and 10,656 square-feet. Built 1999.

Dispatched 2:19 p.m. Upgraded to working fire while companies were en route, based on caller information. Swift Creek Car 1 first-arriving, followed by Swift Creek Engine 1. Fire found on end unit, and quickly spread to common attic, with strong winds contributing to the fire spread. 

Three aerials into the air, with Ladder 7 with soon operating, with interior crews withdrawn, and the bulk of the fire knocked down. Then crews re-entered apartments from the opposite end of the building. Ground monitor and hand lines used for exposure protection.


WTVD image

Controlled 3:19 p.m. Crews remained on scene for a number of hours for overhaul. Cause determined as accidental, from improperly discarded smoking materials. Sixteen apartment units rendered uninhabitable. No damage to exposures. No injuries. Twenty-three people displaced. Several pets also rescued. 

Hydrant locations:

  • Crossroads Arbor Way, east side, right front corner of fire building, SCFD E1, supplying hand lines and L7 (initially?).
  • Jones Franklin Road, west side, north of Crossroads Boulevard, with supply line through fence access gate, E5 supplying L7.
  • Crossroads Arbor Way, east side, just west of intersection with Crossroads Crest Way, E1 supplying hand lines.
  • Crossroads Vista Way, east side, halfway between intersecting streets, E2 supplying L8.


Mike Legeros photo

Run card:

  • First alarm: E8, Sq14, E2, E1, L7, L8, R1, B5, SCFD E1, C1
  • Working fire: C20, C402 (investigator), A2
  • Second alarm: E5, E15, E10, E20, L3, L1, B4, plus E20, L4, responding from training
  • Plus: C3, C4, C14 (safety officer), C401 (chief investigator), C54
  • Relief: E22, L24, L9
  • EMS: TBD

Historical note. Though a different building burned, these apartments were scene of an earlier major fire on December 28, 2011. Two alarms, midday. And strong winds also contributing to fire spread. See Legeros photos from 2011.


Mike Legeros photos


Mike Legeros photos

See more photos.

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Fire and Fire Control in Colonial Wilmington – 1975

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Yes, it’s history month at Blog Central. Was shown this last week, from a fellow research. The story of fire protection in Colonial Wilmington, from a May 1975 article in the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society Bulletin. 

Includes details on what was likely North Carolina’s first hand engine, delivered circa 1756. Plus a few details on the other towns of the time, both in and out of state.

This one’s a must-read for history buffs. Details on colonial fire protection in the Carolinas can be quite hard to come by.

Read the bulletin (PDF, 2.7MB). 

Original retrieved from http://www.latimerhouse.org/Images/lcfhs/documents/bulletins/1975/Bulletin_May_1975_sw.pdf on February 12, 2019.

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Fiftieth Anniversary of the Salem Fire Department – 1893

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Here’s a vintage booklet about the Salem Fire Department, printed for the occasion of their fiftieth anniversary, celebrated on September 16, 1893.

The twenty-page booklet includes a history of the department going back to the Moravian settlement of 1766, and first fire protection laws in 1773.

It’s presented courtesy of Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, scanned from their collection.

View the booklet (PDF, 19MB)

Department Milestones

These milestones are noted in the booklet:

  • 1766 – Settlement of Salem started.
  • 1773 – First regulations related to preventing fires, by sweeping chimneys. 
  • 1778 – First “system of water works.”
  • 1781 – First recorded fire. 
  • 1785 – First fire engines delivered, two hand engines from Europe.
  • 1785 – Fire buckets ordered by town, with each house required to have at least one.
  • 1828 – Pump added to water system. Water was moved into the town’s reservoir, which fed via “earthen pipes” some ten or twelve cisterns around town. Each cistern had a “common wood pump” with a brass connection for hose, for supplying the fire engine. 
  • 1832 – Newer hand engine delivered from Philadelphia, 200 GPM capacity, built by Merrick & Agnew. Also equipped with two-inch hose, first fire hose for town.
  • 1843 – State law exempts firemen from militia duty. It’s thought that this led to the old Salem Military Company being disbanded, and the first “organized fire company” created.
  • 1843 – Salem Vigilant Fire Company organized. 
  • 1845 – First fire for Vigilant Fire Company, Siewer’s Cabinet Shop.
  • 1853 – Second fire for Vigilant Fire Company, outbuilding near “dwelling house.”
  • 1854 – First uniforms for Vigilant Fire Company.
  • 1855 – Four-wheel hose carriage added. Used for about 30 years. 
  • 1855c – Engine house moved from original location on Salem Square to Academy Street, just west of Tar Branch.
  • 1858 – Newer hand engine purchased, from Baltimore. Named “the Watchman.”
  • 1859 – Larger 1785 hand engine retired.
  • 1861 – Vigilant Fire Company disbanded, after state law no longer exempted firemen from militia duty. They had “done duty at four fires” over 18 years. 
  • 1864 – First dwelling house destroyed by fire. Most of the former firemen were in the army, and citizens took their places at the engine, and in a bucket brigade.
  • 1866 – Fire company reorganized after the end of the war. 
  • 1868 – Fire company adopted new by-laws and constitution, and chartered as Rough and Ready Fire Company.
  • 1868 – Total fire alarms from 1766 to 1868 is nine.
  • 1871 – First fire for Rough and Ready Fire Company, a smokehouse.
  • 1874c – Engine house moved to Main Street.
  • 1884 – Button hand engine purchased. 
  • 1886 – Hand engine exchanged for Button steam engine.
  • 1886 – New engine house.
  • 1893 – Hose wagon added, built by captain of the department.
  • 1893 – Electric fire alarm system added. 
  • 1893 – Total fire alarms from 1868 to 1893 is 24, with grand total of 33 fire alarms since settlement of town in 1766. 

