RALEIGH -- A sea of red flooded the Raleigh Convention Center this weekend with the arrival of the 123rd annual South Atlantic Fire Rescue Expo.
Begun Thursday morning, the firefighting trade show runs through tonight. Fifty fire trucks and 200 vendor stalls formed a maze of shopping opportunities on the center's lower floor while 33 seminars were offered upstairs.
The state Fire Association has sponsored the show since 1887. The Raleigh Convention and Visitor's Bureau predicted it would bring the city up to 4,000 visitors, spending $1.79 million on hotels and restaurants by weekend's end.
"The more folks that register and attend, the bigger our show next year," said Wes Greene, association president. "We're the largest show of its kind on the East Coast."
The weekend included a number of festivities to entertain firefighters and civilians alike. Progress Energy explored the dangers of fallen power lines Friday by giving a display with live electricity. Later, the association conducted a firetruck parade, led by a working engine from 1921.
The show's size and scope have made it a popular place for fire stations to spend some of their budgets. Alan Langley, a fire equipment sales manager for C.W. Williams & Company in Rocky Mount, said the show was a nexus to the latest in firefighting products and techniques. Having retired from the Coopers Fire Rescue squad in 2007, he said the expo is educational.
"If firefighters want to know what is going on in the fire service today, this is where they come," he said.
The 150,000 square feet allocated for vendors provided ample room for products ranging from axes to exhaust fans. Most noticeable were the fire trucks, custom-made to meet a buying station's needs.
Jay Adams, an area sales manager for Seagrave Fire Apparatus LLC, displayed a truck that could hold 1,000 gallons of water.
As firefighters made the rounds, admiring new products and comparing notes, Adams said they loved the conference so much because the profession is in their blood.
"A person in the fire department has it in their DNA at some point," he said.
That sort of innate devotion brought Teddy Brown, an Asheboro artist, to the show. Selling acrylic paintings of firemen performing heroic acts, he said, has turned the professional into a personal project.
He now hopes to paint pictures of 200 North Carolina fire stations and turn the collected work into a coffee table book with commentary from each station's chief.
"I make these out of respect for firefighting," Brown said. "I like to reflect the sacrifice these men make."
Jeremy Bell, a Selma firefighter attending his second expo, said he learns something new each time. Education opportunities like the history of firefighting seminar he attended this year, he said, offer knowledge vital to fighting flames. "This conference helps the fire service stay at the top and be a leader in the nation," he said.
