Ashtabula Firefighting

The story of firefighting in Ashtabula is almost as old as the community itself, beginning with the informal citizen bucket brigades of frontier necessity in the early decades of the 1800s. Between 1836 and 1911, the burgeoning Lake Erie port and manufacturing city was served by a cadre of dedicated volunteer fire companies, including the celebrated, award-winning Protection Fire Company. Ashtabula's rapid growth spurred the October 25, 1911, transformation of the city's longstanding volunt...