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External Links Bridgewater Fire Districts Map
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1946-1959: Early Expansion The United States Army has hundreds of surplus fire trucks for sale in 1946, so arrangements were made to acquire a 1944 Chevy fire truck with a 500-gallon front-mounted pump and a 300 gallon booster tank. The company was an efficient organization with two pieces of operating equipment. After World War II, the needs of the fire company outgrew the small firehouse and the purchase of land for a new firehouse in the center of Martinsville was authorized in October 1947. The new building was dedicated as Station 1. The Fire Company donated the old firehouse to the library organization. The Sanford fire truck, in operation since 1935, was replaced in 1955 by a new Ward LaFrance, a 750-gallon per minute pumper with a 1000 gallon booster tank. Firefighters were alerted to a call when a local resident, Mrs. Clifford Hall, activated the firehouse siren via a special phone line between her home and the firehouse. The volunteers responded to the firehouse to learn the location of the fire call. During the 1950's, the Martinsville Engine Company became one of the first fire companies in New Jersey to have its own radio and alerting system. It had a system of having two-way radios in all vehicles, walkie-talkies, and "bay" stations and receiving radios. The radios were tone alerted in each one of the firefighter's homes. In the 1960's, Mrs. Mary Kozic, a local public-spirited citizen, who was confined to a wheel chair, activated the sirens and used the radios in the homes of the firefighters to alert them. In an effort to upgrade the existing system, the Fire Department purchased a new radio and alerting system and by 1966, more than $10,000 was invested in the system. In the late 1960's, Bridgewater Township established a central dispatching system for all township fire companies and rescue squads and by 1971, The Martinsville Engine Company had shifted completely to the township's system. 1928-1945: First Firehouse, Depression, and the War Years 1960-1973: Development of the Valley and the End of the First Fifty Years |
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last updated 01/13/2010.