St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 11/Fire-Brigades

by Charles T. Hill

Photograph by Brown Bros.

TYPICAL LONDON FIRE SCENE, SHOWING “HORSE LADDER-ESCAPE” AND “AËRIAL" EXTENSION LADDER IN USE.

GLIMPSES OF FOREIGN FIRE-BRIGADES

BY CHARLES T. HILL

AUTHOR OF “FIGHTING A FIRE”

Last summer I asked a prominent merchant of Lausanne, Switzerland, when his town had had its last serious fire. “Not in three years,” he replied. I was moved to ask this question because I had found the fire apparatus in padlocked barns, or stations, with the keys in the hands of the police, who attended to the fire-fighting; and seemed, as compared to the remarkably quick methods employed in America, a somewhat dangerous form of fire protection. Lausanne is a town of about 50,000 population, and I wondered how many American cities of a like size could boast of only one serious fire in three years. Not many, I imagine.

In Lucerne, a smaller city in Switzerland, of about 40,000 population, the conditions were practically the same, with the exception that each stable containing the fire apparatus had a notice posted on the door stating that the keys could he found in the neighboring hotels and drug-shops, and the citizens were expected to take out the engines in the event of a fire, while the firemen (volunteers) came on “call,” The alarm being sounded on all the church bells. Lucerne is a well-known tourist center, heavily populated during the summer months, and has many large shops filled with very inflammable material, and a great many very old buildings; and yet this place had had only two fires of any size within two years!

While I was attending the morning drill of the Central Fire Station at Dresden, in Saxony, the captain in command told me that the city had, on an average, about six alarms of fire a week, I casually remarked that we had twenty-five a day in New York. He looked at me with wonderment and doubt, and when I repeated that we actually had between twenty and thirty alarms of fire a day in the Borough of Manhattan alone, he threw up his hands and exclaimed, “Thank heaven, it is not as bad as that here, or our beautiful city would be destroyed!”

And so we find, thanks to superior building construction, less hurry and rush in business methods, and a wholesome regard on the part of the citizens for certain rigid laws covering the use of explosives and materials of all kinds which usually cause fire, the lot of the foreign fire-fighter is not as strenuous as that of his brother fireman on this side of the water. Because of the excellent character of the buildings abroad fires burn slowly, and rarely extend beyond the room or floor in which they start. Here, on the other hand, the conditions are entirely different. Our fires are larger, more destructive, and more frequent, compelling us to support not only the most effective, but most expensive, fire-departments in the world; and yet, in spite of all this, our annual fire losses are from ten to twenty times more than those of any country in Europe.

Better building laws and the universal adoption of fire-prevention ordinances, are going to change all this for us, in time, but as yet our annual fire loss stuns the average European by its enormous total.

In London, the fire-department comes under the supervision of the city authorities, the London County Council looking after the administration of the “Metropolitan Fire-Brigade,” as it is

AN ENGLISH FIRE-ENGINE.

called; and this brigade, in management and routine work, is not unlike many large American fire-departments, though the apparatus used is radically different. A naval officer has always been chief of the London fire-brigade, and the firemen are usually recruited from the marine service, a time-honored custom giving preference to men who have been at least five years at sea.

A MODERN LONDON FIRE STATION.

It is argued that the work of a fireman is of a nature more readily performed by a sailor, who is not only accustomed to danger and exposure of all kinds, but is trained to climbing and working in perilous positions. These new men, after passing a severe physical examination before a medical hoard, are put through three months’ careful schooling at fire headquarters, where they are not only taught how to handle every tool and implement used in the brigade, but become skilled in life-saving work.

The fire stations in London are much larger than the engine-houses found in American cities, and some of the newer buildings in appearance are not unlike some of our better-class apartment-houses, Indeed, this is practically what they are—a kind of apartment-house or barracks for the men and their families, as well as a station for the apparatus and the horses; and here the firemen live, occupying little apartments of from three to five rooms, according to their rank and position. They are, therefore, in the houses and on duty at all times, with the exception of one day's leave of absence in every fifteen. Enough firemen are found in each London fire station to make up three of our fire-companies, but only one third of these men are in service or on “call-duty" at a time, the rest being held in reserve to answer any other alarms which might come in, or to reinforce the first detachment leaving the house should their “call” prove to be a bad fire. And the men of each squad or detachment on “call-duty” are supposed to be fully dressed when an alarm comes in, and have only

A London “horse ladder-escape.”

to adjust their helmets, which hang in long rows on the walls of the apparatus floor, before jumping on the engines; and no exeception is made to this rule, even with the men on the last or “night tour”—from 9 p.m. until 7 a.m. This accounts for the pictures we sometimes see, showing the English firemen seated along the sides of their engines, in military fashion, fully uniformed.

