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MANASSAS VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY-VISITING THE PAST
AND PRESENT OF FIRE FIGHTING |
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For the past 112 years, the Manassas Volunteer
Fire Company has been faithfully serving the
City of Manassas and surrounding area of
Prince William County, Virginia. The MVFC was
established in 1892 and as the first fire
company in the county was designated Company
1. The Company today has acknowledged this
long tradition of service by opening its own
Fire Museum in 1996. |
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To fully appreciate where you are it is always
helpful to look back at where you came from.
In 1892, a handful of prominent citizens of
Manassas got together and recognized the need
for fire protection services. Manassas had
grown since the end of the Civil War from as
few small buildings at the junction of three
railroads to a booming town of 1500 people.
This group of men formed the Manassas
Volunteer Fire Department which was
designated Company 1 since it was the first
fire department in Prince William County.
They put together a collection of buckets and
ladders for the expressed purpose of fighting
fires. This equipment was stored under the
train station platform. In 1895, the town
purchased a Howe hand pumper to add to its
collection of equipment. |
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With equipment in place, the problem of how to
alert the volunteer fire fighters to an alarm
had to be dealt with. Being a railroad town,
three locomotive wheel rims were mounted at
strategic points throughout the town along
with sledge hammers. Anyone detecting a fire
simply ran to the nearest locomotive rim and
hit it with the sledge hammer. The resulting
ringing alerted the fire fighters who then ran
to their equipment and then ran to the fire.
Fortunately, the town was small and the
distances were short. |
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This system operated well for many years.
Then, in 1905, a passing freight train threw
cinders onto several buildings as it passed
through town. The resulting fire storm
destroyed two entire blocks of downtown. The
lone hand pumper was no match for this
conflagration. After this valiant fight, the
city fathers reassessed their fire protection
needs. |
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In 1909, the town purchased for $450 a horse
drawn Howe gasoline driven piston |
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pumper hose cart. Also that year, they spent
$75 for the construction of a horse drawn
ladder wagon. These two units served for many
years as the town grew. Both had been later
modified to be pulled by a Model T Ford
pick-up truck. As time went on the Manassas
Volunteer Fire Department continued to upgrade
its equipment. As it did so the Company 1
roster also grew. In 1914, the first fire
station was built on Center Street. It was a
two story building with the first floor
housing 2 bays for the fire equipment while
the second floor served as the Town Hall. |
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In 1929, the Department purchased a motorized
pumper truck from the Buffalo Fire Appliance
Corporation of Buffalo, NY. This 500 gallon
per minute rotary, triple combination pumper
was the first motorized fire truck in Prince
William County. In 1939, a Chevrolet pumper
was purchased and the 1929 pumper was put in
reserve. In 1947, another Buffalo pumper was
purchased which marked the first expansion of
the Company to two front line pumpers. To
this day, the 1947 Buffalo pumper carries the
number “2" on its doors as the second engine
of Company 1. |
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Throughout the following years, the Department
continued to upgrade and expand. In 1948 the
organization incorporated as a non-profit
corporation to provide fire protection to |
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the Town of Manassas. At that time, the name
was changed from the Manassas Volunteer Fire
Department to the Manassas Volunteer Fire
Company, Inc. In 1956, the Company moved to its
new quarters on Centreville Road where it still
operates from today. The new station sported
four apparatus bays with a second floor meeting
room. As the amount of equipment needed
expanded to match the City’s growth, so has this
station been modified. Three additions have
been built to house additional pumpers, a ladder
truck, and in 1996 the Company’s Fire Museum. |
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Today, Company 1 boasts over 75 members, with 45
being active fire fighters. The Company has
nine participating members with over 50 years of
service including one member who celebrated his
71th year as a volunteer in the Company in
2004. The museum collection contains his
original membership application dated 1933. The
Company’s current roster of apparatus is
comprised of four Class A pumpers, including a
1997 Pierce Quantum, a 105 foot Emergency One
tower ladder, a mini-pumper, a 2001 Pierce
Quantum Twin Agent engine which serves as both a
standard pumper and foam/chemical unit and a
2003 HAZMAT Support vehicle. |
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The museum displayed the history of fire
fighting in Manassas. Everything on display was
the equipment actually used by Company 1 over
the years. The centerpieces of the museum
displays were the fully restored 1909 Howe
pumper and hose cart along with the 1929 Buffalo
pumper, 1947 Buffalo pumper, and a 1966 Seagrave
open cab pumper. Also on displayed are
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helmets, uniforms, running gear, extinguishers,
and other fire fighting equipment spanning from
the turn of the century to present day. There
is even a locomotive wheel rim mounted in front
of the station as it appeared in the early
1900's. Tastefully blended with the equipment
displays are numerous photographs of Company 1
in action. Unfortunately, due to the ever
increasing need for space the museum was closed
in 2003 to provide room for the new HAZMAT
unit. The Company has stored the museum
collection and hopes to reopen sometime in the
future. |
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Manassas Volunteer Fire Company |
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