To purchase fire engines, hooks, ladders, trucks, fire alarms and other apparatus for the extinction of fires; to organize a fire department, with or without pay; to make the necessary appropriation for the maintenance of the same, and to prescribe rules and regulations for the government of the officers and companies belonging thereto; and, if a paid department, to provide by ordinance for the election or appointment of the officers and companies belonging thereto.
53 P.S. § 23149