9781422280256

D efending O ur N ation

P utting O ut F ires : F irefighters

P utting O ut F ires : F irefighters

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Series Titles C itizen S oldiers : T he N ational G uard

C ustoms and B order P rotection D efending the S kies : T he A ir F orce D efending the G round : T he A rmy D efending the S eas : T he N avy T he D rug E nforcement A dministration H omeland S ecurity T he N ational C ounterterrorism C enter P rotecting A gainst B iological and C hemical A ttack P utting O ut F ires : F irefighters

R escuing H ostages : T he FBI S topping C rime : T he P olice

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P utting O ut F ires : F irefighters

F oreword by M anny G omez , E sq ., S ecurity and T errorism E xpert

B y B renda R alph L ewis

MASON CREST

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

Copyright © 2018 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3759-5 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4222-3769-4 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-8025-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lewis, Brenda Ralph, author. Title: Putting out fires : firefighters / foreword by Manny Gomez, Esq.,  Security and Terrorism Expert ; by Brenda Ralph Lewis. Other titles: Firefighters Description: Broomall, Pennsylvania : Mason Crest, [2018] | Series: Defending  our nation | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016053108| ISBN 9781422237694 (hardback) | ISBN   9781422237595 (series) | ISBN 9781422280256 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Fire fighters--Juvenile literature. | Fire  extinction--Juvenile  literature. | Wildfires--Juvenile literature. | Fires--History--Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC HD8039.F5 L49 2018 | DDC 628.9/25--dc23 Developed and Produced by Print Matters Productions, Inc. (www.printmattersinc.com) Cover and Interior Design by Bill Madrid, Madrid Design Additional Text by Kelly Kagamas Tomkies

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C ontents

F oreword by M anny G omez , E sq . …….…… 6

S eries G lossary …….…….…….…….… 72

1. F irefighting in the P ast …….…….…… 8

C hronology … .…….…….…….…….… 75

2. T raining to B e a F irefighter …….…….18

F urther R esources …….…….…….…… 77

3. F ires in the C ity …….…….…….…….26

I ndex …….…….…….…….…….…….… 78

4. W ildland F ires …….…….…….…….38

A bout the A uthor and P icture C redits ……80

5. A ircraft on F ire …….…….…….…….52

6. F irefighting in the F uture …….…….……64

V igilance F oreword

W e live in a world where we have to have a constant state of awareness—about our surroundings and who is around us. Law enforcement and the intelligence community cannot predict or stop the next terrorist attack alone. They need the citizenry of America, of the world, to act as a force multiplier in order to help deter, detect, and ultimately defeat a terrorist attack. Technology is ever evolving and is a great weapon in the fight against terrorism. We have facial recognition, we have technology that is able to detect electronic communications through algorithms that may be related to terrorist activity—we also have drones that could spy on com- munities and bomb them without them ever knowing that a drone was there and with no cost of life to us. But ultimately it’s human intelligence and inside information that will help defeat a potential attack. It’s people being aware of what’s going on around them: if a family member, neighbor, coworker has suddenly changed in a manner where he or she is suddenly spouting violent anti- Western rhetoric or radical Islamic fundamentalism, those who notice it have a duty to report it to authorities so that they can do a proper investigation. In turn, the trend since 9/11 has been for international communication as well as federal and local communication. Gone are the days when law enforcement or intelligence organizations kept information to themselves and didn’t dare share it for fear that it might compromise the integrity of the information or for fear that the other organization would get equal credit. So the NYPD wouldn’t tell anything to the FBI, the FBI wouldn’t tell the CIA, and the CIA wouldn’t tell the British counterin- telligence agency, MI6, as an example. Improved as things are, we could do better. We also have to improve global propaganda. Instead of dropping bombs, drop education on individuals who are even considering joining ISIS. Education is salvation. We have the greatest

