By Mike Ciampo
Wrightsville Beach is a picturesque beach community consisting of a four-mile long island located in New Hanover County and sits just east of Wilmington, North Carolina. The town also consists of an interior island called Harbor Island and has pockets of commercial property on the mainland. The beach is considered part of the metropolitan area and boasts a historic square with a quaint village feel, that also has a restored and furnished 1940 cottage used as a museum. Long gone is the old trolley that ran through town, but local shops and historic homes still dot the landscape. Tourist will find that there are an abundant number of water activities that can be enjoyed on this tiny island ranging from parasailing, surfing, fishing, scuba diving, and boating.
Unfortunately, the town was very vulnerable and suffered some serious fires prior to the creation of a fire department. This was due to the high winds, the close proximity of wood-framed homes and lack of fire department protection. In 1915, the community’s volunteer fire brigade was formed, but modern apparatus didn’t arrive until the mid-1940’s. In 1919 and 1926, the town suffered two fires where large hotels and resorts were lost. Then a few years later, the town suffered The Great fire of 1934. It was deemed a conflagration, in less than three hours, a third of the beach was destroyed and the fire claimed 103 buildings. During this fire, Wilmington Fire Department was requested to respond. Due to no automobile bridge, all vehicles were transported to the island by a trolley or boat, thus the fire gained great headway. Once Wilmington’s engine was loaded and transported on the trolley to the beach, it got stuck in the sand after being unloaded. In the early morning hours on December 6, 1981 tragedy struck again. While fighting an apartment fire, with extension to an exposure, three volunteer firefighters entered the building with a hose-line in an attempt to extinguish the rapidly advancing fire. Tragically, a flashover occurred and Lieutenant Robert Wynn perished at the fire. To honor his sacrifice, a beautiful granite monument, with bell and flagpole sits at Wynn Plaza.
Today, the Wrightsville Fire Department is considered a combination department. It consists of a career staff which includes: one chief, four captains, three lead fire equipment operators, three fire equipment operators and two full-time Ocean Rescue personnel, volunteer firefighters and the Ocean Rescue Squad. The volunteer staff is compromised of interns and paid-on-call personnel. The interns are usually full-time college students that live at the fire station for free in return for their service as firefighters. The Ocean Rescue Squad is led by the director and a Lifeguard Captain who are also full-time firefighters/EMTS. The Squad employs 28 seasonal lifeguards responsible for ensuring public safety at the beaches. They also operate all-terrain vehicles and personal watercraft machinery. For fire protection, extinguishment and life-safety, the department operates one pumper and two quints and a four-wheel drive emergency medical unit staffed with two EMTs. The engine is a 2013 KME Custom Predator pumper with a 1500-gpm Waterous pump and the Squad is a 2007 Ford F350 4×4 with a Fouts Brothers utility body. The newest apparatus the department operates is a 2022 E-One HR100 single-axle rear-mount aerial ladder.
Like many departments across the country, older apparatus is often moved down from running as first due or it’s used for reserve status or becomes a “spare” piece to use when other apparatus is out of service for mechanical repairs. These rigs are important to maintain because they’ll be called upon at a moment’s notice to jump into service when an issue occurs with first-line apparatus. One of the drawbacks in using these rigs is that we often run out of space for equipment to be placed on them. Our newer rigs are often outfitted with more tools and equipment than we had on the older rigs, so in some instances there might not be enough compartment space to carry everything on the spare rig or things are jammed packed in compartments so we can carry all of it.
Wrightsville Beach’s Quint 81 is a 2008 custom-built Seagrave Meanstick Quint built on a Marauder chassis. The apparatus is one of their reserve rigs which is called into service when needed. The cab has seating for six firefighters with ample compartment storage inside too. The all-steel 75-foot ladder is painted white and has a pre-piped waterway with an electronic nozzle. The ladder also boasts Wrightsville Beach signage on both sides. The rig has a 1500-gpm Waterous pump with a 500-gallon booster tank. Firefighters can stretch off the crosslays where there are two 250-foot, 1¾-inch pre-connected hoselines and one 200-foot, 2½-inch hoseline. On the front bumper, there is a hose trough for either supplying the front mounted portable monitor nozzle or stretching an additional handline. One of the department fun facts stated on its Facebook page is that its rigs all have a New York Roof Hook on the bumper for quick access to assist firefighters performing their duties. The apparatus also carries a standard complement of portable ground ladders which include a 24-foot and 35-foot extension ladder, 16-foot roof ladder, 10-foot attic ladder and a Little Giant multi-purpose ladder. The rig is painted white over red and has a white reflective stripe running along the base of the cab. On the rear body section of the apparatus, the red reflective stripes runs diagonally upward on the first compartment behind the pump panel then horizontally across the remaining non-painted R-O-M Roll-Up Doors. On the front bumper and rear of the apparatus, reflective DOT striping is attached for overall visibility while operating in period of low illumination.
Although the department is running a newer single-axle Quint, it’s important that they maintain all of their apparatus because they could be called upon immediately. In beach communities with boardwalks, high winds and the threat a hurricane, having reserve apparatus allows towns to put extra firefighters on duty and in apparatus to respond to fires and emergencies at a moment’s notice.
