With bonuses offered as incentives, rivalries ensued between groups. These fire marks are extremely rare these days as most of them were made of lead and were melted to make ammunition for the Revolutionary War. In 1752, insurance companies in the colonies began issuing plaques, or "fire marks," to be prominently displayed on building fronts as an incentive for volunteer fire fighters to save their insured buildings. Soon, six volunteer corps were established in Philadelphia. In 1736 young Benjamin Franklin, already one of the most influential men in Pennsylvania, began urging readers of his "Pennsylvanian Gazette" to establish fire-fighting companies. In 1679, Boston imported the first fire engine to reach America from London. About 1672 leather hose and couplings for joining lengths together were produced though leather hose had to be sewn like a fine boot, fabric and rubber-treated hose did not come into general use until 1870. The London fire stimulated the development of a two-person operated piston pump on wheels. The only equipment available to fight the London fire consisted of two-quart hand syringes and a similar, slightly larger syringe it burned for four days. London suffered a catastrophic fire in the year 1666. When a fire was spotted, the cry "throw out your buckets" would be sounded, and a bucket brigade would be formed. The Boston selectmen ordered, "noe man shall build his chimney with wood, nor cover his house with thatch." In 1648, Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam (New York City) was the first in the New World to appoint fire inspectors with the authority to impose fines for fire code violations. The Foreman of the pump companies would use a large "speaking trumpet" to give orders to and urge his crew on.įire prevention in the United States was born in 1630 in Boston. Fire fighting got an edge with the invention of the hand pumper, or Hand tub. Swabs (mops) were used to extinguish embers on thatched roofs. Hooks and chains were used to make firebreaks by pulling down walls of burning buildings to keep the fire from spreading. Later, with the invention of the hand pumper, bucket brigades were used to keep the pumper full of water. They passed buckets of water to the fire, and empty buckets back to the well to be refilled. “Bucket Brigades” were used commonly which consisted of two lines of people stretching from the town well to the fire. A baker must have three buckets and a brewer had to have six buckets on hand in case of fire. In the 1680s, in New York, the number of buckets a home or business needed was determined by the risk of fire. Laws often required residents to purchase them and keep them in repair. Leather buckets, hooks and chains, swabs, ladders, and archaic pumps were the tools of the trade in the early days.įire buckets in colonial towns had the owners names painted on them. Fire fighting equipment in the colonies was rudimentary at best. The dogs worked well at this task of protecting not only the horses, but the equipment in the stations and on the fire ground as well. Insurance companies paid the fire company that put out the fire, so the one that made it to the scene, hooked up to a hydrant and completed the task, got paid. Some of the firefighters were actually recruited not only for their strength in fighting fire but also for their fighting abilities to protect the company and its equipment. In the early days, most fire companies were volunteer or privately operated. Captain John Smith wrote of the fire in his journal: "Most of our apparel, lodging and private provisions were destroyed, I begin to think that it is safer for me to dwell in the wild Indian country than in this stockade, where fools accidentally discharge their muskets and others burn down their homes at night." Things haven’t changed much. On January 7, a fire leveled most of the fragile colony which was just barely a year old. The first recorded structure fire in the United States occurred in 1608 in the colony of Jamestown. The development of fire fighting forces in the United States, especially in the Northeast, has brought innovations in modern fire fighting throughout the world. These fire brigades not only responded to and fight fires, but also patrolled the streets with the authority to impose corporal punishment upon those who violated fire prevention codes.Ĭatastrophic fires have plagued the United States for almost 400 years. After nearly being destroyed by uncontrollable conflagrations, ancient Rome developed a fire department consisting of approximately 7,000 paid firefighters. It was then that an Egyptian from Alexandria named Ctesibus built a basic hand pump that could squirt a jet of water, but the idea was lost until the fire pump was reinvented about AD 1500. First attempts at firefighting can be traced as far back as the 2nd century.
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