100 Year Dinner Photos

100 years of Tamworth Fire

    2009 is the one hundredth anniversary of the formation of the Tamworth Fire Department. In the early years of Tamworth, and the rest of this nation, neighbors rushed to fires and formed a bucket brigade to fight them. Later, private fire companies, sometimes fighting each other for the right to fight a fire (occasionally as the building burned in the background), responded to blazes. By the mid-19th century most cities had done away with private brigades and instituted municipal fire departments. At the town meeting in March of 1908, the voters approved a warrant article instructing the selectmen to “investigate the matter of providing suitable and practicable facilities for a fire department in different parts of town” and to report at the following year’s town meeting. In 1909, the voters accepted the selectmen’s advice to found a fire department. In the same warrant article voters approved the sum of ten dollars to pay for winding a church clock. In 1912 town meeting considered a warrant article that proposed action on purchasing fire equipment, it was passed over.

    In 1933 the town voted to raise, by taxation, $75 for the maintenance of the Wonalancet fire precinct fire fighting equipment while an article proposing that the town take over the private Tamworth fire station was passed over. At the time there were still several private fire departments – South Tamworth, Chocorua and Tamworth.

    Town meeting records indicate that by 1949 the different fire districts were united under town control – it was the first year that voters elected five firewards, as we do to this day.  The new firewards elected Charlie Remick the first Tamworth Fire Chief.  In 2005 voters decided that managing the Tamworth fire department was a full time job and voted to fund a full time position. Steve Solomon was the first paid fire chief. In 2009 voters approved a warrant article staggering fireward elections so we will no longer elect all the firewards every year.

    One of the first organized efforts to prevent fires on this continent was in 1648. The New Amsterdam (New York City) governor Peter Stuyvesant appointed four men to act as fire wardens. They were empowered to inspect all chimneys and to fine any violators of new rules prohibiting wooden chimneys and thatched roofs that caused fires to spread rapidly.

Tamworth Civic News Dave Bowles and Annie Riecken