About Midway Fire Department

History

Midway Fire Rescue was founded on December 11, 1961 as a volunteer fire department to serve the Waccamaw Neck. Midway Fire Rescue provides service to the Pawleys Island, Litchfield Beach and DeBordieu communities. These communities can be found along the Atlantic Ocean coast line that runs along US Highway 17, between Murrells Inlet, and Georgetown, SC. This area has steadily grown over the 44 years since its inception.

The First HQ

The department started out as one centralized department and has since grown to include 3 full-time paid stations with 60 full-time career and 26 volunteer positions. The first paid position was Fire Chief William Dotter in 1961. It was not until Fire Chief Mike Mock took over as the Chief in 1978 that Midway thought about hiring career staff. It took awhile but in 1986 Chief Mock hired Midways first career Firefighters. Three men were hired; they were each put on their own shifts. Each man worked by himself for 24 hours, and then they were off for 48 hours. Over the course of the next ten years, Midway Fire Rescue built three new fire stations and had hired enough people to have a shift consist of 6 people, 2 employees at each station.

Currently in 2006 our department has continued to grow with the communities that we protect. Midway has assumed responsibilities for all of: EMS, Hazardous Materials and Water Rescue. With this in mind, our shift personnel have more than doubled. Our staffing is currently at eighteen people per shift.

Station 81 (HQ)

In 1988 a new headquarters station was constructed in Willbrook Plantation and headquarters was moved from Midway Inlet along US 17 to the new building at Willbrook. This is now the main office & operations station for the department. The process of building a new HQ is in the mix, which should be completed in September.

Station 82

In 1995 an intermediate station was constructed at the entrance to Heritage Plantation. This was done to meet further growing needs and improve coverage in this area. This station shares it’s call volume with both Headquarters and the station at Debordieu.

Station 83

In 1987 a new station was constructed to cover the Debordieu Colony, Arcadia and Hobcaw Barony areas just north of Georgetown City. This was done to meet the growing needs of the area and allow us to put units on the scene faster in this most southern area of our fire district.