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Fire Department history
Fire Department company history timeline
In 1845, the last great fire to affect Manhattan began early in the morning and was subdued that afternoon.
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.
The Eastern District included the former City of Williamsburg and the town of Bushwick, which had been annexed by Brooklyn in 1853 and the Western District embraced the balance of the City of Brooklyn which then only covered about half of Kings County.
March 30th 1865, the New York State Legislature passed “An act to create a Metropolitan Fire District & establish a Fire Department therein” section 23 Charter 249 of the laws of 1865.
On July 31, 1865, Engine Company 1 of the new Metropolitan Fire Department went into service, and the transition from a volunteer to a paid professional fire department in New York City had begun.
A total of 34 Engines & 12 Ladder companies had been organized on a full paid basis when the paid service was complete on December 1st, 1865.
Initially, the paid fire service only covered present day Manhattan, until the act of 1865 which united Brooklyn with Manhattan to form the Metropolitan District.
1865 also saw the first adoption of regulations, although they were fairly strict and straitlaced.
On January 1st, 1868, these suburban units were replaced by full paid companies with horse drawn apparatus, and the coverage of the entire city of New York was completed.
These efforts were not successful until 1869, when ‘An Act to Reorganize the Fire Department of the City of Brooklyn’ was passed and signed by the Governor on May 5th.
The territory protected was greatly enlarged by annexation of theh 5 towns which took in all of Kings County outside of the city limits of 1869, the 19 fire stations of 1869 increased to 70 and the uniformed force grew from about 200 men to more than 1,000.
They were eventually banished during the volunteer years, but re-introduced after 1870 and soon became essential for getting quickly to fires.
The first reference to the nomenclature F-D-N-Y was made in 1870 after the Department became a municipally controlled organization.
All of the volunteer's apparatus, including their fire houses, were seized by the state who made use of them to form the new organization and form the basis of the current FDNY. The MFD lasted until 1870 when the Tweed Charter ended state control in the city.
In 1870 the merit system of promotion in the Fire Department was established.
October 1872, the first Amoskeag self-propelled steamer was assigned to Engine 31, it’s tender being a horse drawn hose reel.
One of two fire engines first received by New York in 1733 (from an 1872 illustration) Courtesy NYPL
In 1895, expansion of the City and County of New York to east of the Bronx River with the annexation of the Villages of Wakefield, Unionport, Westchester and Williamsbridge.
On January 1, 1898, the Greater City of New York was formed with the FDNY now overseeing all fire services in the newly formed boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island.
Firefighters battled a tenement blaze in this illustration from 1899, one of thousands that occurred in the poorer districts of town.
The first automobile used in the Department was a Locomobile steam carriage, purchased in 1902 by Chief Edward F Croker to replace the horse drawn buggy assigned to the Chief of Department.
High-Pressure Pumping System test, West & Bank Streets, 1908.
Motor propelled fire apparatus was introduced into the FDNY late in 1909 when a Knox high-pressure hose tender was installed at Engine 72.
According to FDNY’s 1910 Annual Report, there were 1,508 horses in service as of December 31, 1910.
Interior of Gansevoort Street High Pressure Pumping Station, 1910.
Motorization of fire apparatus began in 1911, but horses remained an integral part of FDNY for another decade.
After a year’s trial, the commissioner reported “the Department is now preparing to install motor-driven apparatus as rapidly as possible”. The initial extensive purchase of motorized apparatus was made in 1912.
Later the same year the fire college was formed to train new fire fighters, and on May 1, 1913 the Bureau of Fire Prevention was created.
Here’s one model that was used by the FDNY in 1913 (Courtesy Shorpy)
Here a team of firefighters battle a subway fire in midtown in 1915, and a couple firemen who braved the inferno underfoot. (LOC)
In 1919 the Uniformed Firefighters Association was formed.
A poster by Vera Bock from 1936, created for a series by the Federal Art Project, touts the contributions of Peter Stuyvesant to the history of New York firefighting. (LOC)
Firefighters rescuing people (and paintings!) from a fire at the Museum of Modern Art, 1958. (Courtesy Life)
On November 23, 1965, incoming Mayor Lindsay announced the appointment of Robert O. Lowery as Fire Commissioner of the New York City Fire Department.
Tower ladders and the SuperPumper System were introduced in 1965.
A sorrowful day: Thousands come out to mourn the 12 firefighters who died fighting a terrible blaze that erupted across from the Flatiron Building on October 21, 1966. (Picture courtesy FDNY)
Lowery, who was the first African American to serve as a Fire Commissioner of a major United States city, served in that position for more than 7 years until his resignation on September 29, 1973 in order to campaign for then-Controller Abraham D. Beame, the Democratic candidate for Mayor.
In 1977 the New York City Fire Department announced that women could take the exam to become firefighters.
The Waldbaum's supermarket fire was a major fire on August 2, 1978 in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York that killed six FDNY firefighters.
Major apparatus of the SuperPumper System (the SuperPumper and the SuperTender) was phased out in 1982, in favor of the Maxi-Water Unit.
The City of New York (1982). A new test was created in which standards were changed so the test was job-related and Brenda with 40 other women passed to enter the fire academy in 1982. (See Brenda Berkman, et al. v.
On March 17, 1996, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani merged the emergency medical services of the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation into the FDNY.
Three hundred and forty-three firefighters and FDNY paramedics died in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Fire Department has rebuilt itself and continues to serve the people of New York.
During the Northeast Blackout of 2003, FDNY was called on to rescue hundreds of people from stranded elevators in approximately 800 Manhattan high-rise office and apartment buildings.
Daniel A. Nigro is the current commissioner of the FDNY. He was appointed to this job by New York City mayor Bill de Blasio in June 2014.
Most notably in 2014, the City of New York made a $98 million discrimination lawsuit settlement for a lawsuit brought by the Vulcan Society, an African-American firefighter fraternal organization.
© 2022 The Bowery Boys: New York City History
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