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production means in the world through Hollywood and so on, so why don’t we match ISIS materi- als? We tried it once but the government itself tried to produce it. This is something that should definitely be privatized.We also need to match the energy of cyber attackers—and we need savvy youth for that. There are numerous ways that you could help in the fight against terror—joining law en- forcement, the military, or not-for-profit organizations like the Peace Corps. If making the world a safer place appeals to you, draw on your particular strengths and put them to use where they are needed. But everybody should serve and be part of this global fight against terrorism in some small way. Certainly, everybody should be a part of the fight by simply being aware of their sur- roundings and knowing when something is not right and acting on that sense. In the investigation after most successful attacks, we know that somebody or some persons or people knew that there was something wrong with the person or persons who perpetrated the attack. Although it feels awkward to tell the authorities that you believe somebody is acting suspicious and may be a terrorist sympathizer or even a terrorist, we have a higher duty not only to society as a whole but to our family, friends, and ultimately ourselves to do something to ultimately stop the next attack. It’s not if there is going to be another attack, but where, when, and how. So being vigilant and being proactive are the orders of the day.

Manny Gomez, Esq. President of MG Security Services,

Chairman of the National Law Enforcement Association, former FBI Special Agent, U.S. Marine, and NYPD Sergeant

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C hapter 1 C rime F i efighting in the P ast

Drugs, guns, and money form the basis of the criminal enterprises that the DEA works against.

The Great Fire of London in 1666.

F ire has always been important in everyday life. It provides warmth and security, but it can also be dangerous and destructive. In prehistoric times, it was used to warm caves and cook food; big fires were lit at night at the entrance to the caves so that wild ani-

mals would be frightened away. However, fires can also burn out of control, burning down entire forests, or turning houses and other buildings into smoking ashes. Fire can kill people by burn- ing them to death or by choking them with the smoke it creates. Fires in the Cities

Recording of 9/11 firefighters’ last moments.

The danger of fire became even greater some 6,000 years ago when people began to live in cities in and around Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq. The ancient Egyptians were well aware of this and used hand-operated wooden pumps to put out fires in the second century BCE. The problem in the ancient cities was that people lived close together: they had their own fires and cooking stoves, so a single outbreak of fire could quickly spread, destroying homes and killing people. In the towns and cities of the ancient Roman Empire, this happened all too often in badly built, overcrowded three- or four-story apartment blocks called insulae , or islands.

Words to Understand

Insulae: Roman apartment blocks. Conflagration: Large destructive fire. Firebreaks: Area of land that has had plants and trees removed to stop the spread of fire.

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All it took to start a fire and, often burn down the entire building, was for someone to have an accident while cooking a meal. Starting in one apartment, the blaze could spread through the insula within a few minutes and then threaten neighboring buildings. This was why there were teams of vigiles, or watchmen, who patrolled the streets of Roman cities. Their primary job was to deal with any sort of trouble—including fights or murders—but they were also the firefighters who dealt with blazing buildings, putting out the fires and rescuing people trapped by the flames. There were 7,000 vigiles in ancient Rome itself. Unfortunately, the vigiles were not always successful. Certainly, they were unable to handle a really big fire, like the huge conflagration that destroyed two-thirds of ancient Rome in CE 64. It started on July 18 in the Circus Maximus, a place of public entertain- ment where chariot races were held, and it burned for more than a week. Ten of Rome’s 14 districts were completely destroyed, as temples, public buildings, and thousands of homes went up in flames. There were terrible scenes as Romans ran out of the city, screaming in panic.

Nero, the Roman Emperor, was not in Rome when the fire started, but 33 miles (53 km) away to the south, at Antium, modern Anzio. He seems to have done his best to help, organizing food supplies and setting up tempo- rary homes. All the same, a rumor spread that he was the one who had set Rome alight. It was said he wanted to build himself a larger palace and thought that Rome was so run-down it deserved to be destroyed. Accord- ing to the gossips, Nero stood on the roof of his palace and “fiddled,” or played, his lyre while Rome burned. No one knows if any of this was true, but after the fire, Nero set about rebuilding Rome as a much more splen- did city, with fine buildings and a grid system of roads.

A Fireman’s Prayer When I am called to duty, God Wherever flames may rage Give me the strength to save some life Whatever be its age Help me embrace a little child Before it is too late Or save an older person from The horror of that fate Enable me to be alert and Hear the weakest shout And quickly and efficiently To put the fire out . . . And if according to Your will I have to lose my life Please bless with Your protecting hand My children and my wife (Anonymous)

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This painting by Henryk Siemiradzki depicts the burning of Rome, supposedly set by Nero.

