By Mike Ciampo
Hillsborough Township sits about mid-center in the state of New Jersey in Somerset County. Located about 55 miles from New York City, it is considered a suburb and part of the metropolitan area.
The township sits in the Raritan Valley and is located not far from the Raritan River and heavily-traveled Route 287. The township is full of single-family dwellings, townhouses, condominiums, large commercial properties and numerous strip malls and shopping plazas. In 2021, the 55-square-mile township celebrated its 250th anniversary.
The Hillsborough Fire District provides fire protection to the residents and visitors with career and volunteer staff. The career firefighters provide staffing and supplements the volunteer force Monday through Friday, 7 a.m.-5 p.m. The district also conducts all of the fire inspections according to the NJ Uniform Fire Code, manages all of the fire district’s administrative duties and conducts all of the fire cause and origin investigations. The career staff is also certified to the level of EMT or EMR through the NJ Department of Health, swiftwater rescue and extrication technicians. Many of the personnel are also certified as fire and arson investigators. In addition to the career staff, the township is served by three volunteer fire companies within the township and also contracts with the neighboring Neshanic Fire Department.
Flagtown is an unincorporated community located in Hillsborough and is home of the Hillsborough Volunteer Fire Company 1, one of the three volunteer companies serving the township. The company is the first fire department formed in Township. In 1937, seven members of the Township Board of Trade met and decided that the township needed its own fire company due to an increase of fires in the area. The following year the department received its charter and bought its first fire engine that year for $475 from another department. A used chemical engine was bought and nine years later, they bought a surplus army truck and turned it into another fire apparatus.
Like many fire departments, start up involved high costs and to build a firehouse was a difficult process, especially during the World War years. Originally, the engines were stored in a garage at the Clawson Machine Shop for the first eight years. Luckily in 1946 lumber was donated by Doris Duke, a tobacco heiress who lived in the area, and construction began on the firehouse. Over the years the building has been renovated to allow more bays for other apparatus and to meet the needs of the department. Another historic note about the company is they are known as “Mean and Green”, due to its apparatus paint scheme. Their earlier rigs used to be painted pine green and not red, nowadays the color is more of a fluorescent lime green and almost yellow, which makes them stand out.
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