Total Miles of Area Serviced: 49.6 square miles. This includes 20 miles of lakefront in which we provide emergency response on Lake Hickory.

Grace Chapel Fire Department is an all-hazards mitigation department that specializes in providing fire suppression, advanced life support- Paramedic level care, and medium rescue services to the southern most portion of Caldwell County in the foothills of North Carolina. We serve a district that was primarily a rural district, and within the last 8 years has vastly developed in becoming urbanized. We are located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains and protect a large area of lakefront of Lake Hickory. Our department was founded in 1973 by citizens in the community due to our community not having any fire protection. The citizens of our community started this department and raised their own money to build our first fire station. The members were responsible for purchasing their own set of protective gear. They raised money to purchase our first engine and constructed our first brush truck themselves. Our department was all volunteer based until 2008 when we began paying one employee per weekday. Since that time we have expanded our coverage to include two salaried Chief positions, three staff members during the day, and two staff members at night time. All of our staff are part time employees. We currently do not have any full-time paid employees. Our employees as well as volunteers also respond off duty to aid in call responses within our fire district.

Our fire department is also responsible for providing automatic aid for fire suppression as well as advanced life support for our surrounding communities. We provide surface water rescue and water recovery services to the area of Lake Hickory where there are multiple restaurants, and a River Walk Park. Our department takes great pride in assisting our neighboring departments. Having a second station will greatly benefit our neighboring communities as well as ours.

Grace Chapel Fire Department also provides community services consisting of a polling location for elections that is approved by the board of elections, we host the hunter safety and boating operator courses instructed by the North Carolina Wildlife Commission, we host many community meetings at our department such as multiple home owners associations and parent teacher associations, we provide annual fire safety education at the K-5 elementary school in our district in addition to multiple daycares within our district, and we host multiple fundraising events throughout the year for various community members that may be in need from emergency incidents.

Our department is one of the staples of our community. We are not a township and do not have a town hall therefore our fire department serves as our local community building many of the times. Since our foundation our department has always been well respected and appreciated. We are known to be an aggressive department that stands ready to answer any call for help that derives within our community