Early area residents lived in constant fear of fire to homes, barns, and crops. When tragedy struck, neighbor helped neighbor, often to no avail. After World War I, with population and concern growing, the Young Men's Club of St. John's Episcopal Church and the Brookeville post of the American Legion placed pump tanks in strategic spots around the neighborhood. With a fund of $700 the Sandy Spring Volunteer Fire Department was formed in 1924, led by those two groups and residents A. D. Farquhar and Spencer J. H. Brown. Women traditionally brought refreshment to hot, thirsty men battling the fires, and in 1930 Mary Reading Miller and Helen Farquhar formed the Ladies Auxiliary-- the county's first.

Over the years the Department has grown with the population. Funding until the 1950s came from donations, suppers, dances, annual carnivals, and other events. Rising costs brought about a controversial fire tax in 1954. Ensuing years brought more county involvement and a need for career firefighters to assist the volunteers--also controversial.

Today area residents enjoy the comfort of knowing "that gallant body of men" and women are there to give swift assistance in preventing disaster, a security earlier Sandy Springers could never have imagined.

Equipment converges on a house afire on Piping Rock Drive south of Cloverly. Today's SSVFD responds to some 4,000 distress calls a year. The Kensington Fire Department also answered this call.