In February 1872, just five years after Pentwater was incorporated as a village, a meeting was called to discuss ways of organizing a fire department. Until that time, volunteers and bucket brigades had filled the needs. The Pentwater Bucket Brigade, which was the direct predecessor to the Pentwater Fire Department, had been founded earlier in 1864. On March 4, 1872, the Pentwater Fire Department was created and W.B.O. Sands was elected as Chief Engineer.

Today, we consist of five officers and eight firefighters. We have a paramedic, two EMTs and seven MFRs on our department. We run over 350 calls—medical and fire—per year and are a paid-on-call department. We utilize nine different apparatuses, depending on the situation, and provide mutual aid to neighboring departments in Oceana and Mason counties.