MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — The Myrtle Beach Fire Department is marking nine decades on the Grand Strand, tracing a line from a 1936 volunteer outfit to the career force that answers fire, flood and hurricane calls today.
Spokesman Capt. Johnathan Evans said October 14 marked the department 90th birthday and that the agency was founded in 1936, two years before the city itself was incorporated in 1938.
Myrtle Beach Farms Company helped stand up the volunteer department that fall. The first apparatus was a 1936 Ford nicknamed the Chuck Wagon, first kept in an old sawmill downtown and later behind a Shell station on E. Broadway Street.
Evans said the department has been posting decade-by-decade history on its Facebook page every other month through 2026 so residents can follow how staffing, stations and equipment changed as the beach town grew into a major visitor city.
Early crews sometimes drove the truck on the sand and pumped ocean water onto fires. The first dedicated firehouse opened in 1950 on 10th Avenue North, and the department later shifted from all-volunteer to a combination paid and volunteer model as call volume rose.
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