History of the Fire Department

The information enclosed has been gathered through research of old documents, newspaper articles and by interviewing several of the original members to ensure that this information is as accurate as possible. Special thanks to retired Chief, W.R. Outz and retired Asst. Chief A.S. Bobo for their help in authenticating this material.

The Roebuck Fire Dept. was formed by a group of men from the Roebuck Community in 1957. The community was a rural farming community at that time and had no fire protection. If a fire broke out the City of Spartanburg Fire Department or one of the other volunteer departments would help out if called, but most of the time the local people would ban together to handle the fire with whatever means were available to them. The men who formed the department were local businessmen and several farmers. Because of the desire to help each other and the divine insight of these men the S.C. General Assembly passed an Act on April 16, 1958 making the Roebuck Fire District a legal Special Purpose District.

The first station was housed in the garage of one of the buildings at the old Roebuck High School. Some of the first pieces of apparatus were a 1949 Mack Pumper, an International Tanker and several old brush trucks that were acquired from the military. In June 1960 a new station was built in the downtown area of Roebuck. We are still housed at the same location today, although there has been several upgrades over the years. In 1971 we purchased our first new pumper. It was a 1971 FMC on a Dodge Chassis. The department sold bonds to local businessmen to buy the new pumper and repaid the bonds over the next 10 years. This new pumper was one of the first of its kind in the state of South Carolina. It had a two stage centrifugal pump; much like the pumps used today, but it also had a high-pressure fog system and a foam eduction system that was used to extinguish flammable liquid fires.

The department ran it’s first structure fire in January 1958. The house was located on Brown Street near the downtown airport. It was reported that all of the furnishings were saved except some bed clothing.

Chief M.A. Foster was the first Fire Chief of the Department. Chief W.R. Outz was the second Fire Chief and served in this capacity for over twenty-five years. Chief Outz along with his Asst. Chief A.S. Bobo instilled in each of the members a sense of pride and of strong Christian and moral values. Both of these men were founding members of our department. It has been said that our department’s success is to be credited to the strong values displayed by many of it’s founding members. I can attest to this. I am Chief Brian Harvey. I have been a member of this department for 24 years and have had the distinct honor to serve as Chief sense January 1, 1988.

With the rapid growth in the Roebuck Community and the growing number of fire calls there were several changes during the 1980’s. Chief Outz ordered the first custom pumper in 1987 to replace the 1971 dodge as our first out engine. Chief Harvey started laying the groundwork for the first tax increase in the departments history. This was needed to make improvements to equipment and to add the much-needed addition of paid personnel to the department. On July 5, 1993 the department hired its first paid firefighters. There were two firefighters hired to work during the day to handle fire calls and to help develop many of the programs that are in place today. Captain Jeff Bagwell and Firefighter Corey Lancaster were the first two paid firefighters. They are both still employed with the department today although Jeff Bagwell is now an Asst. Chief and Corey Lancaster is a Captain. Both of these men were inspirational in the development of several programs like the fire prevention program that we teach to the third grade at Roebuck Elementary School. We now have seven full time firefighters and 17 volunteers. The volunteers are an important part of our department. They are used to fill in for the paid staff and each of them has the same qualifications as the paid staff.

We currently have two engines, one tanker, two brush trucks and one car and run approximately 4 to 5 hundred calls per year. We provide fire protection to an area that is approximately 19 sq. miles. In this area there are approximately 8000 people. With the continued growth in the Roebuck Community we expect to continue to grow as a department to provide the best possible service to our customers.

Our department has and will continue to have one goal and that is to protect the lives and property of our customers through continue training and by maintaining the best possible equipment, but more than that by having compassion for our customers during their time of need. No matter how insignificant the problem may seem to us it is real to our customers and they should be treated with care and understanding.