In some of the stations, the London fire-brigade still clings to the rather old-fashioned custom of keeping the horses standing in harness, in stables at the rear, to be led out to the apparatus by hand in event of a “call”; and this makes their “turn-out” in answer to an alarm appear to us to be a peculiarly slow one, accustomed as we are to the remarkably quick methods employed in our fire-departments. But several of the newer houses, built within the last few years, are supplied with many ingenious American time-saving devices—sliding-poles, swinging-harness, etc.,—while the horses are kept in box-stalls on the apparatus floor, in convenient running distance of the engines, all of which has considerably reduced the time consumed in turning out to an alarm.

The English fire-engine is a small affair, much smaller than our steam fire-engines, having about one half the pumping capacity of the American engines; and nearly every one in London is a combined engine and hose-wagon,—the hose being carried in a box-like compartment on each side of the machine, just back of the driver's seat. This “hose-box” serves as a convenient place for the firemen to sit while riding to the fire. Quite a number of automobile fire-engines are in service in the London brigade, big, businesslike-looking machines, about as large as some of our motor-engines, and capable of great speed while answering an alarm. As a contrast to this up-to-date equipment, a number of “manuals,” or hand-engines, are in use, which ought to have been sent to the scrap-heap years ago.

In the way of ladder-trucks they are very well supplied in London, for, in addition to several “horse ladder-escapes,” as they are called (a fairly long extension ladder carried on a horse-drawn truck, and which can be detached from this truck and pushed close to a building), they have a great many hand-pushed “ladder-escapes” (a shorter extension ladder of the same type and pushed by hand) scattered throughout the city, housed in substations in the principal squares and more important thoroughfares, and intended for emergency use only until the regular apparatus arrives. They have also a few “aërial” ladder-trucks carrying a very long extension ladder which can be raised, by means of an ingenious little engine using carbonic-acid gas for its motive power, to a height of eighty feet or more. But aside from use as a kind of water-tower at large fires, these aërial ladders are rarely
A London fire-alarm box. extended to their full length, for the houses are nearly all of a uniform height, not over five or six floors, and the ordinary extension ladder is sufficiently long to reach the upper parts of these buildings.

The fire-alarm boxes, or “alarm-points,” as they are known, are found at convenient corners throughout London, and consist of an iron post about as high as an ordinary hitching-post. with a little round metal box at the top containing a glass door. You break the glass in this door, pull the little handle or knob inside, and thus send in a “fire-call” to four or five of the nearest fire stations. In all American cities when a fire-alarm box is “pulled” the alarm is transmitted direct to a central-bureau, usually at fire headquarters, and is then retransmitted, cither automatically or by hand, to the engine-houses: but in London—and in every other European city—each fire station has its own alarm-bureau, in charge of an officer and several operators, these stations receiving only the alarms from the boxes in the immediate neighborhood, All the stations, however, are connected with each other, and with a central-bureau or headquarters, by both telegraph and telephone.

Phatograph by Brown Bros.
RESCUE DRILL AT WINDSOR CASTLE

London has something like 4000 fires annually, and spends about $1,250,000 every year to support her fire-brigade. It is estimated that the city of New York (comprising the Boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond, and with about the same population as London proper) has 12,500 fires annually, and spends something over $7,500,000 to support her fire-department.

In Paris, the fire-brigade comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of War, and it is part of the French army that attends to the fire-fighting in this famous city. Two battalions of infantry, known as the “Regiment des Sapeurs Pompiers,” look after this important work, and although this brigade is recruited, drilled, and commanded hy various regimental officers, from a colonel down to a lieutenant, and belongs to the war department, it comes under the direct control of the Prefect of Police (Chief of Police), who is the actual head of the Paris fire-brigade.

These stations, or, as they are well named, casernes (barracks), are big structures filled with many firemen, on an average about 140 men in every building: and each station is equipped with numerous pieces of fire apparatus, and all are provided with a large inner court, or drill-yard, in which the men go through military evolutions twice daily, and where the new men, who are coming into the brigade continually, are taught how to handle all the various appliances used in fire-fighting. Here also the men are put through a series of calisthenic exercises two or three times a week, which, if introduced into the American fire-departments, would drive every man our of the service, so vigorous are these “stunts.” In acrobatic fashion the Paris firemen are compelled to climb ropes, jump hurdles, balance themselves in mid-air on frail wooden supports, perform on horizontal bars, execute a kind of “setting-up” drill en masse, and last, but not feast, climb up one of the walls of the courtyard, holding on by their finger-tips and the edges of their boots to little crevices in the wall, and falling, if they should slip, into a pile of sand at the bottom. In addition to all this they have the regulation hose, ladder, and life-saving drills of all other fire-departments.

