Our History

Fire Chief Oscar Presley began photographing the department in the 1980s because he believed that everything the department did was "history in the making" and deserved to be documented. During that decade, Joanne Ramsey also contributed by photographing training burns and department apparatus.

The department's first official fire photographer, Sheryl Drost, began taking photographs for the department in 1990 and was formally sworn in as a member of the department on June 25, 1997. Responding directly to emergency scenes, she has captured many remarkable first-arriving fireground images.

The photographs featured here include many of those first-in fire scenes taken by Sheryl Drost, along with several early fire incidents documented by local news media, providing a unique visual record of the department's history.