The Victoria Fire Department on the scene
Fires were a constant threat in early Victoria. Before the Victoria Fire Department was ever officially formed, the city had a three different private fire fighting companies, who each competed with each other every time there was a fire.
- The Deluge Company Fire Hall
The first to be formed was the Union Hook and Ladder Co. in 1859. A year later, two other companies were formed, the Deluge Engine Co. No. 1, which was made up of British residents, and 18 days later, the Tiger Engine Co. No. 2, which was made up of Americans. To identify itself, each company flew its own flag, and the first company to a fire claimed the right to put it out.
As can well be imagined, feuds were common between the competing fire companies, Islander author T.W. Patterson relates memories from some of Victoria’s earliest fire fighters.
In those days…the name of the game was “first water” that is, the company which made the first splash of water on the fire won the right to fight it. At which time, according to the code of ethics, the other company was to bow out of the picture.
We offer the following reminiscences of a Victoria Fire Chief who, half a century ago, recalled one of the more memorable blazes he attended:
” I remember one night, a bitterly cold night it was, with the snow deep on the ground, It was in ’73. There was a big fire on Langley Street in a building owned by Dr. Matthews.
“The Tiger [Company] was the first to reach the conflagration and laid the hose down the street A few minutes later the Deluge arrived and attached to their engine. The men of the Tiger engine, infuriated at such an act, demanded that it should be taken from the Deluge and attached to their engine. The Deluge men refused. Then started such a fight as I’ve ever seen or participated in.
We went at it hammer and tongs stumbling about in the snow. Nobody thought of the fire. It burned itself out.
The Tiger Companies' engine, which was "borrowed" by the men of the Deluge Company.
It was on this occasion that an excited onlooker fell into the cistern. He was hauled out with a hook. His clothes were ruined and he got a bad cold. Later he wrote a letter to the department demanding compensation.”
Spectators were a common complication at the scenes of many fires.
One of the more unusual features of early day firefighting was the fact that fires were not only major news events, but social events as well. Everyone, it seems, turned out to watch the brigades at work. Unfortunately, however, few Victorians were content to be mere spectators; all wanted to advise the fire fighters on how to do their jobs. Consequentially, the firemen often became irritated to the point that they would ask a policeman to insist that these sidewalk superintendents either shut up or go home.
A few days after the Langley street fire, the letter was read before the company executives “amid profound silence”
Upon hearing it, one of the officers present at the fire stood up to say that the complainant had been warned to stand back, and “I move that this man be told to go—–.” Moments later, the the motion was seconded and carried by unanimous vote
In spite of the apparent incompetence and ineffectiveness of the early fire companies, in 1923 85 year old former fire chief Joe Wrigglesworth claimed “Believe me, we had finer men in the department than you can get now; more willing, more amenable to discipline, quicker and better in every way.”
