The History of Firefighting

Matthew E. Barnes was a firefighter who could be called many things including a hero, a friend, a husband, a father and even an angel. The story begins like many 9/11 stories do, with the planes being hijacked, he was one of the men working that day in the New York City Fire Department that would go into the World Trade Center, but would never come out. The 37-year old resident of Monroe, New York was a father to three boys and the husband to Ms. Susan Barnes; he would spend all his available time with his family, somehow slipping out of chores and such just to go fishing with his boys. Two years before the 9/11 he had saved two twins, Isabella and Jacob Kalodner from a fire in their mother, Linda Kalodner’s apartment, by climbing up a 100-foot aerial ladder to the 10th story to save the 6 week old twins.

To better understand the background of the contrasting views, we must look at how the fire service has developed around

One could say the Fire Service possess one unique quality about how it operates daily and that is the culture and the community that lies within every department. Culture is defined as defined by Miriam-Webster “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations (Definition of Culture, 2017, para. 5).” The many diverse aspects of each department in still’s a variety of cultural differences separating one department from the next. At the heart of all departments, fire service culture is the men and women who work and train hard to serve their communities as prescribed by the Fire Chief. The Fire Chief, however,

Ever since I was a young boy, I always wanted to be a firefighter. I played firefighter with my friends and we pretended to put our house and other objects out with the garden hose. We would jump out of the back of my dad’s truck with our hose just like the firefighters jumping out of their trucks. Every time I would see the fire truck drive by I would wave and say to my mom, “that is going to be me one day.”

This paper explores the different aspects in living a firefighter’s life. The topics that will be covered are the various types of technology when being a fireman, the different tactics you see on a day to day basis, the physical abilities one must be capable of, and the types of equipment used. The technology used today to help fight fires is extremely progressed and different than it was even just ten years ago. If it were not for these new inventions, communication would not be as easy and complex for any fire station. Firemen face different obstacles every day and have to be ready to jump right in with whatever the circumstance may be. Tactics such as

With that being said, society has raised its standards on what it thinks that a fire service member’s behavior should look like, and if we don’t meet those standards, we can be

Have you ever heard about a society that burns houses instead of putting them out? The book, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury is Science Fiction. In this book, Guy Montag is a firefighter that causes fires instead of putting them out. He began to question about his society when he met a young girl named Clarisse McClellan. He is also married to Mildred, who tries to suicide by taking too many sleeping pills and is out of her mind. In this society, the purpose of being a firefighter is to burn houses that hold books in them and arrest or kill the people who had been hiding the books. Towards the end of the story, Montag soon realizes that books can give you the knowledge one needs. The best way to keep that knowledge without someone

Firemen, while intimidating to the general public, are widely accepted and respected. This means that they serve as an embodiment of the public as a whole. In their hands fire is used to

There are situations that impact your everyday life that’s when we call the “Firefighters”. Their lifestyle is risky, they serve the people. Firefighters truly deserve the respect and honor from the community, at the same time, this is a way of showing gratitude for their courage. The firefighter station that I visited was the fire department in San Fernando called “ Station 98”, and their agency is Los Angeles Fire Department, it has been around since 1886.

The Great Chicago Fire, October 1871, October 10 of 1871 destroyed thousands of buildings, killed 300 people burned till october 10th 1871, and caused an estimated of $200 million in damages. The fire started at night in a barn owned by Patrick O’Leary and his wife Catherine . Legend says that a cow kicked a lit lantern which that started the fire. The fire burn through 9th of October speeding at 160 kilometers an hour. The fire destroyed 3.3 square miles of Chicago it burned for two days. It left than 100,000 homeless, it killed hundreds of people because of the fire. The fire was on the 8th of October 1871, the fire was going to fast and the fire killed to many people like hundred of people and destroyed thousands of buildings that costs

In October 8, 1871,Chicago,Illinois was a city ready to burn by the nightmare of wood.

A fire truck also known as a fire apparatus, fire engine, or fire appliance, is a specific vehicle designed primarily for firefighting. Many organizations employ fire engines for various other uses including EMS, hazmat, auto extrication and technical rescue. Its main roles include transporting firefighters, along with a supply of water and a full complement of equipment. The fire truck the early times fires were put out by throwing buckets of water into the fire, but the dangers and the slow process made this method not last long before a new invention took over, the hand pump (Betts). However, just like he buckets this method didn’t last long before the first fire engine was invented in the early 1800’s. The first fire engines were usually

Much like all events and natural phenomena that pose a threat to civilization, humans have learned to cope with and prevent the loss of human life and destruction of property in devastating blazes that can break out seemingly at random. Fighting fires was not always the science it is today, but due to the use of new technologies and the fundamental understanding of what fire is, how it spreads, how it can kill, and how it is stopped, our protocol when dealing with fires has increased our success rate and continues to grow with applications of engineering, chemistry, and meteorology.

A big topic in the duties of firefighting is why there are more men than women firefighting. Numerous people would think that a woman can’t do the entire cautionary details that it takes to become one. Here is what a woman by the name of Charlotte Whitton has to say about these rumors, “Whatever woman do they must do twice as well as men to be half as good, luckily this is not difficult” (Winters). One explanation to this outbreak is there are many laws protecting women, children, age, minorities, and religious beliefs that many firefighters break everyday that they are on the job. Many women have to endure a workplace that is well suited for male- dominated firehouses unlike that of the 1940’s than of the 21st century. One of the only setbacks for women to worry about when trying to become a firefighter is the physical ability test. Why you might ask, well most women aren’t as strong in the upper body as men usually are, that is not to say that women could weight lift to increase her chances of succeeding. Part of the time that female are at a fire station they get sexually harassed by the male firemen. There have been cases of men hiding video cameras in small place to video tape these ladies and show it to the whole fire house, but in these

     After visiting some actual fire departments, I realized as a firefighter you certainly have a lot to be proud of. It’s not your average job and does require quite a bit of organization to stay on top of everything. Everyday you have to be ready and prepared for just about anything that can happen. You never know what kinds