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    Short History of Fire Fighting: Short History Series, #5
    Short History of Fire Fighting: Short History Series, #5
    Short History of Fire Fighting: Short History Series, #5
    Ebook161 pages1 hour

    Short History of Fire Fighting: Short History Series, #5

    By Paul R. Wonning

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    About this ebook

    Discover the fascinating history of the firefighter, fire departments and fire towers when you read the Short History of Fire Fighting. The book includes historical information on fire engines, bunker gear and other equipment needed by a fire department. The book includes an extensive listing of firefighter museums in the United States as well as section on fire towers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMossy Feet Books
    Release dateFeb 20, 2024
    ISBN9798224130955
    Short History of Fire Fighting: Short History Series, #5
    Author

    Paul R. Wonning

    Publisher of history, gardening, travel and fiction books. Gardening, history and travel seem an odd soup in which to stew one's life, but Paul has done just that. A gardener since 1975, he has spent his spare time reading history and traveling with his wife. He gardens, plans his travels and writes his books out in the sticks near a small town in southeast Indiana. He enjoys sharing the things he has learned about gardening, history and travel with his readers. The many books Paul has written reflect that joy of sharing. He also writes fiction in his spare time. Read and enjoy his books, if you will. Or dare.

    Read more from Paul R. Wonning

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      Book preview

      Short History of Fire Fighting - Paul R. Wonning

      Ancient Firefighting

      Historical evidence indicates that the first fire fighting equipment surfaced in the Egyptian city of Alexandria sometime in the Third Century BC. A Greek inventor named Ctesibius invented a water pump with which firefighters could spray water on a fire.

      Ctesibius (C. 285 - 222 BC)

      History knows little about Ctesibius' origins. Tradition holds that his father was a barber in Aspondia, a site near or in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Tradition suggests that he took up his father's career early in life and invented a counterweight-adjustable mirror. His greatest reputation is as a mathematician, engineer and inventor. Historical lore suggests he was the founder of the Alexandrian school of mathematics and engineering and served as the head of the Museum of Alexandria. Inventions credited to Ctesibius include the water pump, water organ, an improved water clock and several types of automated machines. His force pump found use in pumping water from wells and as one of the first primitive fire fighting machines.

      Firefighting did not become organized until the Romans began organizing fire brigades.

      Back to Table of Contents

      Roman Firefighting

      Marcus Licinius Crassus (c. 115 BC or 112 BC – 6 May 53 BC), often called the richest man in Rome, created the first known firefighting force. Fires were common in Rome; however the city had no organized firefighting force. Crassus started his own firefighting force by training about 500 of his slaves to fight fires. When a fire started, he would offer the owner of the building an exorbitantly low price for the property. If the owner accepted, Crassus had his slaves put out the fire. Crassus would then renovate the building and sell it a profit. If the owner refused, Crassus allowed the building to burn down.

      Slave Fire Fighting Brigades

      The Roman Emperor August established the first known permanent firefighting force in 6 AD. Augustus used elements from previous private fire fighting brigades to form a military style firefighting brigade of 600 slaves to fight fires. He placed smaller units in fourteen strategic areas around the city in permanent camps. These forces had problems communicating with each other, so Augustus reorganized the brigades using freedmen to staff the brigades.

      Vigils

      Calling these men vigils, he had them based in the same fourteen districts and had the men patrol the streets, looking for fires. The vigils doubled as policemen as they had authority to arrest people breaking laws. The equipment they used included fire buckets (amae), sponges (spongiae), force-pumps (siphones), axes (dolabrae), picks (secures), ladders (scalae), grappling hooks (falces), quilted blankets (centones), wicker mats (formiones), poles (perticae), brooms (scopae) and vinegar.

      Back to Table of Contents

      Early European Firefighting

      France's King Louis IX created the guet bourgeois, which was a combination police/fire protection group. The members of these groups served as a combination police and fire company as they conducted night watches looking for fires and lawbreakers. England had only rudimentary fire protection until 1666. That year the Great Fire of London raged across the city.

      Back to Table of Contents

      Great Fire of London - 1666

      A combination of high winds, drought and a close packed city built with wooden structures and crowded with sheds and yards packed high with flammable hay and straw. In addition, many of the houses had thatched roofs, which are highly flammable. Most houses and buildings used a material called wattle-and-daub to cover exterior walls. This material, composed of wooden lath (wattle) that workers cover with a wet, sticky mixture of clay, sand, animal dung and straw (daub), is flame resistant when it is new. However, many of the London buildings were old and the daub had dried out and broken away. This left the old, dry, flammable wattle exposed.

      Fire Fighting in 1666

      Organized fire fighting in this era did not exist. Firefighting in cities like London consisted of residents using bucket brigades to move water from a water source, like a cistern, well, lake or river, to the fire. Two lines of people formed. In one line, a person dipped the bucket into the water, filling it. They passed the bucket down the line and dumped it on the fire. The second line of people returned the empty bucket to the beginning of the first line for refilling. English law required every parish church to have fire fighting equipment stored in an easily accessible place. The equipment included long ladders, leather buckets, axes, and fire hooks. The people used the fire hooks to pull down buildings to create a fire break, which was an area cleared of flammable materials that denied the fire fuel and, hopefully, stopped it. Another method of fighting fires in the closely packed cities was to use gunpowder to demolish buildings, creating a firebreak. Mostly, these methods were effective most of the time.

      The Fire Starts

      The cause of the fire is still a mystery, but historians know it started on Pudding Lane, near the London Bridge, in the bakery shop owned by Thomas Farriner sometime after midnight on Sunday, September 2, 1666. The Farriner family slept upstairs above the bakery. They managed to escape the fire and climb down to safety. The mayor of London at the time, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, inexplicably delayed the decision to create firebreaks in the city, allowing the flames to spread. High winds whipped the flames into an inferno that ignited nearby buildings. London had suffered a drought, which had dried out the buildings and reduced the amount of water available to fight the fire.

      The Second Day, Monday September 3

      Civil order quickly broke down as people fled for their lives from the flames, attempting to carry what they could of their valued possessions. Sightseers, hearing of the calamity, came into the city to see the destruction and hampered what firefighting efforts were going on. They also clogged the streets, making it harder for those trying to escape to get out. King Charles II visited the city by floating down the Thames on a barge. He finally ordered firebreaks created and, according to historical lore, joined a bucket brigade. Rumors swirled through the city that foreign agents had started the fire, and that invasion was imminent.

      The Third Day - Tuesday, September 4

      The fire reached its climax on Tuesday as winds drove it on, allowing it to leap over the River Fleet and outflank the desperate firemen working frantically to create firebreaks to stop the flame's advance. Screaming people clotted the narrow alleyways and streets in their frantic flight to escape. Homeless people, city residents and the poor all joined in their terrified retreat from the inferno. The garrison at the Tower of London began using the gunpowder that they had in storage to blow up buildings to create firebreaks. This eventually helped stop the flames, however the sound of the explosions, as well as the British navy's use of gunpowder

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