![]() ![]() Cincinnati, St Louis, Baltimore & Boston already adopted the system of steam fire engines & paid firemen. With the induction of steam fire engines in the 1850’s, hand-drawn/operated fire apparatus became obsolete, spelling the doom of the volunteer fire service in larger cities. Most of the officers & men of the new paid service were recruited from the ranks of these volunteers. When mustered out of service, the Volunteer Fire Department consisted of 52 Engines, 54 Hose and 17 Ladder companies, 16 chief officers and 3,778 company officers & firemen. The dedicated and heroic service of the Volunteer Fire Department protected the lives and property of the citizens of the City until superseded by the paid Metropolitan Fire Department after the close of the Civil War in 1865. The act provided for the appointment of able, discreet and sober men who shall be known as Firemen of the City of New York to be ready for service by night and by day and be diligent, industrious and vigilant.įollowing the Revolutionary war, the department was reorganized and incorporated in 1798. All able bodied citizens were required to respond to alarms of fire and to do duty under supervision of the aldermen.ĭecember 1737, the General Assembly of the Colony passed an act which established the Volunteer Fire Department of the City of New York which operated under this name for 128 years. These engines were stationed at City Hall, then Wall & Broad Streets designated Engines 1 & 2. In 1731, 74 years after the first fire company began service, the schooner Beaver brought from London, 2 hand-drawn pumpers, the first fire engines used in the colony. The first fire company was organized in 1657 and equipped with 250 leather buckets made by a New Amsterdam shoe maker. The duty of the first fire wardens was to inspect the chimneys from Fort Amsterdam to the fresh water pond at the northern boundary of the settlement a mile away. It also established a fire watch of 8 wardens & required that each male citizen stand watch in turn. The act required that funds received from fines levied for dirty chimneys should be used for the maintenance of buckets, hooks & ladders. The history of the Fire Service in New York began in 1648 during the administration of Governor Peter Stuyvesant, when the first fire ordinance was adopted by the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. ![]()
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