In researching and writing about fire service histories one occasionally comes across evolutionary tales that stand out from the rest. These are of course rooted in some degree of mayhem and discontent proving at least that sometimes folks don’t get along or things just don’t work right. This is not to pick on anyone of any one locality as this sort of thing has happened in one degree or another in several places. What follows is one of the more extreme scenarios in Montgomery County’s Bethesda area the details of which follow.
Long a toll stop and PO along the turnpike between Georgetown / Washington DC and Rockville, Bethesda begins to emerge into a residential suburb after 1910. Its first fire protection is a voluntary citizen brigade begun about 1913. By the mid 1920’s, the place is more developed and a serious fire in the northern streetcar village Alta Vista leads to the formation of a fire board. Consisting of area businessmen and merchants they establish the Bethesda Fire Department an all-volunteer operation in service by years end in 1926. Of note, the board apparently also has designs on expanding to Chevy Chase already protected by a voluntary citizens brigade and a separate but primitive volunteer company. Chevy Chase forms its own board instead and the rest is well history -best suited for another entry.
Back to Bethesda, its new volunteer department adequately serves the community into the 1930s. While most of the nation is in a depression, lower Montgomery County including Bethesda is growing largely from recent residential development attracting the expanding ranks of federal workers under the New Deal Government. This is enhanced by plans for new federal campus facilities like the under construction Naval Medical Hospital and the proposed National Institutes of Health. The period also brings some tough brush fire seasons in the spring and fall months taxing resources as companies are seemingly fighting one day-long blaze after another.
Bethesda merchants and businesses are increasingly concerned over their employees regularly out the door fighting fires all the day. As described in William Offut’s 500–page Bethesda a Social History, the fire board by 1938 seeks to add paid firemen and a paid chief to “improve the morale, skill and professionalism of the department”. The paid crew could handle most of the daytime calls including for the ambulance (yes the Bethesda FD had run an ambulance since 1930). At night they could serve as ready drivers for the wagon, pumper, rescue car and ambulance staffed fully as before by incoming volunteers.
This seemed like a great idea and besides the Chevy Chase FD was partially paid using volunteers for their second-out engine. This however draws immediate opposition from the department’s volunteer fire chief and some of the members. Many object to losing the drovers duty citing that one of the reasons they volunteer. The Board offers the volunteer chief a paid position and rank but he refuses. On July 1, 1939, a retired chief of training from the District of Columbia Fire Department becomes the first paid Fire Chief of the Bethesda FD with three firefighters also hired taken from the volunteer ranks. The volunteer chief and a few loyal followers soon after organize and incorporate under the Volunteer Fire Department No 1 of Bethesda Maryland.
Both entities operate at first from the same firehouse on Old Georgetown Road (where Woodmont Avenue is now). Over the next months conflict intensifies with some of the volunteers refuse to take direction from the new Fire Chief. In October, the Bethesda Fire Board bars the volunteers from the station however several are hired back in subsequent weeks. The Bethesda FD henceforth is an all paid operation expanding eventually to two shifts.
As for the outcast VFD No 1 of Bethesda, they manage to build a firehouse and are in service by March 18, 1941. Located about a block or so away on Fairmont Avenue near Norfolk Avenue in the "Triangle", they add a new “Butterfly” Hahn 500-gpm engine, a used Buffalo 500-gpm engine and a used Stutz Chemical service ladder truck. Conflict between the two continues as they end up in court fighting over a phone number. The judge gives the disputed number to both on a party line with the first one to answer the department in charge. It is likely both regularly respond to most fires with the original Bethesda FD still running the ambulance at least until the next year when wartime personnel losses take from the ranks of both. The VFD No 1 of Bethesda ceases service and disbands finally in mid 1944.
