Wake County has been blessed with plentiful woods and forests as since its beginning. This blessing forced on the inhabitants the need for a contingency plan for the inevitable fiery conflagrations. In fact, fire protection was on the minds of the original city planners and the need for protection and prevention dictated portions of the layout requirements of the town of Raleigh.
The width of the streets were dictated in an attempt to protect fires spreading between building. The four main roads were 99 feet wide and all others within town limits were 66 feet wide. Among early fire regulations was a rule forbidding private porches, platforms, or other wooden structures located at building fronts that would encroach on the streets of Raleigh.
In 1800, the city charter was revised to give the City Commissioners the power to do anything they deem necessary to to stop the progress of a fire, even removing structures in the path of the fire to prevent its spreading. Every adult male was required to take a turn on the City Watch. At the sounding of the fire bell, it was every citizen's duty to help and turn out with "water buckets, sand buckets, ladders or whatever equipment he might have" to battle the blaze. At that time there were no fire trucks and the only water sources were wells, mostly private and without pumps. Every citizen fell in line to help with the bucket brigade.
The first fire engine in Raleigh was ordered by the City in 1814 and arrived in March of 1819. Engines of this era were basically pump wagons that were hand drawn and needed access to a water source. It may have needed a water brigade to feed it water if there was not a sufficient source available. It would take the whole village and a lot of ingenuity to fight a fire with this contraption but it was the sweet tech of its day. The first engine in Wake County may have looked something like the ones on display at this link - https://hallofflame.org/hand-and-horse-drawn-apparatus/
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This story of the early fire protection is highlighted in the Raleigh Fire Department publication of 1984. It covers this and much more. If you have an ancestor who was a firefighter, you will want to read this book. It is available for reading online thanks to Digital NC. The updated volume from 2002 is here.
Another source for researching local fire lore is the Raleigh Fire Museum website. There you will find links to their Flickr account of fire history photos, a YouTube page, a page detailing notable fires in Raleigh history and a link to a more detailed downloadable 60+ page list of fire history in Raleigh. Did this impact any of your forbears?
Visit the Raleigh Fire Museum for their monthly second-Saturday fire museum opening. Hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free. The are located just south of downtown at 105 Keeter Center Drive, at the fire training center. Details appear at their Facebook page.
Another good collection of local fire lore was the Legeros Fire Blog that shuttered in 2015. The archives still exist and you can find them here. Mike Legeros has taken up posting to his own Facebook page and many of the important stories will be found there.
Here is a link to some Wake Forest fire history regarding the Downtown Blaze of 1896
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