About Us

The Friendship Fire Company #2 - Diving Rescue Unit is comprised of 100% VOLUNTEERS.  The station is in Phoenixville Pennsylvania, and the volunteer members come primarily from the surrounding communities in Chester and Montgomery Counties (but some come further).

The Company provides highly specialized and highly technical search, rescue and recovery services, primarily in the form of underwater diving, motorized swift water boating, and unmanned aerial vehicle services (drones).

We respond 24 hours a day 365 days a year to help anyone in the community and neighboring communities during a time of need.  We are also frequently called upon to assist fire companies and police organizations.

The Dive Team assists with search and recovery in the Schuylkill River and the various other rivers, creeks, lakes and other bodies of water in the region.  Our Boat crews provides search and rescue services in nearby rivers and lakes, and in the streets during storms and flash flooding.  The Drone Team often assists in searching for missing persons, assists fire companies looking for hot spots in fire emergencies, and provides uniquely enhanced capabilities for the Dive and Boat Teams. Most of our members are cross trained to serve on multiple teams.

The Company is supported by a Social Club adjacent to the station (423 W. High Street, Phoenixville PA 19460), by state and federal grants, and by charitable donations.  The Company is a nonprofit organization pursuant to Section 501(c)3 of the internal revenue code and donations are tax deductible.

The Company is always interested in volunteers and can also be supported through membership in the Social Club, as well as monetary donations.

Our History

During the summer of 1952 two drownings took place within weeks of each other at the Black Rock Dam in Phoenixville Borough. Volunteer firemen from the Borough’s Friendship Fire Company responded each time only to realize they were not trained nor equipped to handle such a call. Both times a recently-formed diving unit had to be called in from neighboring Montgomery County to work the incidents. Because of that, a committee was formed within Friendship Fire Company to look at the feasibility of starting a dive team within Friendship Fire Company to serve the local community. History had shown that with Black Rock Dam, several miles of the Schuylkill River and the French Creek all passing through the Borough, there was a need for some kind of local underwater recovery resource. After several months of research, the committee made their recommendations to Friendship’s Board of Directors, and then to the membership in general. In October of 1952 the board and membership of Friendship Fire Company approved a motion to start a diving unit to be housed at Friendship along with the fire trucks already there.

A used bread delivery truck was purchased as the first ‘dive truck’ and a member donated a 10 foot aluminum row boat. The Fire Company purchased a 5 HP motor for the boat; a large air compressor for the truck; and all of the DESCO full-face-mask equipment necessary to safely put a diver under water at that time to depths of up to 25 feet. A year later the Company added a more advanced HOOKAH system which allowed the diver to be encapsulated in a large canvas ‘suit’ and thereby to still safely dive in cold water. Training of several firefighters to be the ‘first divers’ at Friendship was conducted in the spring of 1953 by members of the Philadelphia Police Harbor Patrol Unit at a local outdoor pool. By the summer of 1953 Friendship’s Dive Team was equipped, operational and ready to respond to calls.

For the next many years Friendship’s Dive Team worked underwater recovery incidents in Phoenixville and the immediately surrounding communities where reservoirs, creeks and other water hazards were located. As word spread of the availability of this ‘new’ resource, the Dive Team from Friendship Fire Company traveled to many locations within Chester County, the tri-County area and then the Tri-State area as well to assist Police and Fire Departments with underwater recovery efforts.

During the late 1960’s, Friendship’s Dive Team was granted money from the Fire Company treasury to send several Fire Company members to SCUBA training and then to purchase three complete sets of SCUBA gear to be placed on a brand new dive truck which had been purchased by the Fire Company. That afforded Friendship’s Dive Team a diving system which was far less manpower-intensive to use and provided a much quicker way to get a diver into the water than the surface supplied diving system which was still kept in service.

The 1970’s, 80’ and 90’s saw some extreme highs and some extreme lows for the Friendship Diving Unit. Hurricane Agnes came through the Phoenixville Area and Friendship’s Dive Team personnel spent countless hours in service performing rescues, evacuations and sadly also recoveries of drowning victims. Manpower for the dive team saw a substantial boost when Friendship allowed firefighters from the other two Fire Companies in Phoenixville as well as those from surrounding area Fire Companies to become members of its Dive Team based solely on their membership in other Fire Companies. During those years it was not uncommon to find many of the same individuals putting out a house fire in the morning, working the recovery of a drowning victim in the afternoon, and then running a few ambulance calls before they went to bed.

The years that followed saw Friendship’s Dive Team being the first emergency services provider in this area to expand into specialized water rescue training and services. A Community fund drive was organized to replace the rescue row boat with, the first Zodiac inflatable to be placed into service in the Tri-County area by any emergency services provider. Shortly thereafter a second smaller Zodiac inflatable was purchased and placed into service. Those years also saw the Team’s vehicle fleet expand from a single truck – also used for vehicle rescue and general fire ground support when purchased – to adding a second 4x4 vehicle, on up to today’s fleet of four specialized vehicles, one dive scene support trailer and three boats. Friendship’s Dive Team also took a giant leap forward in the field of water rescue with members of Friendship’s Dive Team sent to Ohio for a specialized water rescue course which allowed them to return as certified water rescue instructors. Months later, those team members were contacted by the Boating Safety, Education and Training office of the Pennsylvania Fish Commission and asked to team up with the Chief of that Department to devise, write and teach the official Pennsylvania water rescue training program which was then subsequently adopted by the Pennsylvania Fire Academy and the National Association for Search and Rescue. With the addition of a cache of specialized equipment and proper training Friendship’s Dive Team was the first in the area to branch-off into the providing of specialized water rescue services to the public. In recognition of the fact Friendship’s Board of Directors decreed that the official name of the organization be changed to “Friendship Diving-Rescue Unit”.

Moving on through the early years of 2000 Friendship’s Dive Team continued to re-group, re-train, re-equip and grow better and stronger as a Team. In 2010 the Phoenixville Fire Department, which Friendship’s Dive Team was a part of by Borough ordinance, underwent a consolidation study and effort. As a result, in 2011 the Phoenixville Borough relieved Friendship Fire Company from their ordinance-required responsibility of providing fire suppression services to the Borough of Phoenixville.  Friendship’s operations then then became concentrated on specialized underwater recovery and water rescue services.  At the end of 2011, Phoenixville Borough Council passed a resolution to acknowledge the Friendship Diving-Rescue Unit as a provider of water-related emergency services to the Borough of Phoenixville, but no longer as a part of, or under the umbrella of, the Phoenixville Fire Department.

In early June of 2012 Friendship began to operate as an independent entity (no longer under the umbrella of the Phoenixville Fire Department), responsive to its own elected/appointed operational officers only and administratively accountable to no one but Friendship’s Board of Directors. Friendship continued to be named as an emergency services provider and continues to provide specialized water rescue and underwater recovery services to the Borough of Phoenixville if called to respond to any such incident within the Borough.

The future of the Friendship Diving-Rescue Unit is yet to be written. But our compass is firmly set towards a course of remaining the emergency services provider of The Friendship Fire Company, which to this day remains a duly-chartered organization under Pennsylvania Corporate Law. The officers and members of Friendship’s Dive Team, fully supported by the Board of Directors and members of The Friendship Fire Company, remain fully committed to provide specialized underwater recovery, water rescue, ice rescue and evidence recovery services to the citizens of Phoenixville and surrounding communities, the Police and Fire Company organizations that serve them, as well as to assist any Police or Fire Department anywhere in need of our specialized services, wherever and whenever we may be called to do so.