| Origin of the Fire Service As early as 1608 in Virginia, Jamestown settlement historians documented the devastating effects of fire spreading through populated areas wiping out entire communities. In 1653 the Boston Riverfront Fire burned about one-third of the city’s homes and many warehouses. After the 1655 fire of New Amsterdam, New York, which destroyed large areas of that town, attention began to focus on fire protection ordinances and organized firefighting measures. In 1692 the Massachusetts Bay Assembly adopted and enacted a detailed ordinance called An Act for Building with Stone or Brick in the Town of Boston and Preventing Fire. This mandated constructing buildings with brick or stone, roofs with slate or tile, widening city streets, a water cistern, a night watchman, and other fire protection measures. Soon thereafter other cities such as New York and Philadelphia created similar laws. Boston was the first city to posses a fire fighting device. It was a hand pump model obtained in 1654. Again Philadelphia and New York followed in 1719 and 1731. Many of the terms coined by our nation’s earliest firefighters are still being used centuries later. For example the phrase “run” used to describe a fire department response to an emergency, came from the days when firefighters ran pulling the hand pump fire wagons to the fire. The word “fire plug” (often times used by firefighters instead of fire hydrant) originated from hollowed out logs that were used for main water lines throughout a town. Holes were carved into the logs and plugged with a wooden dowel so firefighters could remove the plug and obtain a source of water in order to fight a fire. And the term “turnout” comes from the day when the method of transporting the hand pumps shifted from being pulled by hand to that of horses. The harnesses for the team were stored directly above the stalls and were lowered quickly by pulling on a rope. The men then rigged the team to the pump and sped out the door in what was called “turning out of the station”. It is believed that in 1736 Philadelphia established the country’s first Union Volunteer Fire Company organized by Benjamin Franklin. The fire service wasn’t without its share of distinguished members. They included John Hancock, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold. Around the early 1800’s, as many towns and communities began to grow and develop, the threat of fire and conflagration became more worrisome to everyone. The need for more able-bodied volunteers to pull the hand pumps and then constantly operate the pump levers up and down in order to deliver the water through the hose lines had become great. Ironically public support of volunteer fire companies was beginning to wane as bitter rivalries grew between volunteer companies. In 1851 a large scale battle between rival volunteer companies in Cincinnati, lead to the disbanding of that city’s volunteer fire service. But two years later on April 1, 1853 Cincinnati formed the country’ first paid fire department. In 1854 Rhode Island became the next paid department followed by New York in 1865 after a devastating fire that totally destroyed the great P.T. Barnum Museum and Zoo. Albany, New York and Philadelphia followed in 1867 and 1871. Public attention now began to focus on the need for more full-time paid fire companies. Following the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871 and the Boston Fire of 1872 in which 800 buildings were destroyed, 13 people killed, including 9 firefighters, and more than thirty insurance companies were forced out of business, and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire that the fire department fought for three days, the fire service experienced a period of monumental change. This evolutionary period actually began around 1850 and lasted to about 1920. Among the most notable changes was the evolution of the horse drawn fire pump and later after the turn of the century came the first motorized fire apparatus. It wasn’t until the early 1970’s that the fire service began to take on any other revolutionary change from its standard response to fighting fires. Departments such as Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami, and Columbus, Ohio broke new ground as they led the way by taking on the need for providing basic and advanced life support emergency medical services. Today 60% of the paid and volunteer departments in the United States deliver either basic or advanced life support medical service. By the 1980’s fire departments began to expand their mission again as the public’s demand for a wider variety of services intensified. To meet the needs of their communities many fire departments became specialists in areas like hazardous materials mitigation, advanced emergency medical treatment, technical rescue specialties such as rope, trench, and confined space rescue, as well as natural disaster and weapons of mass destruction readiness. Additionally, public safety education and fire inspections are routinely provided by most departments in the country today. BACK TO THE HOME PAGE . |