Panther's Phantom Fire Truck

In 1961, the Westerville, Ohio Volunteer Fire Department was in desperate need of a new fire engine. Unfortunately, budget issues wouldn’t allow for a shiny, new engine to be purchased at that time. So, a used chassis from a 1959 fire truck was purchased. The firefighters themselves worked hard, adding a 2,200 gallon water tank and other vital pieces of equipment, creating an engine that the whole department and town could be proud of.  They named the new truck ‘Big Red.’ 

As the city of Westerville continued to grow and the budget increased, the volunteer fire department switched to a paid department. In order to be eligible for a paid firefighter position, one had to pass a test.  It is said that after one old volunteer failed to pass the test, he swore that he’d come back after his death and haunt Big Red.  

Big Red served the community of Westerville for about 18 years when the city decided it needed to be sold off.  This provoked some mixed feelings among the firemen.  Although Big Red was somewhat outdated and difficult to drive, it had for so long been a symbol of pride for the department and the town. The fire chief at the time tried to prevent the sale of Big Red, but was unsuccessful and it was sold to a truck dealer.

In 1979, the small town of Panther, WV, located in McDowell County, purchased Big Red for its volunteer fire department. Big Red put in two good years of service before it became a liability. Chief Edward Prince called it a ‘death trap,’ as its brakes and other mechanical parts were badly worn.  The engine was parked out back of the fire station and was stripped of any usable parts and equipment. 

It wasn’t long after Big Red was taken out of service that people in western McDowell County, mainly around Panther and Gilbert started seeing Big Red out on the county’s roads, mainly at night. Whenever someone tried to follow the phantom fire truck, they would lose sight of it as it would disappear around a curve or as it topped a hill.  Chief Prince, along with his wife and mother, actually had their own sighting of Big Red in the autumn of 1981. He immediately drove to fire station to confirm that Big Red was still parked out back, too stripped down to actually be driven anywhere. 

The spookiest part of these Big Red sightings were that every time it was seen, a fire would break out in the immediate vicinity of the sighting soon after.  In various tellings of the story, these fires would be completely catastrophic, destroying the building completely, and/or resulting in at least one fatality. Whether the fire was a major one or a minor one, almost everyone could agree that a Big Red sighting definitely would result in some type of fire in that area. 

So who is driving Big Red? Obviously, one candidate would be the Westerville volunteer fireman who promised he’d haunt the engine, but the answer might not be so simple.  Apparently, the former Westerville fire chief who tried to stop the city from selling Big Red passed away—right about the same time the phantom fire engine began appearing around western McDowell County. 

I became familiar with this story YEARS ago when my local news station ran a short piece on the sightings of a phantom fire truck. Several years ago, I searched the web for more information, and found a few conversations on an old TOPIX post. There wasn’t a lot of detail—only that a 50′s era fire engine, driven by an invisible driver, was seen around western McDowell, and that each sighting would coincide with fire shortly after. Therefore, I was THRILLED when I was at my local library, doing some unrelated research, and happened to take a break to read the book, A Wayfaring Sin-Eater and Other Tales of Appalachia, by James Gay Jones. The book was written in 1983 (reprinted in 2005) and contained the information that made this blog post possible! As an added bonus, when I found a photo of the Panther Volunteer Fire Station, it appears that Big Red is still there, still a part of the community.  I wonder if it’s still making its nightly runs?