Our History

The Laurel County Fire Department was organized in November 1962. The  concerns of the insurance companies and the citizens of the City of  London brought this about. At the time, the City of London Fire  Department took care of all of the fires in Laurel County. The concern  from the Insurance Companies and the Citizens was that if the Fire  Department was fighting a fire in the County, the City of London was  left unprotected and there would be neither Firefighters nor equipment  to take care of the City. The Mayor at that time was Joe Parman.

Mayor Parman offered to sell one of the older trucks the City Fire Department  owned at the time to Laurel County. The Laurel County Fiscal Court  voted to take the money from the parking meters from around the Court  House to pay for the purchase of the truck. The first truck that was  purchased was a 1947 International K Model that had a 500-gallon water  tank.

Several firefighters from the City of London  were the “founding fathers” of the Laurel County Fire Department. Those  firefighters were, and we apologize if anyone was left out, Chief RC  Walker, Lawrence “Blackfire” McClain, Cleveland Wyatt, OD Burner, Earl  Williams, Ray “Bugs” Delph, Ed Bowling, George Cosmah, Bill Prewitt,  Lester Finley and Kermit Parker.

The Laurel County Fire  Department was first housed in the basement of the City Hall. It then  moved to a building on Broad Street. That building today is now part of  The Sentinel Echo. At that time it was a garage on the ground floor and  occupied by Dr C. B. Ison on the upper floor. That building was used  until 1968. During 1967 the Firefighters started to raise money for the  purchase of a new fire truck.

A new truck was  ordered in 1967 and was delivered in 1968. The truck was a Ford and had a 1000-gallon tank with a pump that would pump 750 gallon per minute. The  new fire truck was ordered with White paint so the people could tell  what fire department was responding in the County. That tradition still  holds today.  When the truck arrived the building that housed the other  fire truck was too small to hold both trucks. It was then that John  Peters, a local Blacksmith, who told the fire department that he would  sell his building on Sipple Street to them to use as a Fire Station. It  was purchased for $12,000 and was used until 1979. In 1980 a new fire station was completed on the site of the Peters Building.

The  Laurel County Fire Department responded to all of the fires outside of  the City limits of London. During the following years, several fire  departments started up in out lying areas of the County. This was due to  the response time and the distance from the City of London and the  Laurel County Fire Department. As being a 100% volunteer department then  and still today, the firefighters have to leave their jobs to go to the  help the public. The other Fire Departments started in the mid-1960’s  70’s and even in the 1980’s. Today there are a total of 9 fire  departments in Laurel County not including the London Fire Department.  During the beginning of the Fire Department we were a part of the Laurel  County Fiscal Court until May 1994. At that time the Fiscal Court  appointed a Board of Directors to over see the day-to-day operations and  take care of all finances of the Fire Department. Since that time the  Fire Department has grown by leaps and bounds.

Financial help  came from the Fiscal Court when they could afford it and donations from  the pubic. In 1984 the Fire Department had a great need to replace  outdated equipment and the Fiscal Court could not afford to buy for one  department and not help take care of the others. The Laurel County Fire  Department started to play Bingo to raise money. During the 1980’s and  1990’s the Fire Department had growing pains. We did not have enough  room and didn’t have enough equipment to keep up with the growth of  Laurel County. In 1998 the Board of Directors decided to purchased a  piece of property on Hwy 192 West, 2.5 miles West of I-75. The fire  Department built a station that is big enough to house three Fire  Trucks. At the present we have two complete Fire Engines at this  station.

During 1999, the Board of Directors decided that the  building on Sipple Street would no longer suit our needs and decided to  build a new Fire Station. We purchased 7.5 acres on East Forth Street  and built a 22,500 sq ft building. Half of the building is used for fund  raising events and the other half is for fire department use. This  building was located on 911 TLC Lane.

This building was of course  the main fire station and housed five pieces of firefighting  equipment. At the time there were three fire engines, a tanker and an  equipment truck.  As with any organization, things change over time.  In  order to continue serving our protection area and cut cost this station  was sold in 2016.  After the sale, we leased a hanger at London Corbin  Airport to house our equipment.  After approximately a year there we moved to a station which was leased, located at 1560  Barbourville Street in London.

During that time, we purchased  property on Medco Lane in London and had future plans in place to start  construction soon.  We hoped to break ground and complete construction  of our new Station 1 quickly.

Constantly striving to improve ourselves in order to better serve our community; in 2019 the opportunity was presented to our Fire Department to purchase land in our fire protection jurisdiction.  The land was located at 304  Johnson Road which would far better service our community than the Medco Lane Property.  It was determined at that time to surplus the Medco Lane property and purchase the Johnson Road property.  Construction began on our new Station 1 in August 2019.

In September of 2020, we were able to move into our new station at 304 Johnson Road.  We are continually striving to make improvements for our community.  Whether its purchasing new equipment, apparatus, training weekly, or responding to calls we continue to thrive and be the best possible emergency service possible for our community.

Since 1994 our Board of Directors and our local banks have been able to provide the  proper buildings and equipment to help protect the public that we serve.

If  anyone would like to come by and look us over, our doors are always open to the public. Give us a call if you have a Church group or a civic group and would like a tour of our equipment and facility.