In April 1969 a community meeting was held at Burrowsville School to see if there was enough interest from the residents to organize a volunteer fire department. Members of the Prince George Volunteer Fire Department were present to give encouragement and assistance in organizing a new fire department. It was decided that night with the good turnout, there was enough interest in the community to o
rganize a department. Clarence Hayes was selected as President, Breece Jones Vice President, Jimmy Bailey Treasurer and Barry Royer Secretary. It was decided to meet every week. Disputanta Volunteer Fire Department gave us heir old 1942 International and Prince George Fire Department donated a 1941 Mack that they had acquired through the civil defense. Both trucks needed major repairs before they could be put into service. Our next project was to find a suitable place that could be used as a fire station. The old Eddie Brockwell gas station with an attached garage was offered as a possible site. The Curtis family offered that site for us to use rent free, we cleaned the building out, gave it a coat of paint and in order to be able to heat the garage we had to build new doors and put chicken wire overhead to hold the insulation. The chiefs from Disputanta and Prince George donated used fire turnout gear and told us when we got our trucks running they would come and show our members how to fight fire. Disputanta fire department donated a used siren that could be connected to the phone. When someone needed the fire department they would call our phone number and set the siren off. They had to stay on the line until someone answered the phone. The fireman would then call the first person on our call tree and report the fire. The call tree person would make calls to the other members to report the fire location. We did all this work with less than $200.00 in our treasure. In October 1969, we decided to organize the fire department. Jimmy Clark was voted the 1st fire chief. Our fire call was a small kitchen fire at the John Williams home. This is the home that chief Luther Vick bought many year later. Our first major structural fire was at the Addison Scott home on Chippokes Road. About a year later, one of our County Supervisors told us to find a suitable location and he would help us get a new fire station. After checking numerous sites, the land at the Burrowsville Ruritan ball park was the most suitable. The Burrowsville Ruritan Club donated the land to the County for the purpose of building a new station. The new station was built in 1971-1972 at a cost of approximately $41,000. About this same time we acquired a 1953 pumper from Petersburg. Also at this same time the county went to Plectron Paging System. All members got notification of a call at the same time. In 1974 we acquired our first new pumper and also a used pumper. In 1979 we got a new tanker. We now have about 25 active members. In our station we house 2 engines, 1 tanker, 1 salvage unit, 1 brush unit, and a duly pulling the ATV wildland unit. In 2019 we will be celebrating our 50 years of service to the Burrowsville community.
