About Us

The Town of Wake Forest’s fire protection service was founded in 1921 and was organized by Thomas Arrington, Sr., who served as the department’s first chief. The original department was founded as a community fire brigade to provide fire protection to the town and Wake Forest College. As the town and the community grew it was relocated to the old town hall building where it was housed until 1973 when it was moved to renovated quarters on South White Street.

The Wakette Fire Protection District was founded in 1956 with Willis Winston as its first chief to provide fire protection to unincorporated areas outside the Town of Wake Forest. Equipment for the Wakette District was housed in the basement of the old town hall until it was moved to a new station constructed in 1966 at the intersection of South White Street and Elm Avenue.

The two departments existed side by side utilizing the same personnel and officers but separate equipment until 1983 when, with assistance from Sherman Pickard of the North Carolina Institute of Government, they were merged into the Wake Forest Fire Department, Inc. This merger was the first in North Carolina where a municipality contracted its fire protection to another agency. In order to accommodate future growth that the department would experience, operations were consolidated and the current station at 420 Elm Avenue was built in 1986.

In 1993 the Board of Directors, recognizing that growth in the area was taxing the volunteers’ ability to handle demands placed on them, created three full-time paid positions. The department has grown from providing basic fire protection for a small community and the surrounding unincorporated areas to a multi-purpose agency providing a broad range of services to a rapidly urbanizing area that is experiencing some of the highest growth in Wake County.

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