Firefighter

“ When you ask a group of youngsters what each would like to be when he or she grows up, frequently, at least one will reply: "a fireman!" Even though the aspirations of youth often change over time, it is, nonetheless, a very telling answer. Children as well as adults recognize the extraordinary courage of firefighters—and the tremendous importance of their work. On this occasion, Americans of all ages join in paying grateful tribute to the heroic individuals who serve our Nation as professional and volunteer firefighters. ”

“ The toll would be much higher were it not for the skilled and dedicated individuals who are our Nation's firefighters. These Americans, our friends and neighbors, confront danger every day as they protect our lives, homes, and communities. They exemplify the very best in the American spirit. On National Firefighters Day, 1988, and all year long, we owe municipal, volunteer, and all other firefighters our heartfelt thanks, our utmost respect, and our thorough cooperation in their fire prevention, rescue, and safety efforts. ”

“ It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours.
It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate. ”

“ During Fire Prevention Week, our Nation also gives thanks for the invaluable service rendered by our firefighters, who risk their lives to preserve and protect our communities. These courageous public servants have inspired us with their dedication and professionalism. On September 11, 2001, we saw that our brave firefighters are among America's greatest heroes. As we remember the sacrifice of so many firefighters that day, let us draw great strength from their example of selfless service to others. These firefighters embodied the best of the American spirit. ”

“ On Sunday, October 15, 1995, we will pay our respects to these heroic individuals at the 14th annual National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service at the National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland. To honor their courageous work, let us rededicate ourselves to building a better, safer world for the generations to come. ”

“ I encourage the people of the United States to take an active role in fire prevention not only during this week, but also throughout the year. I call upon every citizen to pay tribute to our firefighters and emergency response personnel who have lost their lives or been injured in the line of duty and to those brave men and women who carry on their noble tradition of service. ”

“ Firefighters are working 18 hours a day, around the clock, trying to make sure that they get this blaze under control. We've got volunteers who are out here who are making sure that these firefighters have the food and the water and all the resources that they need. ”

“ Courageous firefighters have protected the lives of their neighbors from the ravages of fire since the beginning of civilization.
Volunteer and professional firefighters are members of America's most hazardous profession. More than half of the injuries in fires each year are sustained by firefighters, over 55,000 each year. ”

“ We also honor our Nation's brave firefighters.
Each year, the National Fire Protection Association and the Department of Homeland Security's United States Fire Administration raise awareness during Fire Prevention Week. ”

“ Our Nation's volunteer firefighters carry on this truly American tradition of citizen response for the common good. Like the Minutemen of our early years, these volunteers are ready to respond on short notice to help fellow citizens in need. Volunteer firefighters protect our lives, our families, and the economic life of our communities from the threat of destructive fire, often at great personal sacrifice. ”

“ They're doing an extraordinary job in some of the most dangerous and difficult conditions imaginable. Some are finally returning home for well-deserved rest. But the fire season isn't over, and as long as the fires burn, our firefighters will continue to receive our strong support to get the job done as quickly and safely as possible. ”

“ Professional and volunteer firefighters not only bring prompt, highly skilled assistance to victims of fire and other emergencies but also play a leading role in promoting public safety. Through schools and community programs across the country, firefighters are helping to educate the public—in particular, children—about ways to avoid fire and safety hazards. ”

“ During Fire Prevention Week, we underscore our commitment to advancing fire safety and awareness, and we honor the brave firefighters and volunteers who work to protect our lives, homes, and communities. ”

“ The city fireman, the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack’d square, The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring, The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water, The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets, the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders and their execution, The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors if the fire smoulders under them, The crowd with their lit faces watching, the glare and dense shadows ”

“ In our population of two million souls there is no one branch of the municipal service which renders such valuable services as the Fire Department. We are gathered here to-day to do honor to a few of the firemen who have rendered themselves famous during the year. These men have snatched persons from the jaws of death, but this is the duty of every fireman. The army and navy are called upon to destroy everything, but it is your duty to save everything. ”

“ Fire Brigade? I thought you'd suggest a few fire brigades. No, not exactly. I'll show you how to stop a thing of this kind." He went into his bed-room, and returned with the water-jug. An iron ladder from the main staircase led through a trap-door in the roof. GIDLING went up this ladder with the water-jug, while I waited to see the result in the sitting-room, I could hear him walking about on the roof, and I looked out for a deluge of water to descend down the chimney into the fire-place. But no deluge came. Presently GIDLING descended and entered the room with the empty water-jug. ”

“ Moreover, he noticed that other lads of his age who were employed in mercantile houses seemed to live more active lives, to make fairly good wages, and to have altogether a better time than he did. He had pictured the life in the fire department as one of brilliant excitement, highly spiced with adventure and danger; and he had fancied himself as a sort of hero in a blue uniform and with a big fireman’s hat on his head, dashing through the streets on a fire engine or rescuing people from burning houses. ”

