Pharr Fire Department recalls ‘ragtag beginnings’ during 100th anniversary

PHARR — Families gathered at the Hub Food Truck Park at South Cage Boulevard Thursday where various booths and games were set up to commemorate the Pharr Fire Department’s 100th anniversary.

Firefighters, many clad in blue shirts with the department’s logo, mingled with the families and shared information about fire safety while offering candy, cupcakes and sugar cookies to those in attendance.

Pharr Fire Chief Pilar Rodriguez, who’s been with the department since Dec. 9, 1986, said that it is an honor and a privilege to be serving the community during the fire department’s 100th anniversary.

“It’s a culmination of years and years of dedicated service by the men and women in the fire department, protecting life and protecting property here in the city of Pharr,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve had minimal loss of life over that time period. We have had some devastating fires, but our department has learned from those lessons to make us a better department, a more responsive department, and to provide better service to our citizens.”

In the early history of the city of Pharr, average citizens took it upon themselves to fight fires. According to the department’s website, citizens pushed and pulled an Army Surplus Hose Reel between 1917 and 1922 to scenes of fires as there was no organized volunteer fire department at that time.

It was not until the winter of 1921 and 1922 that a meeting was called for the establishment of a fire department for the city of Pharr.

“We reflect on all that history that the department has experienced and use that to provide better services to the citizens,” Rodriguez said. “It’s also kind of nostalgic to go back and look at the way the department — it had a very ragtag beginning. It was unorganized. It was a band of citizens that were formed for a common cause to protect the city to a modern state of the art fire department with dedicated career firefighters.”

That history was on display Thursday with the department’s No. 2 fire truck, a 1938 Ford 750 gallon-per-minute Pumper. The engine sat in the parking lot with other older model fire trucks from surrounding communities. Also on display was the newest addition to the department’s arsenal — Pharr Engine 1, a 2022 Pierce Enforcer.

Rodriguez said that he anticipates more growth and evolution for his department as it enters its second century of existence.

“In the last probably five years we’ve seen the most growth in the department’s history,” Rodriguez said. “When I started in 1986, there were seven firefighters on shift and there were 50 volunteers. Today we have 25 firefighters on shift and we’ve got 20 volunteers. That’s a sign of the growth of the city.”

“In the next 100 years, I see the growth continuing,” he added. “In the next 10 years, we’re planning on opening two more fire stations and probably hiring another 30 or 40 firefighters because the city is growing that fast. If you extrapolate that out another hundred years, we can probably see a dozen stations open up if Pharr continues to grow the way it does.”

Assistant Fire Chief Alberto Rey Gonzalez said that being able to serve amid the fire department’s centennial is something that he and other members of the department take pride in.

“All the hours and effort, days on days, 24-hours a day, seven days a week, we have guys on duty trying to provide the best service we can to the citizens,” Gonzalez said. “It’s rich in brotherhood. It’s dear to our hearts to go protect and serve and save property.”