The idea for a volunteer fire department was first brought up by Scott Poppell in 1987. His goal was to provide a fire service for the area and a quicker response time than was provided by the city fire department.

He contacted four individuals (Scott Poppell, George Hamilton, Hersholt Johnson & Rainey Parramore). These four held their first meeting at the Florida Highway Patrol office on US 90 west of Quincy. There the ground work was laid for the beginning of a fire department.

We met at different locations, Federal Savings & Loan Association, Antioch Baptist Church & Country Boys Restaurant. We would advertise and hope that residents would show up. Support was slow going to begin with.

We were able to obtain two trucks from the Florida Forest Service. One a Fastack II and the other an International Transport Truck (1300 gallons). These vehicles were stored at Wallwood Boy Scout Reservation, out in the weather. It was at Wallwood that we held our first Fund raiser, a fish fry. The fish fry was a success. We had more people than we had fish.

Henry & Opal Holley had returned to Quincy to live and became a very important asset to the fire department. With the help of others they were successful in obtaining the land of our present location from the State of Florida. The land was leased to Gadsden County and then sub-leased to Wetumpka VFD. The land was obtained on August 30, 1988. In July of 1988 the fire Department filed with the Secretary of State and became a corporation-Wetumpka Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. On August 21, 1989 we obtained our non-profit status (Section 501©(4) from the Internal Revenue Service.

The next step was acquiring funds and building a fire station. Through the efforts of the Holley’s and many more volunteer’s the money was raised through donations from individuals and businesses. On December 21, 1990 the building permit was issued. Through the efforts of many individuals donating their time and labor the building was constructed. Consisting of two bays, a meeting room, bath room a kitchen, and an up stairs over one third of the building for storage. The building was built entirely with private funds.

Under the leadership of Guerry Petermann we were able to build a 14 ft by 24 ft building to house our brush truck.

The main building stayed the same, two bays, until January 2002 when two additional bays were added. The cost of the additional bays was paid for with Wetumpka VFD, Inc. funds and help from the Board of County Commissioners, Gadsden County.

We have had three Fire Chiefs since we were organized. First was Scott Poppell, the person whose idea it was to start a department, . Second was Robert H, “Robbie” Maxwell and third was Terry” Buddy” Hosey.

Through their efforts and the help of many fireman Wetumpka VFD has become a top notch group. Through memberships, donations, two fund raisers yearly and help from Gadsden County we have been able to equip our department with the necessary equipment it takes to run a top fire department. If it wasn’t for the men and women who donate their time to be fireman, we would not exist. A great big thanks goes out to these individuals.

Our fleet of vehicles consist of the following:

1. 1978 Stuphen pumper, 800 gallons of water, w/foam (Big Red)

2. 1991 4-WD Dodge brush/rescue truck, 300 gallons of water, w/foam

3. 2003 KW pumper, 1500 gallons of water, w/foam (Truck 5)

4. 2003 KW tanker, 2500 gallons of water, 10 inch dump value and 3000 gallon dump tank.

Vehicles 1, 2 & 4 were purchased by Wetumpka VFD, Inc. Number 3 is on loan from Gadsden Fire Service. 

Our first line of communication , to announce a fire, was a telephone tree. Named individuals would call fireman and alert them of a fire. This was very slow and inadequate. Next came tone pagers of which the fireman paid half of the cost. We now have Alpha Numeric pagers and are paged out by the Gadsden County Sheriffs dispatch office.

Our incident calls have ranged from a high of 59 to a low of 29. Most of our calls are brush, grass fires, vehicle accidents/fire and then structure fires.

Our pending goal as of April 2004 is to build a two bay station, located on Cooks Landing Road. This area is not in our five mile radius of the fire station. With the additional station we would be able to provide a quicker response time and lower insurance rates in the area.