“ From his father’s lips the boy had heard stories of the swift runs to fires, of thrilling midnight rescues, of brave firemen plunging into solid sheets of smoke and flame, and so strong a hold had these stories taken on his mind that his desire to become a fireman himself had slowly grown within him, until it became the one fixed and cherished ambition of his life. ”

“ No cowards are dismissed from the department, for the reason that none get into it.
The notion that there is a life-saving corps apart from the general body of firemen rests upon a mistake. They are one. Every fireman nowadays must pass muster at life-saving drill, must climb to the top of any building on his scaling-ladder, slide down with a rescued comrade, or jump without hesitation from the third story into the life-net spread below. ”

“ Then the patrol leader should report to the police or firemen, and offer the help of his patrol either to keep the crowd back or to run messages or guard property or to help in any way.
If you find a person with his clothes on fire, you should throw him flat on the floor, because flames only burn upwards, then roll him up in the hearthrug or carpet, coat or blanket, and take care in doing so that you don't catch fire yourself. The reason for doing this is that fire cannot continue to burn when it has no air. Then pour water over the patient to put out all sparks. ”

“ All apparatus for the Fire Department will be kept in this new shed back of us, and no Little Citizen [57] is ever to be allowed inside this door, unless it be one of the boys detailed as a fireman.
“You ten boys will have a dark-brown camp-uniform to show you are Firemen; and in case of a fire you will don the heavy overalls and caps kept in the Fire-house.”
As Uncle Ben explained the plan and held up a sample fireman’s uniform, the boys shouted and whistled and clapped with delight, for this sort of thing was very unusual and gratifying. ”

“ A foreman of the brigade stood looking calmly upwards engaged in low-toned conversation with a brother fireman, as if they were discussing theories of the picturesque and beautiful with special application to chimney-cans, clouds of smoke, and leaping tongues of fire. ”

“ 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 board, 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. ”

“ A heavy volume of black smoke rolled up toward the blue sky, the flames burst out through roofs and windows, and leaped for mad joy, walls crumbled down at their leisure, and I think that twenty-five minutes or half-an-hour elapsed before any steamer or hose-carriage made its appearance. I do not attach so much blame to the firemen themselves—although they are not so active as New York or Philadelphia firemen—as to the deficiency of the force. ”

“ The fact that the fireman can hear and count correctly the strokes of the gong in his sleep has meant life to many hundreds, and no end of property saved; for it is in the early moments of a fire that it can be dealt with summarily. I recall one instance in which the failure to interpret a signal properly, or the accident of taking a wrong road to the fire, cost a life, and, singularly enough, that of the wife of one of the firemen who answered the alarm. ”

“ The firemen fight with the flames as they close on the charms, like men determined to stand by their colours to the last, rushing into the burning houses, pulling them down, and drenching the blazing thatch, with great courage and endurance. ”

“ Fire Combating.—As to self-help, complication must always be avoided. The amateur fireman must be drilled on the simplest lines. One thing which must be instilled into him is not to waste water—a sure sign of lack of training. ”

“ I don't know as a fireman's life counts much to the city; but if it does something ought'er be done for the Amateur, 'cause if it hadn't been for him there'd be one driver short in the Department by this time. ”

“ Quitting the workshop half-clad, and running long distances, the fireman arrives panting at the fire, to breathe in, with lungs congested by the unusual effort, the rarefied and smoky atmosphere of the burning buildings. ”

“ 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 least, 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 trouble with most of the boys who want to become firemen is that they are so carried away with the idea of jumping out of bed at a moment’s notice and tearing away through the streets at full gallop, and then turning streams on the flames and climbing up ladders and all the rest of it, that they entirely 80forget the fact that there is a serious side to it all, and that being a good fireman involves more in the way of training, both physical and mental, than almost any other public career that is open to them. ”

“ THE BRAVE FIREMAN rescues many people who are caught in burning buildings, in this way risking his life that others may be saved from the smoke and flames. Many people owe their lives to the bravery of the firemen.
THE HOSE NOZZLE has been taken up to the roof of a building next the one afire and the firemen are sending the water into the upper floors of the burning building. The hose nozzle is very difficult for the firemen to hold. ”

“ It is but just to say here that the firemen were always nobly seconded, if not indeed anticipated, in these attempts by the officers and men of the Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire—a body which has long rendered priceless services to humanity under most appalling circumstances. The men of the Fire Brigade were taught to prevent, as much as possible, the access of air to the burning materials. What the open door of the ash pit is to the furnace of a steam-boiler the open street door is to the house on fire. ”