Meadow Fork Substation & Helipad
Meadow Fork Substation
In the early 1980s, people in Spring Creek came together to build the fire station that serves us today. Our local historian Ethel Kirkpatrick collected pictures and captions that show how our current fire station came to life in those years that you can see on the SCVFD website and we encourage you to go take a look and read the history.
Local people contributed their time, skills, equipment, materials, and money to create something the community needed. More than forty years later, we are drawing on that same spirit to build the Meadow Fork Substation and Helipad.
The economic circumstances have changed considerably over the past 40 years. Land, construction, equipment, and insurance cost far more, and finding a way forward has been challenging. But the foundation of this effort is familiar: neighbors working toward a common goal and contributing what they can, working for free and at discounted rates and finding a way to get the work done in the face of rising prices and skyrocketing fuel / diesel costs. A $50,000 grant helped us start the process and we are seeking more grant funds early next year to help but that will not be enough to complete the project.
Serving on the board of the Spring Creek Volunteer Fire Department has personally taught me a great deal about what it means to belong to a community. I still remember how astonished I was at the first SCVFD annual meeting I attended three years ago. In Charleston, where I lived before moving here, a medical emergency brought trained people who arrived, helped, and disappeared back into the landscape of the city. In a city, we depend on those responders, but we often don’t know them personally.
In Spring Creek, friends save friends. Friends save neighbors. The people responding may be someone you worked beside yesterday or someone whose family has known yours for generations. That closeness gives the work a different weight. It has also helped me understand why people give so much of themselves to this department.
I felt that especially strongly at our most recent board meeting, listening to members talk about responding to Ethel’s second accident, which recently happened. Ethel has been a bedrock of this department for more than forty years. Hearing the people who know her describe caring for her, stabilizing her, and getting her onto a helicopter was deeply moving. The emotion in the room said a great deal about both Ethel and the people who came to her aid.
A station on Meadow Fork will put equipment and volunteers closer to the western part of our community, improving emergency response and our ability to assist neighboring departments. It will bring more homes within six miles of a station, which can help more homeowners qualify for lower insurance rates. The helipad will provide a safe landing area for air medical transport when minutes matter.
The substation also looks toward the future. Part of the state grant funding we received is intended to improve our response to brush fires and wildfires. This location puts us closer to trails, recreation areas, and places particularly vulnerable to those risks. Along with our newly acquired four-wheel-drive pumper tanker, it will strengthen our ability to reach steep terrain and serve areas such as Poplar Gap, Bluff Road and Panther Branch.
Getting to this point has taken almost 18 months of searching for property, having conversations, exploring possibilities, and starting over when arrangements fell through. “Finding an acre on Meadow Fork” sounds straightforward but it isn’t. Many hours have been spent by SCVFD members and board members looking for suitable, affordable property where the owners are willing to subdivide and sell.
I want to recognize Josh Strange for stepping up on several levels to help make all of this possible. His willingness to make land available gave the project a path forward, and his work has continued well beyond that. He has been instrumental in coordinating site preparation, equipment, materials, and the people needed to get the work done. That work is beginning this week.
With costs high and continuing to rise, we have decided to rent equipment and do the site prep work ourselves. Several members are taking time off from their regular jobs to operate machinery. People are donating gravel and dirt hauling, and Josh continues to lead the effort looking for additional contributions of materials, services, and equipment time.
This is where I see the clearest connection to the community members who built our current station in the early 1980s. The work still depends on people deciding that a shared need deserves their time and effort. It is inspiring to be part of that, and it is one of the things I have come to value most about living here.
We are asking for your help raising $50,000 so we can pursue a $50,000 North Carolina state matching grant in January 2027 to help finish the work. Meeting that goal would allow our community’s contributions to go twice as far.
If you can make a financial contribution, please visit:
If you can help with materials, hauling, equipment, or other services, please get in touch. Those contributions are already making a substantial difference.
The people who built our current station gave Spring Creek something we have depended on for decades. We now have an opportunity to carry that work forward for the neighbors who live here today and those who will depend on this department in the years ahead.
Thank you for helping us get there.
Mitchell Davis
Board President
Spring Creek Volunteer Fire Department