Project Timeline

The Pre-2014 Years

The origins of the archive date back to 1998, when I began independently documenting fire scenes and apparatus in Wheeling, West Virginia. During these early years I worked alone as a civilian fire buff, supported informally by firefighters who allowed me to observe and photograph responses while maintaining professional boundaries.

In 1999, I began publishing early fire service media online. Using platforms such as GeoCities, I built a website under a wheelingfd.com domain that featured photographs, short video clips in Shockwave Flash format, and animated graphics. At the time the Wheeling Fire Department did not yet have a Public Information Officer responsible for distributing incident media. The site became one of the few places online where local fire service activity was visually documented.

Over time I developed custom graphics, apparatus imagery, and visual branding that gave the site a distinctive identity. During its operation the website received approximately 6,000–10,000 visitors, tracked through early web counters and analytics tools.

In 2008, while attending Duquesne University in Pittsburgh for graduate study in Multimedia Arts, I expanded this work to include documentation of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire. The department operated at a much larger scale and already had an established PIO system, as well as several active fire buffs throughout the city. I met many of them and learned how documentation practices differed in a larger urban environment.

During this period I increasingly focused on video documentation of fire and EMS responses. In 2008 I launched PittsburghFire.net, a website dedicated to fire service activity in the city. The site remained active until 2011, when I returned to Wheeling.

By 2013, I began producing firefighter tribute and incident-response videos under the name 2 Alarm Media. At its peak the channel grew to approximately 9,000 followers. The project later evolved into two separate directions.

Firefighter tribute productions, which eventually became Code 99 Firefighter Tributes.

Local incident documentation, which would later become Wheeling Fire Buffs.

The remaining followers from the original tribute audience now form the core of the Code 99 Firefighter Tributes channel, which currently maintains approximately 1.35K subscribers.

2014–2024: The Wheeling Fire Buffs Years

In 2014, local fire buff Jordan Roth approached me with the idea of creating a dedicated social media presence for documenting the Wheeling Fire Department. We launched a Facebook page initially titled Wheeling Firefighters, which was later renamed Wheeling’s Bravest and eventually Wheeling’s Bravest Media.

The project expanded to include several additional fire buffs, forming a small informal team documenting fire department activity. During this period we maintained a positive working relationship with members of the Wheeling Fire Department. Guidance from a WFD Captain helped ensure that our activities remained respectful of operational boundaries while allowing us to document apparatus, responses, and department culture.

This collaborative period represented the most active phase of organized fire buff documentation in the Wheeling area.

In 2023, I was invited by Steven Greene of the 5 Alarm Task Force Corporation to participate in a podcast discussing the history of fire buffing and the work of the group. The interview ran approximately 2.5 hours and remains available on Spotify and YouTube.

Later that same year, changing interests and reduced participation led to the conclusion of the Wheeling Fire Buffs project.

In 2024, I launched a new initiative called WV Fire Buffs, shifting the focus toward documenting fire service activity across the broader West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania tri-state region, with particular attention to volunteer fire departments.