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HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT
Our department was established
by charter in
1959.
Herbert Easterling was our
first Fire Chief.
The first vehicle owned by the
department was a
1935 Ford pumper. A Dodge water tanker supplemented
it.
During the early years of the
department, Goose Creek was nothing more than a series of two-lane roads winding
through the trees. Chief Michael R. Haines, our current leader, often remarks
that when he moved to Goose Creek as a young boy the only fast food restaurant
in the area was a McDonald’s on Rivers Avenue near its present intersection with
Aviation Avenue.
The Goose Creek of today bears
no resemblance to the Goose Creek of yesteryear.
Today our district encompasses
all of the unincorporated areas of Goose Creek from the North Charleston city
limits to the area just south of Strawberry Shortstop on Highway
52, the entire
industrial area only Bushy Park Road, and many areas along or off Highway
176 up to the rear
entrance of the Alcoa (formerly Alumax) facility.
In our district alone, we have
over
600 residences,
five shopping center/strip malls, Goose Creek High School, a middle school, an
intermediate school, two elementary schools, and
11 apartment/condominium complexes.
We also provide coverage to
the following industrial facilities:
We presently serve a full-time
population of
16,500
residents on a budget of $500,000. This
population does not include the Naval Weapons Station complex that borders our
primary response area.
Construction of our original
fire station began in
1973 and was
completed in
1974. The first
addition was completed in
1978.
In
1993, an extensive
renovation and addition to the station was completed. This provided the
department with much needed office space, new bunk room facilities that can
house eight firefighters, a separate bunk room/office for the Berkeley County
EMS unit stationed here, full bath and shower facilities, a large eat-in
kitchen, a large day room with a pool table, and a training room capable of
holding
200 people.
As the years moved on we
continued to expand our apparatus fleet.
A
1968 Ford/Howe
500 gallon
per minute pumper was put in service followed by a
1974 John Bean with a
750 gallon
per minute pump.
In
1977 the
department purchased its first “new” pumper – a
1976 Mack fire engine. This vehicle had
originally been ordered by the City of Charleston Fire Department, but they did
not take delivery of the vehicle and it sat at Hughes Motors until we purchased
it.
It was during this period the
department held the distinction of having both the newest and the oldest fire
apparatus in active service in South Carolina. Ten years later, a Quality fire
pumper with a
1,000 gallon
per minute pump was purchased.
A
1986 GMC service
truck with roll up doors – now called Rescue
38 – was won for the department as part of that
year’s Firehouse Expo.
In
1992, the
department purchased its first ladder truck, a
1972 100-foot Seagrave. It remained in
service until the middle of
1997 when it was
removed from service and replaced in December of that year by an
85-foot Sutphen aerial tower
In
1993, two new,
fully-equipped
1,500
gallon per minute pumpers were purchased from Emergency One, and
a new Crown Victoria sedan was placed in service as the Chief’s vehicle.
This initiative was made
possible by the fact that a fire fee collected by the county and distributed to
the individual departments was now funding the fire departments in Berkeley
County.
Goose Creek Rural was able to
add much needed equipment including new Scott
4.5 SCBA’s, five-inch supply hose,
rubber-jacketed
2 ½” and
1 ¾” hose, positive
pressure ventilations fans, and other equipment required by the Insurance
Service Office.
An accident in July
1994 caused the
1986 Quality
pumper to be removed from service and the designation Engine
31 was retired.
As we looked to expand the
department, two used pumpers – both Macks – were purchased in late
1994 and early
1995. These units
were placed in the new Station
2 on Old Mount Holly Road, which opened in November
1996.
This is not the first time in
our history we have had a station at that end of Goose Creek. Many of the
“older” members will remember the “Boulder Bluff” station that would flood
during a good rain storm.
In
2001, the Chief’s
vehicle was replaced with a newer model Crown Victoria following an accident on
Red Bank Road near the fire station.
In January
2003, the fire
department was awarded a grant by the U.S. Fire Administration, a part of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, for $148,980.
This money, received from the Firefighter Investment and Response Enhancement
Act, funded two major purchases – the replacement of all SCBA’s with newer Scott
4.5 units with
lightweight carbon cylinders and integrated PASS devices, and the complete
replacement of all department mobile and portable radios.
As time and maintenance costs
rose, the department and its board of directors embarked on another project –
the replacement of the three aging Mack fire pumpers. This culminated with the
delivery this past spring of three, new American LaFrance pumpers.
Iin
late
2005 again the board of directors and the fire
department saw the need to replace its aging GMC Rescue
38 with a new state of the art rescue
apparatus. The new Ferrara Rescue will enable the fire department to offer
greater rescue capabilities to serve the residents of Goose Creek.
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