It all started after a furniture factory burned down.
The factory, once located at the end of Putnam Street in the Chesterfield community, caught fire at a point when fire service was provided in the area by a joint effort from the city of Morganton, Oak Hill Fire and what later became Triple Community Fire Department, Chesterfield Fire Chief James Robinson said.
That fire highlighted the need for a fire department closer to home, and on June 6, 1971, Chesterfield Fire Department officially was chartered, Robinson said.
It was a humble beginning, when the community rallied together to purchase used fuel tankers and have them retrofitted to carry and pump water, Robinson said.
“That was the start of the original fire department,” Robinson said. “They were yellow in color, and we’ve slowly, as fire service likes to go, we’ve slowly evolved and ripened from our yellow fruit to our red fruit fire trucks that we’ve got now.”