Greensboro Fire Department Commemorates 1985 Davie Street Fire

Forty years ago, on April 13, 1985, the Greensboro Fire Department (GFD) encountered its largest fire in modern history on the 300 block of Davie Street. Last December, retired GFD Assistant Chief Chris Bowman set to memorialize the historic event with a video. Watch the completed project here.

The three-alarm fire consumed an entire city block and heavily damaged several downtown structures. After experiencing a backdraft and wall collapse, it took over 100 firefighters more than four hours to bring the fire under control. Fortunately, no firefighters were seriously injured or killed while battling the blaze.

This was Assistant Chief Bowman's first major firefight in his GFD career, and he wanted to capture the significance of the catastrophic event on its 40th anniversary. With the assistance of Deputy Chief Carol Key, who helped edit the video, and many retired firefighters who fought alongside him at Davie Street, Assistant Chief Bowman put together a documentary chronicling that night. The 20-minute video uses real audio recordings of radio traffic, interviews, and archival photos from various sources, including old Greensboro News & Record images.

Learn more about the historic fire and watch the video on the Greensboro Firefighter Historical Society's website.