Cheshire Fire Department

Following a disastrous fire which destroyed the old Waverly Inn, or Scott's Hotel, early in the year of 1912, a citizens meeting was held on February 13, 1912, for the purpose of discussing the matter of adequate fire protection for the town. On February 27, 1912, a second meeting was held at which time the Cheshire Fire Department was organized with officers being chosen.

The first monthly meeting was held on March 25, 1912, at which time by-laws were adopted. Twenty-seven men joined as Charter Members. At a meeting held on April 9, 1912, it was voted to purchase a 60 gallon Chemical Cart and a Hook and Ladder Truck, both hand drawn. The first fire call of the newly organized Department was for a chimney fire which occurred on April 23, 1912, at the home of Mr. A.S. Bennett, who was a Trustee of the Department.

The first motorized equipment was an Oldsmobile auto, which the Department purchased early in 1916 and had fitted out as a Fire Truck at a cost of $1,085.00 with delivery being taken in June 1917.

The first loss of life by fire in Cheshire since the inception of the Department occurred in 1916.

The first appropriation from the town government toward the support of the Department was made in 1919. This amounted to $200.00.

In 1921 the Department suffered the loss by death of a former Chief, its second Irving M. Guilford. Chief Guilford was one of the organizers and had been a mainstay and guiding spirit, thus his passing was considered an irreparable loss. The records state that "To him, as probably to no other single individual, do we owe our inception and present existence."

A lightweight Ford Fire Truck was purchased in 1922, at a cost, all equipped of $2,200.00. The Trustees of the Department, Messrs. George W. Keeler, Alfred S. Bennett and Arthur S. Backus, went out on their own initiative and raised over $1,200.00 by soliciting the townspeople to help defray this cost.

In 1923 the Cheshire Fire District was established for the purpose of supplying water via hydrants to aid the Department in fighting fires. The Fire District is an organization formed solely for the above stated purpose and has no other connection with the Cheshire Fire Department. The taxes collected by the District does not go toward the support of the Department but is used primarily to defray the costs of the installation and maintenance of hydrants and to pay for the water used by the Department in fire fighting.

Previous to 1923, the factor whistle of the Ball and Socket Manufacturing Co. was the sole alarm used to alert the firemen. In that year a small siren was placed atop of the Town Hall to augment the factory whistle and in1925 a larger, five horsepower siren replaced the smaller on and became the sole alerting device until 1953.

The year of 1927 saw a fire loss for the year, of $40,000.00, the heaviest fire loss suffered by the town until 1941.

In 1928 another truck to replace the Ford was purchased. This truck had a booster pump of 30 G.P.M., with delivery being taken on May 16, 1929. With a larger pump installed in later years, this Truck saw continuous service until about three or four years ago, a period of nearly thirty years.

None of the trucks had windshields until 1931, at which time they were equipped with celluloid windshields.

The lowest fire loss in the history of the Department occurred in the year of 1932, with a total fire loss for the year of $1,800.00.

The wing of the Town Hall was built in 1913, the ground floor being used by the Department to house its equipment and the second floor being leased to the Southern New Telephone Company for their central switchboard. The telephone operators handled all fire calls and operated the audible alarm system. In 1934, the Telephone Co. built the building on Highland Avenue, which now houses their equipment and therefore vacated the room over the firehouse. This room as then turned over to the Department for use as a clubroom.

With the Telephone Co. going into dial phones a new means of handling fire calls had to be found. The Connecticut Reformatory volunteered to do this and the switchboard operator at the Reformatory handled all fire calls in a very competent and satisfactory manner until the Cheshire Police Department took over this duty in 1955, when they were established.

In 1937, a 25-year celebration was held at the Grange Hall and a History of the Department to date was read. Also in 1937 a new 500 G.P.M. pumper was purchased from the Maxim Motor Co. of Middleboro, Mass. This was the first piece of new rolling equipment that the Department had ever owed. This truck, known as Engine No.1, is still giving yeoman service, being stored at Headquarters Company.

Horton Hall, a large three-story administration and dormitory building of the Cheshire Academy, was gutted by fire in January 1941. This was the first fire in the history of the Department that help had to be requested from neighboring Departments. Up to this date this was the greatest conflagration experienced by the C.F.D.

In 1941, the members and their wives were guests of Dr. and Mrs. Wilbur J. Moore at a banquet held at Waverly Inn, a practice which Dr. and Mrs. Moore continued for about fifteen years.

On January 18, 1946, an airplane with 17 passengers and crew aboard, crashed in the woods off Wolf Hill Road where the Copper Valley Club is now located, with all lives lost. The nearest water available at the time was the hydrant located at the junction of Country Club Road and Wolf Hill Road, so that the two trucks, owned by the Department at the time, each carrying 200 gallons of water each, shuttled back and forth between the hydrant and the scene of the crash, resulting, obviously, in the almost complete disintegration of the remains of the plane.'

In 1948, another 500-G.P.M. Pumper was added bringing the complement up to three trucks and adding another 300 gallons of carrying capacity of water.