The Paris fire stations are thoroughly up to date in equipment, for we find them fitted with sliding-poles, swinging-harness, horses kept in box-stalls within a pole’s-length of the harness, automatic door-openers, and practically every quick-hitching device for which American fire-departments are noted. And in addition to steam fire-engines, aërial ladder-trucks, and hose-wagons—the latter very much of the same type as those used in this country—there are a great many automobile fire-engines in service, and quite a few of the cascrnes, or stations, are equipped entirely with motor-driven apparatus. There are also several electric fire-engines in use, practical-looking affairs,

A Paris auto fire-engine.

carrying a large square tank containing 400 gallons of water, which is given the necessary pressure to reach the top of any of the buildings by means of an ingenious set of electric pumps placed at the back of the tank. As it only requires a few men to handle this en-gine, and the mere throwing over of a lever to get it under way, it is used at many small fires, and is sometimes the first and only piece of apparatus to leave a station in answer to an alarm, for there is no regular “assignment” of engines and ladder-trucks sent to the alarm-boxes in Paris, as is the case in our cities, and the operation of their fire-alarm system differs from that of any other city in the world.

The fire-alarm boxes are large, ornate-looking
A Paris fire-alarm box. affairs, placed on the corners of the principal boulevards and streets and in the public squares, and directions on the outside of these boxes inform you that, in addition to breaking the glass door (which automatically transmits the number of the box to the nearest fire station), you must also use the telephone inside and give a description of the fire, its character, size, and location (street number if possible); and it is necessary to go through all this proceeding before the sending of an alarm is considered complete. This alarm is received in the alarm- or “watch-room,” of the nearest fire station. There an operator picks up a telephone receiver and listens for your description of the fire, and he decides, according to the message received, the number of pieces and character of the apparatus which is to answer the alarm. For example, if it is only a small fire—a window-curtain or a chimney—he simply orders out one piece of apparatus, an electric engine, such as was described above, or, perhaps, a fourgor—a sort of hose-wagon carrying a squad of men, short ladders, hose, and tools and appliances of all kinds. If, on the other hand, the call comes from a factory or a tenement district, where rescue work may be expected, he then sends two wagon-loads of men and the grande-echelle (aërial ladder-truck), and if the fire appears dangerous, from the telephoned description, another ladder-truck and a steam fire-engine, or a motor-engine; but the engines are rarely used in Paris, as the water-pressure throughout the city is very fine, sufficient to reach the top of the average building; and the steamers are only sent out as a precaution, and are seldom put to work.

The fire-hydrants in Paris, as in every other city in Europe, are of the “flush” or sunken character, instead of the post-hydrants used in our cities, and are found in depressed basins in the sidewalk, near the curb, protected with iron covers; and the location of these hydrants is carefully indicated by metal signs on the walls of the buildings near by, which not only point out the exact position of each hydrant, but tell the amount of water pressure to be found at that outlet—a feature that our firemen would welcome.

All gas or electricity entering any building in Paris comes partially under the control of the fire-brigade, and the firemen carry keys on every piece of apparatus which enables them to open a small metal plate, always found at a certain spot in the sidewalks, and thus cut off either the gas of electric service from the building immediately on their arrival at a fire.

But in addition to this very sensible supervision of the gas and electric service by the fire-brigade, the Paris firemen have the added protection in their work of a very effective type of “smoke- helmet,” a deviec which is also used largely by the fire-brigades of Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Milan, and several other citics iu Europe. This is a metal helmet fastening securely around the neck of the fireman wearing it, and connected,
A Paris smoke-helmet. by means of an endless hose-pipe, with a portable air-pump kept out in the street and in charge of a fellow-fireman, who controls the amount of fresh air reaching the head-piece. It is claimed that, protected with this device, a fireman can enter a heavily smoke-charged building and work for quite a while in comparative comfort. We carry a smoke-helmet on nearly all the fire apparatus in this country, somewhat similar to the European appliance, but without the independent air-pump attachment, It is rarely used, however, as our firemen claim that it is unreliable, and hampers rather than aids them in their work. But among the foreign firemen the smoke-helmet is considered a valuable protection, and is used frequently.

Among other interesting appliances which the Paris firemen have found of great assistance to them in their work there may be mentioned a portable electric search-light, carried like an ordinary hand-lantern, fitted with a powerful storage battery, and producing a very intense, and, of course, a thoroughly safe light. It is used largely for night work or in dark, smoky cellars. Also a large hand-carried electric fan, which can be operated by hydraulic power as well as electricity,
A Berlin fire-alarm box. using the pressure from the street hydrants for this purpose; and this fan has been found useful for clearing rooms or hallways of heavy smoke or poisonous vapors.

