Early Fire Departments

Organized fire units occurred fairly early in history. The ancient Egyptians had them. Ctesibius of Alexandria invented a water pump in the 3rd century BC, and Hero, also from Alexandria, improved its design in the 1st century BC.  Marcus Licinius Crassus organized the first recorded fire brigade we know of in Rome, and firefighting units continued in Europe.

In the American colonies, Boston's governor, John Winthrop outlawed wooden chimneys and thatched roofs in 1631 to prevent fires. In New Amsterdam (later New York) Governor Peter Stuyvesant appointed men to act as fire wardens in 1648. Benjamin Franklin is noted for establishing the Union Fire Company in Philadelphia in 1736, and George Washington became a volunteer firefighter in Virginia in 1774.

However, these early attempts to fight fires would appear primitive to us. Bucket brigades remained the main response for years. For example, at Old Salem, a refurbished colonial town in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, leather buckets hang in the back of the single brothers' meeting house to be grabbed in case of fires in the town. Franklin's firefighters in Philadelphia also used this style of black leather buckets.

Improvements came slowly. Horse-drawn wagons with water and hand pumps were around in the first half of the 1800's but not widely accepted until the last half. But progressive leaders followed Benjamin Franklin's example, and continued to push for advances. Today, we often take our community fire departments for granted, because we can depend on them to be there when we need them.

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