The first fire department in the Hawaiian Islands is established - December 27th, 1850

On this day in 1850, King Kamehameha III established and joined the Honolulu Fire Department, the first in the Hawaiian Islands and the only one in the world to include monarchs as active members.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that uncovers a little bit more about history

(00:20):
every day. I'm Gabelusier, and in this episode we're looking
at the early days of firefighting in the Hawaiian Islands.
The day was December eighteen fifty. King Kamehameha the Third

(00:44):
established and joined the Honolulu Fire Department, the first in
the Hawaiian Islands and the only one in the world
to include monarchs is active members. Remarkably, this kingly act
of public service was sen a one time thing. In fact,
three of the king's successors also joined the island's first

(01:07):
fire brigade. Kings kame Ameya the fourth, came Ameya the Fifth,
and Kala Kawa were all active members of the Honolulu
Fire Department during their reigns. In the mid eighteen hundreds,
of firefighting equipment was limited mostly to buckets and giant
water tubs on wheels. Manual water pumps and hoses were available,

(01:31):
but not every city had them. In Honolulu, the situation
was even worse because there was no organized system for
fighting fires whatsoever. That finally changed on November six, eighteen fifty,
when a man named W. C. Park formed the first
volunteer fire Brigade in the Hawaiian Islands. That same day,

(01:55):
as if to highlight the need for such a service,
a fire broke out and destroy to eleven holmes in Honolulu.
The volunteer brigade was not yet an official fire department,
but thanks to interest from King Kameamea the Third, the
volunteers were given equipment to use in the meantime while

(02:15):
all the details were sorted out. This amounted to sixty buckets,
which were painted red and marked as Engine number one.
The money for the buckets was issued by the Privy Council,
a body of advisers to the King. They made it
clear that the buckets were only at the disposal of

(02:35):
the fire Brigade until the organization of the fire department
was official. At such time, they would have to hand
over the buckets to the new fire chief, no exceptions.
The process took nearly two months, but on December eighteen fifty,
Kameamea the Third signed legislation that formerly established the Honolulu

(02:59):
Volunteer Year Fire Department. His contribution wasn't just signing the
paperwork either, When the fire alarm would sound, the king
would respond and get to work right alongside the other volunteers. W. C.
Park served as the acting fire chief of the newly
formed department, but in February of eighteen fifty one, the

(03:21):
Governor of Oahu appointed Alexander Cartwright Junior to the full
time role. Under his leadership, the department grew quickly. In
August of that year, Engine Company Number One was able
to upgrade their buckets to an actual fire engine, which
had been purchased second hand. To be clear, this wasn't

(03:44):
a fire truck. It was a water tank and a
manual pump mounted on wheels. Most engines were pulled by horses,
but in the first few years of the Honolulu Department,
their engine was pulled by the firefighters themselves. Reportedly, it
didn't go so well the first time the engine was
used to fight a fire. When the water tank ran dry,

(04:07):
The volunteers tried to connect the engine suction pipe down
and nearby water well, but they mistakenly tapped a cesspool instead.
They did get the fire put out, but it wasn't pretty.
In its first ten years, the department expanded to include
several more hand drawn engine companies, as well as a

(04:29):
hook and ladder company. Each of the four engine companies
had more than fifty volunteer members, including Company number four,
which was made up exclusively of Native Hawaiians. The four
Kings who joined the fire department were all members of
Company number four. In eighteen seventy eight, of fifth engine

(04:51):
company was added. This one composed of Chinese volunteers who
primarily lived in the Chinatown area of downtown Honolulu. The
neighborhood was the site of two of the department's worst fires,
first in eighteen eighty six and then again in nineteen hundred.
Although it's hard to imagine, the city's firefighters remained unpaid

(05:14):
volunteers until the eighteen eighties, and even then, how much
and how often they were paid depended on their rank
and on how many fires they helped put out. Finally,
in eighteen ninety three, the Hawaiian legislature passed a law
funding regular salaries for everyone at the fire Department. Around

(05:37):
the same time, the department changed in other ways as well.
They replaced their manual water pumps with new steam powered engines,
and they even purchased horses to pull them. The first
motorized fire engine arrived in Honolulu in nineteen twelve, and
by nineteen twenty the department was fully motorized. Two decades

(06:00):
its later, the Honolulu Fire Department faced its greatest challenge yet,
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. On the morning of
December seventh, nineteen forty one, Three companies Engines Won four
and six were sent to Hickam Air Force Base to
fight the fires caused by the attacking planes. When the

(06:22):
smoke finally cleared at Hickham Field, six firefighters were injured
and three others were dead. The men were awarded Purple
Hearts for their brave service, making them the only civilian
firefighters to ever receive the honor. They're likely to remain
the only ones too, because the Purple Heart is now

(06:44):
only awarded to members of the Armed forces wounded in combat.
When Hawaii became the fiftieth state of the United States
in nineteen fifty nine, the Honolulu Fire Department claimed yet
another distinction. It became the only fire department in the
country to have been established by a ruling monarch. Not

(07:06):
only that, it's the only one who have served its
community under a monarchy, a provisional government, a Republic, a territory,
and lastly, a state of the Union. That's a remarkable
legacy of public service, and it continues to this day.
The men and women of the Honolulu Fire Department no

(07:28):
longer rely on buckets and hand drawn engines, but they
remain just as committed to keeping their cities safe and
fire free. Mahallow, I'm Gay Louzier, and hopefully you now
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
If you have a second and you're so inclined, you

(07:49):
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t d i HC Show, and if you have any
comments or suggestions, you can send them my way by
writing to this Day at I heart media dot com.
Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank
you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

(08:10):
for another Day in History class. For more podcasts from
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