The history of Wake Forest’s town fire department, the independent Wakette rural fire department and the independent Wake Forest Fire Department that will end as it is absorbed into the town’s organization are so intertwined the current fire department’s website treats them as one.
There were at least two large fires in Wake Forest in the early 1900s, and in 1917 the town fathers designated an area along South White Street and 150 feet in either direction as a fire district, though any further action was not taken.
In 1920, the town awarded contracts to build a water and sewer system. The water came from an impoundment on Smith Creek, and the sewage was released untreated into both Smith Creek (well below the water impoundment) and Richland Creek.
In 1921, Thomas M. Arrington Sr. was appointed the town’s first fire chief and authorized to organize volunteers into a fire company. The town commissioners excused the volunteers from paying street taxes, told Arrington to build two houses to store the equipment, a reel and some hose, and appointed a committee to decide on a suitable fire alarm. There were 19 volunteer firemen in a town of under 1,500 people. J.L. Taylor was named the assistant fire chief, and the alarm was sounded by ringing a bell atop a downtown building.
A little later in 1921 the town board ordered the telephone system, Home Telephone & Telegraph to have an operator or operators on duty at night and give “instant notice” to the volunteers. They also gave Arrington authorization to buy the chassis for a fire truck and approved a contract to purchase American LaFrance fire equipment, renting the front of a garage to store the fire equipment.
It was 1923 when the town began to install fire alarm boxes, four at first, where town residents could report a fire. By the mid-1920s the department was motorized. (Nothing apparently happened with the chassis or the LeFrance purchase.) The website says: The first fire truck is an old Westcott automobile purchased from John Brewer and converted by firefighters into a combination chemical and hose wagon. The top is cut off the car, a bed is constructed for hose, a basket is installed to hold chemical tanks, and provisions are made for carrying ladders.
In 1926, that was not enough to stop a South White Street fire that began about 11 a.m. and destroyed a pair of barbershops, two cafes and the town’s only movie theater. The Raleigh and Franklinton fire departments are called to help. Nearly all the fixtures of H.E. Joyner’s luncheonette were rescued. This was maybe the first of the fires Shorty’s suffered.
In 1930, the town began building its first town hall on Brooks Street, now police department offices, and the fire truck was garaged in the basement. J.L. Taylor was appointed fire chief three years later. He would also serve as the police chief.
That was the year, 1933, that began the reign of the “fire bug,” the arsonist (found to be a college student) who terrorized the town, first destroying Wait Hall, the original college building. Weeks later fire destroyed the new high school building on West Sycamore. Happily the school system had sufficient insurance to rebuild with the same plans.
Wingate Hall was destroyed, there was a suspicious fire in Hunter Dormitory, the Wake Forest Golf Club clubhouse was destroyed, and later Arrington and others said a fire had been set in every college building and in several homes, though without destroying those structures. The college agreed to pay half the cost of new pumper truck for the fire department. The town water system had three miles of pipe and 50 hydrants.
In 1942 the town authorized the “Colored Volunteer Fire Department,” which had the old fire truck but was ordered to start the truck every day and bring it downtown when the newer truck left town.
Through the 1940s and 1950s the town department had new chiefs, bought new equipment and survived as a volunteer department.
Then in 1956 the Wake Forest Rural Fire Department was incorporated to serve the rural Wakette area, designated by Wake County, where tobacco barns and old houses often burned without recourse. Willis Winston was named the first chief, followed in two years by Albert Perry. In 1966 the rural department built a new station on South White Street next to Elm Avenue.
That was the same year the last theater in town, the Forest Theatre, burned during the day. All the area fire departments responded as did many town residents apart from the fire department volunteers.
The town kept upgrading the town equipment as did the rural department and the two departments shared a phone-alert system for all volunteers.
In 1973 the town fire department moved into a former gas station next to the rural department. By this time, and probably for years before, the two departments had almost matching rosters of volunteer firemen and shared equipment as need arose.
It was 1981 when the two departments became one. The rural department’s board of directors saw that its tax base would be eroded as the town annexed adjacent land – the town was finally moving beyond its 1880 boundaries. Fire Chief Donnie Hight made the presentation to the town board, noting both departments share the same chief, the same personnel and sit side-by-side. After months of negotiations the consolidation was final. The combination rural and town departments became the Wake Forest Fire Department that year, dependent on both the town and the county for its funding, and serving the town and the Wakette unincorporated area.
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