Holiday Island Fire Brigade

Posted by on

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

Facebook Comments

Manteo Burns… Norfolk Sends Engine – 1939

Posted by on

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. 

Facebook Comments

Christmas Day Blaze Guts Business Block – Boone, 1952

Posted by on

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. 

Facebook Comments

Wake County Fire Commission Meeting Audio

Posted by on

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.

Facebook Comments

Code Word for Mutual Aid, Brock – 1953

Posted by on

Back in the day, code words were used when requesting mutual aid from neighboring towns and cities. This was done to verify the authenticity of the requestor. The concept was first proposed at the 1950 conference of the North Carolina State Firemen’s Association. And enacted that year (I believe, need to check).

By the time of the 1953 conference, the code word was in-effect and members were asked by Statistician Albert Brinson (yes, related) to suggest a new word for next year. “Brock” was chosen, in memory of the great Sherwood Brockwell, the state’s first fire marshal (among many roles), and who passed away that year.

Recorded in the proceedings for the 1953 convention, President “Moon” Wyrick declared: “Whenever your Chief or whomever you designate, the Mayor, Board of Commissioners or Board of Aldermen, […] need mutual aid one among another, [they] will use the signal ‘BROCK’.”

Sources: Proceedings of the North Carolina State Firemen’s Association, 1950, 1953.

Facebook Comments

North Carolina State Firemen’s Conference Proceedings, 1896

Posted by on

The North Carolina fire service is quite old, and goes all the way back the late 1700s. Artifacts from earlier eras are harder to come by, and anything pre-1900 is a bonafide find. Thus it’s a hysterical historical pleasure to share some early conference proceedings from the North Carolina State Firemen’s Association, from August 1896.

The 120-page document (see web directory, click 1896, beware large file size)  is brimming with goodies, including stats on the member fire departments, tournament scores, vintage advertisements, and even a picture of Greensboro’s Eagle Hose Company’s “daughter”.

Scanned from the physical document, which is cataloged at Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill. They have proceedings from various years between 1896 and 1957.

Facebook Comments

Wake County Fire Commission Meeting – January 17, 2019

Posted by on

The Wake County Fire Commission met last night on Thursday, January 17, 2019. The meeting was held at the Wake County Emergency Services Education Center, 221 S. Rogers Lane, Raleigh. 

Read the agenda packet, which includes correspondence to the Fire Services Director concerning the Fairview Station 2 closure concept, discussed in prior meetings. It was requested that those letters be included in the public record of meeting minutes. 

Agenda

Meeting Called to Order: Chairman Keith McGee

  • Invocation
  • Pledge of allegiance
  • Roll of Members Present

Items of Business

  • Adoption of Minutes for November 15, 2018 Regular Meeting
  • Annual Election of Chairman and Vice Chairman – Nick Campasano
  • Approval of Agenda

Public Comments:

  • Comments from the public will be taken at this time. Members of the public are invited to make
    comment to the Commission, with a maximum of 3 minutes per person. A signup sheet for those
    who wish to speak during the public comments section of the meeting is located at the entrance of
    the meeting room.

Regular Agenda

  • Northern Wake Position Conversion
  • South Region Appointments

Information Agend

  • Fire Tax Financial Report
  • Standing Committee Updates
    • Administrative
    • Apparatus
    • Budget
    • Communications
    • Equipment
    • Facility
    • Staffing and Compensation
    • Steering
    • Training
    • Volunteer Recruitment & Retention Committee
  • Chair Report
  • Fire Services Director Report

Other Business

Adjournment – Next Meeting March 21, 2019

Facebook Comments

Relocating Fire Station 12 – Dedication on January 16

Posted by on

January 18, 2019
Photos posted of the dedication ceremony:

January 13, 2019
The City of Raleigh is dedicating new Fire Station 12 on Wednesday, January 16, at 1:00 p.m. It’s located at 4306 Poole Road, about a mile east of old Station 12. It’s also the largest of the city’s twenty-nine fire stations, with over 18,000 square feet. This dedication was original scheduled in September, but was postponed due to Hurricane Florence, and preparations for its impacts in Raleigh. 

Here’s a brief press release.

See also Legeros photos of the new station, its construction, and the old station and its history. 

2018-08-15-rfd
Lee Wilson photo

Continue reading ‘Relocating Fire Station 12 – Dedication on January 16’ »

Facebook Comments

Tarboro Fireman Dies From Illness After Fire – 1899

Posted by on

Note: This is a version of a posting from Legeros Fire Line on Facebook. See that posting for reader comments and discussion.

Found a reference to a Tarboro Fire Department firefighter fatality, and apparently duty-related. From the Proceedings of the North Carolina State Firemen’s Convention in 1899, page 26, from the Secretary’s Report:

“Death has again invaded our ranks. This time one of our former treasurers has been taken. Died February 16th, 1899, Chas. G. Bradley, of Tarboro Hook and Ladder Company. Death was caused by severe illness, contracted by being wet and overheated attending a fire a week or more before death.”

This makes one of the state’s oldest line-of-duty deaths, after three Asheville firemen were killed in 1891, in a train derailment, while returning from the state firemen’s convention in Durham.

Next steps, to learn more about the Tarboro fireman? Suggest these sources for additional information:

  • Genealogy sites to find the death certificate, if it’s available. Such as Ancestry via subscription or your local library. Or Family Search, which has free accounts. 
  • Tarboro newspaper articles, from back in the day. Good source for those are the online resources from the North Carolina Government and Heritage web site. But you’ll need a library card, to use those news sources.
  • Digital North Carolina Newspapers, also as a source for news stories. 
  • Find-a-Grave. 

Physical resources could include town minutes, if any are surviving from that era. Check with the town clerk. Copies of surviving newspapers are another possibility. Check local/area libraries. Maybe also the university. 

Good luck!

Below is a screen grab of conference proceedings, scanned from physical copy at Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Facebook Comments