London’s Burning Three years earlier, another city of the Roman empire—London, capital of the Roman province of Britannia—went up in flames when a rebel British queen, Boudicca, attacked the city and burned it. After this, in CE 63, the Romans decided to appoint vigiles to look out for fires in London. London kept its vigiles until the Romans abandoned Britannia in around CE 426, returning to Rome to defend it against attacks by barbarian tribes. Unfortunately, the vigiles departed with the Romans, and London had no proper fire service for another 1,250 years. In 1212, London Bridge burned down. The consequences were severe. Not only were 12,000 people reported to have died, but London Bridge was at that time the only bridge across the Thames River, which runs through the city. The burning of London Bridge was known as the Great Fire of London until an even greater and much more damaging fire broke out in September 1666. At that time, London still had no fire service—the capital’s first fire brigade was not formed until 1680. This great fire burned for over four days, and the flames burned down most of London’s big buildings, including Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and destroyed around 13,000 homes. The flames could be seen nearly

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This painting depicts what the Great Fire of London would have looked like at a distance.

40 miles (64 km) away. The fire began in a baker’s shop in Pudding Lane and spread rapidly. Before long, a huge cloud of black, choking smoke, “like the top of a burning oven,” hung over the city. The king of England, Charles II, and his brother James, Duke of York, helped to fight the flames by organizing firefighting teams and pulling down buildings to make firebreaks . But the flames leapt across the firebreaks, and John Evelyn, a famous English diarist, described what followed: There was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures as [the fire] burned both in breadth and length, leaping from house to house and street to street; for the heat had even ignited the air, and the fire devoured houses, furniture, and everything. It took a long time for London to recover from this disaster. Many Londoners were unable to return to the city to live until 1672, six years later.

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Benjamin Franklin and his son flying a kite during an electrical storm.

Benjamin Franklin and the Lightning Rod In colonial America, Boston got its first fire brigade in the same year as London—1680. The firefighters were paid to put out fires, but in 1735, Benjamin Franklin had a different idea. He formed the first volunteer fire department in Philadelphia, believing that putting out fires should be a public duty. Franklin was also worried by the thatched straw roofs most Americans put on their houses. It was far too easy for sparks or embers from chimneys to set the roofs on fire. Another prob- lem was lightning strikes that hit the roofs during thunderstorms and set them ablaze. To stop this from happening, Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod. This makes the lightning discharge into the ground and prevents it from setting houses on fire.

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The Bucket Brigades At first, there were no fire engines that could pump out water to extinguish the flames. Instead, there were bucket brigades—long lines of people who passed buckets of water to each other until they reached the fire, where the water was thrown onto the blaze. Obviously, this was not very effective, because there was usually too little water to stop the fire from spreading. When fire engines, pulled by horses, were introduced in the late 18th century, the bucket brigades were used to fill up their reservoirs, or stores, of water. This was dangerous. The pumps used were not very powerful, which meant bringing the engines too close to the fire, or at least as close as the terrified horses would allow. It was not until the 19th century that more powerful, steam-driven pumps and better water hoses began to be used. Women Firefighters Many women worked as firefighters in the “bucket brigades.” One of them was an African American enslaved person named Molly Williams. In 1818, a fire broke out in New York during a blizzard, and Williams joined other firefighters to drag a fire engine through the deep snow to the site of the blaze.  At around the same time, Marina Betts, who was part French, part Indian, regularly took her place in bucket brigade lines, but her firefighting did not end there. There was always a big crowd watching fires, and Marina believed that “the menfolks should be working” to help put out the flames. So she used to ask men in the crowd to join in the firefighting and help fight the fire. If they refused to help, she threw a bucket of water over them! Did You Know? • George Washington brought the first fire engine to America from England in 1765. • Long before he became president, George Washington was a volunteer firefighter with the fire company in Alexandria, VA. • Dalmatian dogs were used to guard engines and equipment when fire companies used to compete with each other to attend fires. This was because one way of getting the better of rivals was to steal or damage their equipment. • The Polish city of Znin was either partly or completely destroyed by fire no less than six times—in 1447, 1494, 1688, 1692, 1700, and 1751.

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