History:
Newalla Fire Department is a 100% volunteer fire department serving the citizens of the unincorporated parts of South Eastern Oklahoma County since 1978.
The department was formed by the need of the community who held a public meeting with the county commissioners to provide fire protection for the citizens of Oklahoma County. Land was donated for the erection of a fire station by the Withrow family where the current station is today. The original station was a 2 bay station that housed 2 brush pumper trucks and a tanker truck. As the need grew over the years County Commissioner Earl Rooms provided funding to add an additional bay to house more equipment and provide a meeting room for the members to conduct meetings and training.
The first Fire Chief was Delbert Henderson who also owned the feed store that is located just south of the fire station. After about a year he decided that it was not in his best interest to be the Fire Chief and owner of a local store so at that time Getty Williams took over as Fire Chief. Chief Williams held the title of Chief for several decades and was well known in the fire service and retired from the fire service in July of 2014. The current Fire Chief Brian Youngblood, who had been an active member of the department since 1999, took over as Fire Chief in 2014, replacing Chief Williams.
In March of 2015, Chief Youngblood had a meeting with the County Emergency Management Director, who advised Chief Youngblood that Oklahoma County would no longer be funding the operation of the Newalla Fire Department. The Fire Department was maintained by the county, as in the county paid for the operational cost of the department, fuel, utilities etc. So in July of 2015 Chief Youngblood held a public meeting at the station advising the citizens of what their options were. The original plan was to convert the department to a Title 19 fire department which would fund the department from Ad Valorem Taxes. After about a year collecting the required signatures required to petition the county commissioners and several legal set backs the department was never able to bring it to a vote of the people. At that time Chief Youngblood made the decision to file with the state of Oklahoma as a Title 18 fire department, subscription based fire department, in order to keep the department operational.