History of the Ocean City Fire Department

 
The City of Ocean City was Founded on March 25th, 1897 as a church community. It is a dry town, meaning that no sale or public consumption of alcohol is allowed.

 

(Housed in the Flame Museum Phoenix AZ)

 The Department was founded on December 22, 1884, in the beginning there were three Departments,

Ocean City Fire Department

 Ocean City Volunteers # 1

and Reliance Hose #1

    
The picture above is of one of the first pieces of apparatus of the Department. This horse drawn Silsby Steamer was state of the art at the time. Steam fire engines appeared in fire departments during the 1850's. By 1878, the year when this engine was sold to Ocean City, NJ, "steamers" were common in most American fire departments, both paid and volunteer. Silsby built over 800 steam fire engines between 1852, when the company was established, until its merger with a conglomerate of other fire engine builders in 1891. It used an unusual rotary engine directly connected to a rotary pump. This design was simpler than those of other builders, but used more fuel because it had no valves to control the usage of steam. Many fire departments preferred to waste coal in favor of improved reliability. This engine could pump 650 gallons of water per minute. 

 

Above:  The Silsby boiler combined water tubes and fire tubes to generate steam with coal for fuel. The boiler could generate enough steam to operate the pump in about 5 minutes.

 

 The current Department evolved from Ocean City Volunteers #1 and went fully paid on March 20, 1931 shortly after the Great Boardwalk Fire of 1927.

In 1993 the Department moved into the field of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) with the addition of AED's on all three Engine's. As one of the first fire departments in the state to provide this advanced service, chances of survival for patients in cardiac arrest where drastically increased. In the first year alone 37 % of arrest patients survived, the highest save rate in the State of New Jersey.
Today ALL Emergency Medical Services are provided by the Ocean City Fire Department

The Tillered Ladders are gone but not forgotten !!