Richmond County, New York

Richmond County encompasses the entirety of Staten Island, and as well as being a County, it is a borough of the City of New York.

Staten Island became a borough of New York on January 1, 1898. At that time it had 47 volunteer fire companies organized in 8 fire departments, this would continue without any changes for 7 years, on October 1, 1905 the first volunteer units were replaced with paid FDNY units. While operating with volunteer units departments protected only their areas and made no calls to Manhattan Headquarters except in special cases. When the first paid units were organized 5 Gleason and Bailey City Service ladders were fit with 3 horse hitches and several 4th size Clapp and Jones steamers were transferred from Manhattan and the Bronx with firefighters first coming from those boroughs as well. Only 19 of the volunteer units stations were purchased by the city and only 1 remained in service by 1956. The first house built for the paid firefighters was that of Engine 206, now 156 in 1908, which replaced quarters of a previous station that was destroyed by fire. 3 volunteer companies remain on the island. For years it was common practice for the FDNY to give the oldest apparatus to the companies on the island as their last assignments before being scrapped or put into spare status. Today however, the department has very up to date apparatus and due to that many old ones like hose relay wagons have been phased out. In addition, due to the construction of the Verrazano Bridge in the 60s it has been unnecessary for apparatus to be ferried over as they can now easily respond to the island from other boroughs easily. Despite this, the island still had to face company disbandments and relocations. In 1975, the borough of Richmond officially became the borough of Staten Island.