The Merritt Island Vol Fire Dept has endured alot of changes over the course of its history. Hopefully you will find this not only entertaining but an informative piece that chronicles the development of our dept.
It started back in 1950's when several area citrus farmers got together and came up with a plan tp develop a system that would bring farmers together when needed to fight not only brush/woods fires but structure fires as well. Thus becoming Courtenay Vol. Fire Dept, first responding out a small open garage located at North tropical Trail and North Courtenay Parkway (SR.3), then to a new building on the same site in the 1960's today known as Brevard County Fire Rescue (BCFR) station 40. The farmers used a large siren (old civildefense siren) to notify others of the need to respond to the station for an emergency. (in picture below is the button which activated the siren)
The apparatus that was used were old jeep trucks and tractors fitted with 300 gallon water tanks and simple pumps. In 1958 the dept purchased its first fire engine "Danty Doll" a 1958 Ford chassis and American LaFrance body and pump. Shipped to florida by freight train to orlando.
In the 1960's just south of Courtenay, over the barge canal would be founded Merritt Island Fire Dept, with there main station on Magnolia St. (this staion still stands its name firehouse and belongs to the 1st babtist church).
As Merritt Island grew so did the Vol fire dept, running out three stations N. Banana River DR (BCFR sat42), and Alma Blvd (BCFR sta41) and having purchased additional pieces of equipment to be manned by the apprx 200 volunteers. At the height of the dept there was apprx nine apparatus responding to calls for help. To make it easier to know who was clling on the radio the units were given names. The main fire house dispatch was called Mother Hen, the vehicles beinPhoenix, Big Ugly, Vulcan, Squirt, Dry Run, Dixie, Bull, Road Runner. (see the picture section for each of these units).
In 1984 the Courtenay and Merritt island Fire Depts. merged to become one servicing identity. Making a total of four fire stations run by Volunteers.
The department is propbably best known for its CHICKEN FRY's, we conducted out of station 1 sr520 and Magnolia. It started out as a fish fry untill fish began to get harder to catch, so we switched to chickens. At the height of the chicken fry we served over 5000 half chicken diners per day along with cole slaw and beans. All the funds raised went back into the dept. to upgrade equipment.
A patch was even deveoped and used as the official fire dept patch during this period with a chicken on it.
While the area grew more and vol. grew fewer the county started to staff unincorporated areas of brevard County with career fire fighters. The Vol. dept has evolved over the years and now we have a single engine (841) that covers 4 primary stations of Merritt Island in conjunction the paid/career county dept. We also respond to cover any area within the 72 miles long stretch of Brevard for mutual aid such as brush fires, large structure fires, and the like. Some notible fires thru the years for our dept would be the harbor cay collapse in cocoa beach (70's), hancock furniture (70's), cruise ship fire (80's), mayflower moving company (90's), and the wilffires of 98 to name a few.
And we are still fighting them today and saving lives along the way.
Hope you keep coming back to our web site for updates and information.
When you see engine 841 responding our mascot the chicken might say "Hey, who's chicken now"