Paris, with a population of 2,750,000 souls, has about 1800 fires every year, and spends, annually, $575,000 to support her fire-brigade, an organization of some eighteen hundred men which can be turned into the field as two battalions of infantry at short notice. Therefore this expenditure might be said to provide two kinds af protection—military as well as civic. But splendid building laws and equally excellent laws covering the use and storage of explosives ant inflammable materials of all kinds, have made the work of her firemen a comparatively easy one, and the large fire is of such rare occurrence in this famous city that the “French Pompier,” using methods which appear very amusing to American visitors, is enabled to make a most satisfactory yearly showing to his Minister of War.

In Berlin, and in practically every other German city, the fire-brigade is managed upon almost the same general plan as the brigades found in London and Paris, and the apparatus, in nearly every instance of German manufacture, is very similar to that used by the English and French firemen. The men are all husky fellows, well drilled and military in appearance, and the majority are ex-soldiers, as preference is given to men who have seen army service in recruiting new members for the brigade. The fire stations are usually very large, sometimes occupying as much space as would be covered by an entire block in an American city, and nearly all of the stations are built in rectangular form, with a spacious inner court, or drill-yard, in the middle. On one side of this yard will be found the engines, ladder-trucks, etc,, housed in individual compartments, or barns, and on the other the stables for the horses; while the upper part of the building on both sides is occupied as dormitories or lounging-rooms for the men, and quarters for the officers. Every station has its own fire alarm-bureau, or “watch-room,” looked after by an officer and two or three operators. The “turnout” in answer to an alarm in a German fire station is very similar to an artillery drill, and is performed in the same stiff, almost automatic, manner, for the brigades are conducted on strict military lines,

The men in these stations are divided into littke squads, each commanded by a petty officer, or oberfeuerwehrmann, as he is called, and each squad placed in charge of a separate piece of apparatus, When an alarm strikes in the “watch-room,” a bell is started ringing in the quarters of the men, which sends them clattering down the long flight of stairs in their heavy leather boots, while they hastily adjust coats, belts, and helmets. Reaching the yard, each squad breaks up into two detachments, two men, the driver and his aide, running to the stable for the horses, the rest for their respective pieces of apparatus. The doors of the apparatus barns are thrown open, and the engines, ladder-trucks, and wagons are found standing there with poles detached, the latter lying on the floor directly under each machine. At

A Berlin auto fire-engine.

a command given by the petty officer the pole is lifted up, shaved back in its socket, and the kingpin dropped into place. The men then jump back to the wheels at each side, and at another command the apparatus is pushed out into the yard. By this time, the horses, fully harnessed, have been brought over from the stables by the other two men, and are backed into position beside the

BURNING OIL WAREHOUSE ON THE WATER-FRONT, HAMBURG.

pole, the traces and pole-straps are locked, and at another command from the petty officer the driver and the rest of the men jump into their places on top of the apparatus, and salute the brandmeister, or commanding officer, of the station. This official, leisurely getting into a six-seated wagon with his associate officers, then gives the order to “go,” and, headed by the wagon containing the chief and his aides, the procession dashes out through the arched driveway into the main thoroughfare, thus completing an exhibition which, when witnessed by Americans, usually provokes a laugh. And when I add that upon the receipt of an alarm in the “watch-room” the location of the box is written down on a large yellow paper blank, bearing the word “Teuer!” at its top; that this blank is folded carefully and sent down to the apparatus floor by means of a small hand-lift, or elevator; that it is taken therefrom by the commanding officer and read deliberately before he steps into his feuer-wagon, it will be seen that the Germans believe in attending to everything, even a call as urgent as an alarm of fire, in a thoroughly official and dignified manner. But in Berlin much of this military detail and pomp has been done away with, and, aided by swinging-harness and many other quick-hitching devices, the firemen make a more rapid exit in answer to a call, And once in the streets, they cover the ground at great speed, for the engines are light and the horses splendid, and every one, even the Kaiser himself, gives a clear field to the Fewerwehr.

It costs the Berliners, with not quite the population of Paris, $485,000 a year to maintain their excellent fire-brigade, excellent because the fire loss in this royal city is hardly more than a fifth of that in New York. But much of this remarkably low loss in the German capital is due to the careful work of the brigade in preventing any damage to property other than that caused by the actual extinguishment of the fire. As an example of the conscientious way in which the Berlin firemen attend to their labors, it may be explained that, at fires in the residential districts, where it is found possible to confine the fire to some one room, tarpaulins, or waterproof covers, are spread over the stairs and through the halls before the hose is brought to the house, and no windows are broken unless absolutely necessary, When our buildings are all as excellent as theirs, and our citizens are all working as harmoniously together to prevent fire, we may find it safe to adopt some of the deliberate and careful methods of the German firemen.