The winter of 1951-1952 was a hectic one with four buildings being involved in fire within a period of less than two months. While a pattern of sorts was followed over this period and these four fires all occurred within a radius of one mile, with the cause of none of them ever being definitely established, there still was nothing in the physical aspects of the fires to denote arson although the idea that it might have been arson was prevalent in the minds of many of the residents of the town.

The fourth and last fire of this series in 1952 saw the famous Waverly Inn almost completely consumed by the fire with a total loss of building and contents amounting to over $160,000, the greatest single loss and the greatest total loss for any year in the fifty years of existence of the Cheshire Fire Department. Some of the memorable fires were the Hayward Barn on Maple Avenue 1-2-52, Irving Anderson's barn on Maple Avenue 12-29-51. On August 4, 1952, the Town of Cheshire purchased the land and building at the corner of Maple and Mitchell Avenues, next to Waverly Inn and proceeded to remodel the building into a suitable Firehouse and future Police Station. In March of 1953, the Cheshire Fire Department moved from the location where it had been stationed almost from its inception, the Town Hall wing where the Parks and Recreation Office is now situated, to the new Headquarters on Mitchell Avenue. An air horn was installed at the new location with the siren at the Town Hall and the new horn being both used for the purpose of alerting the firemen. Both of these audible alarms were operated by remote control from the switchboard at the Reformatory as the siren had been from 1924. In fact, the Cheshire Fire Department has the distinction of having had the first remote control fire alarm system put into effect, using a device in which Mr. Lincoln Smith of Flagler Avenue, as an engineer for the Southern New England Telephone Company had taken an active part in devising.

In 1954, a second Fire Company, known as Company #2, came into being with a full complement of men and one piece of motor equipment, an army surplus pumper which has since been replaced with a new 750 G.P.M. Pumper. Company #2 also had a four wheel driven Power Wagon utility truck stationed at its firehouse on Byam Road.

Other motor equipment added to Headquarters Company during the last decade includes an 800 gallon capacity tank truck with booster pump, a 750 G.P.M. Pumper, an Emergency Truck which carries among other items, life saving equipment, emergency portable lighting equipment and a portable pump, all trucks being purchased new, and also an army surplus 500 G.P.M. Pumper used principally for brush and grass fire fighting.

Some of the other large buildings that have been involved in fire during the past fifty years were the Cross Roads Tavern, the White House Tower, The Pines, Jay Welch's Restaurant, the McClusky Building, the Star Water Factory, the Koffee Kottage, Plaza Block, the Grange Hall and the Sproat-Smith Caterers building in 1959.

More recent major fires that have occurred are Consolidated Industries in 1989, which was estimated to have cost 3.1 million dollars and Bishop Farms and Winery’s newly renovated store in 1994, which was estimated at $ 150,000.

In this year a rather unique situation, involving 3 simultaneous house fires, occurred in West Cheshire during an unexpected 10-inch snowfall. Never in the history of the Department has there been three structures totally involved in fire at exactly the same time. This call began in the very early hours of the morning, and its magnitude was a challenge to the department, but the fires were successfully concluded with no injuries or loss of life. The value of the loss for these three houses is still under consideration.

Five lives have been lost by fire during the tenure of the Department but the Cheshire Fire Department has been most fortunate in that only one fireman has ever lost his life serving as a fireman. Some have been injured in this capacity.

Former Chief George W, Thorpe, the Department's third Chief, passed on March 12, 1957. Chief Thorpe, a Charter Member, a Chief for seventeen years and a Lifetime Member, was always a staunch supporter and a guiding spirit of the Department to the last.

16 Chiefs have served the Cheshire Fire Department since its inception. They being as follows, including their terms of office:

The Department has changed over the year from being stationed at the Town Hall to Mitchell Avenue to Maple Avenue, presently the former property of Dr. Wilbur Moore. We have added two other stations in Town. One in 1954, up in the Cheshire Heights section of Town on Byam Road and in 1970 on South Main Street by King Road. The Cheshire Fire Department continues to provide fire protection and fire prevention education to the citizens and business community. In 2004 the Cheshire Fire Department re-organized itself creating a municipal fire department, which consists of four full time employees, at that time in conjunction with the Town Manager and the Town Council a process of hiring was performed and we hired our first career Fire Chief, Jack Casner.

This transition also made the Cheshire Fire Department move from an all-volunteer department to a combination department. The Cheshire Fire Department Inc. and the Cheshire Municipal Fire Department make up the Cheshire Fire Department, which includes the career staff and the volunteer staff working hand in hand, protecting the citizens of Cheshire.

The incidents that the CFD responds to include a wide range from building fires, motor vehicle extrication’s, searching for missing persons, assisting the Police Department or our neighboring towns to changing smoke/carbon monoxide detector batteries. In addition, the Department continues to maintain 3 fire stations and a fire emergency fleet that consists of 7 pumping engines, 2 heavy rescue units, 2 aerial trucks, 1 brush truck, 1 personnel carrier, 1 duty officer vehicle, 1 water rescue unit and several staff vehicles.