More Information

See also related content, including Mike’s modern photos of Salem’s old fire engines and a history of old Winston and Salem fire stations. 

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Boston Buys Fire Engine For Fayetteville – 1832

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The story’s been long-told that Fayetteville received a hand engine from Boston in 1832, in the year following the great fire of May 29, 1831.

But get this, it was donated by the Boston Fire Department and bought with “voluntary subscription of its members.”

From the Fayetteville Observer on May 22, 1832, the engine had arrived on a ship at Wilmington, and was expected that day or the next. Click to enlarge:

Here’s an earlier article, from March 6, 1832, which includes a description of the engine:

 

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Holiday Island Fire Brigade

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This is a blog version of a Facebook posting created on November 14, 2022.

Holiday Island Fire Brigade, created in 1984 to protect the resort community in Perquimans County. The community was located some four miles outside of the nearby Bethel VFD district. Organized in July 1984, it protected about 250 residential structures and 106 permanent families, along with some 300 camping units in campground areas.

The brigade started with twelve volunteers operating a one-ton 1979 Chevy pick-up with skid-mounted fire equipment included a 250 gallon tank, 150 feet of 1 1/2-inch hose, and 200 feet of booster hose. In July 1986, they added a 1961 American LaFrance Series 900 [?] pumper, 1000 GPM. By that time, the brigade had been operating for two years and were hoping to “become certified” in the near future. They also had just purchased one air pack.

By early January 1988, a public safety building was erected, and first housed the fire equipment. In August 1988, the building was dedicated. It housed offices for both the fire chief and security chief. Readers, then what happened?

Sources
 
  • Perquimans Weekly, August 30, 1984
  • Perquimans Weekly, October 9, 1986
  • Perquimans Weekly, January 7, 1988
  • Perquimans Weekly, August 18, 1988, all via Digital North Carolina Newspapers.

Clippings

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Manteo Burns… Norfolk Sends Engine – 1939

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On September 11, 1939, a major fire in Manteo saw mutual aid arrive from far and very far away. Elizabeth City sent one or more units, from 67.3 miles away as the Google flies. As did Norfolk, VA, located 90.5 miles away today. 

Reported Fire Engineering magazine in their November issue, Norfolk’s new 500 Series American LaFrance pumper made the 108-mile run in two hours and sixteen minutes. (Model year 1939 it appears, from the SPAAMFAA ALF records online.)

“They made the run, had water on the fire, and had put through a long distance call to Norfolk,” wrote the magazine.

The fire started at 5:40 a.m. and was extinguished exactly three hours later, recounted the News & Observer on the following day, and later reprinted in the Coastland Times on October 9, 1964. (The latter accessed via Dare County Digital Heritage Collection.)

Sixteen commercial buildings were destroyed, which were about two-thirds of the business district. (Other accounts said twenty-one buildings burned. Maybe the others were only damaged.)

Assisting the firefighters were a number of Coast Guard men, recounts Sarah Dowling in her Arcadia Publishing book “Hidden History of the Outer Banks.” (Found via Google Books excerpt.)

The fire started in the storage room of the Standard Oil Company, which was located on the waterfront. Two blocks of buildings along the waterfront burned.

Its spread was fed when a truck driver, trying to move his vehicle to safety, struck one of the storage tanks. The collision loosened a connection that poured gasoline into the street, and into the path of the blaze, reported an AP story in the Burlington Daily Times-News, later that day.

They cited the cause of the $200,000 fire as reported as a short circuit in the “wharf office” of the oil company, noted Fire Engineering.

This dramatic picture, credit unknown, was posted to the  Outer Banks Vintage Scrapbook Facebook page by Chip Py, in December 2012. See original posting.

Sources: Listed above.

The below snapshot was posted to the Outer Banks Vintage Scrapbook Facebook page by Lou Ellen Quinn, in July 2015. See original posting.

The below “aftermath” picture is from the Outer Banks History Center’s Flickr Page. reference number 33GRF-82-280 – Ben Dixon MacNeill Collection. 

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Christmas Day Blaze Guts Business Block – Boone, 1952

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Front page of the Watauga Democrat, January 1, 1953. Via the nifty North Carolina Newspapers site.

Read this and other issues at https://www.digitalnc.org/newspapers/watauga-democrat-boone-n-c. 

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Wake County Fire Commission Meeting Audio

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FYI, audio recordings from each Wake County Fire Commission meeting are now posted online, and just a couple days after each meeting[1]. They’re super-easy to find. Go to the official web page. Drill down under Minutes. And you’re there.

[1] These may have been available for a while now, on the web. Since Mr. Blogger’s usually there in person, he hasn’t needed the recorded version.

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