The Bethesda FD expands to three (briefly four) area stations in later years. While one of the first fire departments in the county to operate an ambulance, they do not return to this service as in December 1945 the re-started Bethesda-Chevy Chase First Aid Corps later Rescue Squad becomes and still is the areas emergency ambulance provider. As a side-note, B-CC Rescue in 1949 moves into the old VFD No 1 of Bethesda station on Fairmont Avenue remaining there until fall of 1956. The ’41 “Butterfly” Hahn stays local as well winding up at the Kensington VFD seen in photos as Engine 26. The Bethesda FD, Kensington VFD and B-CC Rescue Squad continue today under the Montgomery County Fire Rescue Service. The rest as they say is history. -RG
Long a toll stop and PO along the turnpike between Georgetown / Washington DC and Rockville, Bethesda begins to emerge into a residential suburb after 1910. Its first fire protection is a voluntary citizen brigade begun about 1913. By the mid 1920’s, the place is more developed and a serious fire in the northern streetcar village Alta Vista leads to the formation of a fire board. Consisting of area businessmen and merchants they establish the Bethesda Fire Department an all-volunteer operation in service by years end in 1926. Of note, the board apparently also has designs on expanding to Chevy Chase already protected by a voluntary citizens brigade and a separate but primitive volunteer company. Chevy Chase forms its own board instead and the rest is well history -best suited for another entry.
Back to Bethesda, its new volunteer department adequately serves the community into the 1930s. While most of the nation is in a depression, lower Montgomery County including Bethesda is growing largely from recent residential development attracting the expanding ranks of federal workers under the New Deal Government. This is enhanced by plans for new federal campus facilities like the under construction Naval Medical Hospital and the proposed National Institutes of Health. The period also brings some tough brush fire seasons in the spring and fall months taxing resources as companies are seemingly fighting one day-long blaze after another.
Bethesda merchants and businesses are increasingly concerned over their employees regularly out the door fighting fires all the day. As described in William Offut’s 500–page Bethesda a Social History, the fire board by 1938 seeks to add paid firemen and a paid chief to “improve the morale, skill and professionalism of the department”. The paid crew could handle most of the daytime calls including for the ambulance (yes the Bethesda FD had run an ambulance since 1930). At night they could serve as ready drivers for the wagon, pumper, rescue car and ambulance staffed fully as before by incoming volunteers.
This seemed like a great idea and besides the Chevy Chase FD was partially paid using volunteers for their second-out engine. This however draws immediate opposition from the department’s volunteer fire chief and some of the members. Many object to losing the drovers duty citing that one of the reasons they volunteer. The Board offers the volunteer chief a paid position and rank but he refuses. On July 1, 1939, a retired chief of training from the District of Columbia Fire Department becomes the first paid Fire Chief of the Bethesda FD with three firefighters also hired taken from the volunteer ranks. The volunteer chief and a few loyal followers soon after organize and incorporate under the Volunteer Fire Department No 1 of Bethesda Maryland.
Both entities operate at first from the same firehouse on Old Georgetown Road (where Woodmont Avenue is now). Over the next months conflict intensifies with some of the volunteers refuse to take direction from the new Fire Chief. In October, the Bethesda Fire Board bars the volunteers from the station however several are hired back in subsequent weeks. The Bethesda FD henceforth is an all paid operation expanding eventually to two shifts.
As for the outcast VFD No 1 of Bethesda, they manage to build a firehouse and are in service by March 18, 1941. Located about a block or so away on Fairmont Avenue near Norfolk Avenue in the "Triangle", they add a new “Butterfly” Hahn 500-gpm engine, a used Buffalo 500-gpm engine and a used Stutz Chemical service ladder truck. Conflict between the two continues as they end up in court fighting over a phone number. The judge gives the disputed number to both on a party line with the first one to answer the department in charge. It is likely both regularly respond to most fires with the original Bethesda FD still running the ambulance at least until the next year when wartime personnel losses take from the ranks of both. The VFD No 1 of Bethesda ceases service and disbands finally in mid 1944.
The Bethesda FD expands to three (briefly four) area stations in later years. While one of the first fire departments in the county to operate an ambulance, they do not return to this service as in December 1945 the re-started Bethesda-Chevy Chase First Aid Corps later Rescue Squad becomes and still is the areas emergency ambulance provider. As a side-note, B-CC Rescue in 1949 moves into the old VFD No 1 of Bethesda station on Fairmont Avenue remaining there until fall of 1956. The ’41 “Butterfly” Hahn stays local as well winding up at the Kensington VFD seen in photos as Engine 26. The Bethesda FD, Kensington VFD and B-CC Rescue Squad continue today under the Montgomery County Fire Rescue Service. The rest as they say is history. -RG
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