108 Fun Facts About Firefighter

Which emperor created the Vigiles, Rome's corps of firefighting watchmen, in AD 6?

Augustus created the Vigiles in AD 6 after fires destroyed parts of Rome, paying for them with a new tax on the sale of slaves; their seven cohorts doubled as the city's night watch.

The first known fire pump was devised in the third century BC by Ctesibius, an inventor in which ancient city?

Alexandria was home to Ctesibius, whose force pump could throw a jet of water; none of his own writings survive, so the device is known only through later authors such as Vitruvius and Hero.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 began in a bakery on which street?

Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane caught fire early on 2 September 1666; the blaze destroyed more than 13,000 houses and 87 parish churches, yet only a handful of deaths were officially recorded.

After the 1666 fire, London's first fire brigades were run by whom?

Insurance companies formed private brigades after the fire and fixed metal marks to the buildings they covered; the old tale that crews stood by while uninsured houses burned is now treated as a myth.

Which firefighting tool did Dutch painter Jan van der Heyden's Amsterdam workshop develop in the 1670s?

The fire hose came out of van der Heyden's workshop: its sewn leather lengths let crews get close to a blaze and aim water accurately, and Amsterdam put him in charge of its firefighting equipment.

Which American founding father co-founded the Union Fire Company, a colonial bucket brigade?

Benjamin Franklin helped form the Union Fire Company in Philadelphia in 1736; besides buckets for water, every member had to bring strong bags for carrying goods out of danger and keeping them safe.

Which US city created the first fully paid, full-time professional fire department in 1853?

Cincinnati set up the first fully paid fire department in 1853 after a fire hit Miles Greenwood's ironworks; he helped build the first practical steam fire engine and became the department's first chief.

Molly Williams, remembered as America's first known female firefighter, is said to have hauled a pumper through what in 1818?

A blizzard: with many of the company's men sick, Williams, an enslaved woman who cooked and cleaned at the firehouse, is said to have taken the drag ropes and pulled New York's Oceanus 11 pumper through deep snow.

Which Wisconsin forest fire, the deadliest in American history, burned on the same night as the Great Chicago Fire?

The Peshtigo Fire killed an estimated 1,200 to 2,500 people in northeastern Wisconsin that night in 1871, several times Chicago's toll, yet, overshadowed by the city's blaze, it was largely forgotten.

Who later claimed to have invented the story that Mrs O'Leary's cow started the Great Chicago Fire?

A newspaper reporter, Michael Ahern, later claimed he had made up the cow-and-lantern story; Chicago's city council formally cleared Mrs O'Leary in 1997.

US Fire Prevention Week marks the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire in which month?

October: the week is always the Sunday-to-Saturday span that contains the 9th, the day in 1871 when the Chicago fire did most of its damage, so its dates shift each year to keep that anniversary inside.

Which president proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week in 1925?

Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week in 1925, calling the roughly 15,000 American fire deaths of the year before 'startling'; Woodrow Wilson had proclaimed a single Fire Prevention Day in 1920.

The three sides of the classic 'fire triangle' are heat, oxygen and what?

Fuel completes the triangle with heat and oxygen; remove any one and the fire goes out. Add a fourth element, the chemical chain reaction, and you have the fire tetrahedron taught in modern training.

In the US classification system, a fire involving cooking oils and fats is which class?

K, for kitchen, is the US class for cooking oils and fats; wet-chemical extinguishers turn the burning fat into a soapy foam that smothers it. Europe and Australia call the same fires Class F.

Burning magnesium, titanium or sodium is classed as which type of fire in the US?

Class D covers combustible metals such as magnesium, titanium and sodium; water can make them burn harder, so they are smothered with special dry powders instead.

What do firefighters call the moment when built-up heat makes everything in a room ignite almost at once?

Flashover comes when heat radiating down from the smoke layer under the ceiling brings every exposed surface to ignition temperature together; a small flame can take a room there in a few minutes.

What does the acronym SCBA stand for on a firefighter's back?

A Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus carries compressed air in a cylinder on the firefighter's back, typically rated for 30, 45 or 60 minutes, so crews never breathe the toxic smoke.

A PASS device worn by firefighters sounds an alarm when what happens?

The wearer stops moving for about 30 seconds and the Personal Alert Safety System sounds a piercing 95-decibel alarm, so rescuers can find a downed firefighter by ear in zero visibility.

When the FDNY at first would not issue the Halligan bar, designed by one of its chiefs, what did many firefighters do?

Bought their own: FDNY crews paid out of pocket for the bar First Deputy Chief Hugh Halligan designed, while Boston became its first big customer; New York's department only supplied the tool later.

A Halligan bar paired with a flat-head axe is known in the fire service as what?

The irons are a Halligan bar and a flat-head axe, called a married set because the bar fits onto the axe head; carried as one, the pair is the standard kit for forcing a locked door.

George Hurst invented the Jaws of Life around 1961 after watching a slow extrication at what kind of event?

Hurst watched rescuers spend more than an hour freeing a driver after a stock car race crash in 1961; the 'Jaws of Life' name came from people saying the tool snatched victims from the jaws of death.

The first permanent fire pole, installed in a Chicago fire station in 1878, was made of what?

Pine wood: Captain David Kenyon's crew sanded and varnished a Georgia pine beam into a three-inch pole after a colleague beat the stairs by sliding down a hay pole; brass poles followed from 1880, as wood could splinter.

Why did Dalmatians become the traditional fire station dog?

They ran alongside horse-drawn engines to clear the way because Dalmatians, long used as carriage dogs, get on unusually well with horses; the breed has stayed on as a firehouse mascot ever since.

Under the NFPA colour code, which cap colour marks the strongest hydrants, flowing 1,500 gallons a minute or more?

Blue caps mark Class AA hydrants, the strongest; green means 1,000-1,499 gallons a minute, orange 500-999 and red under 500, so an arriving crew can tell at a glance whether one hydrant will supply enough water.

Which DuPont meta-aramid fibre became the classic flame-resistant shell fabric of turnout gear?

Nomex, a meta-aramid DuPont brought to market in 1967, won't melt, drip or feed a flame, so it became the standard outer-shell and hood fabric for firefighters' turnout gear.

In most US fire departments, a white helmet identifies whom?

A chief officer wears white in most US departments and company officers such as captains usually wear red, so rank can be read at a glance; the code is custom, and colours vary from department to department.

Canadian fire helmets often replace the traditional eagle ornament with which animal?

Canadian helmets often carry a beaver, the national animal, where American ones have the eagle; the eagle finial itself began as a sculpture on a volunteer firefighter's grave around 1825 before migrating onto helmets.

Why do many fire stations hang their used hoses in a tall tower?

To dry them out: water left standing inside a hose can rot the material and make it unreliable, so stations built towers tall enough to hang a full length; modern synthetic hoses can be stored wet.

A tiller truck is distinctive because it has what?

Two drivers with separate steering wheels work a tiller truck: the second, at the back, steers the trailer's wheels independently, so the long ladder rig can take far sharper turns on narrow or winding streets.

On the fireground, which company is responsible for pumping water and stretching hose lines?

The engine company runs the pumper and stretches the hose lines, while the truck company brings the ladders and opens up the roof or windows to let heat and smoke out, so crews inside can work more safely.

A 2009 US Fire Administration study found which colours easiest to spot on emergency vehicles in daylight?

Fluorescent yellow-green and orange were the easiest colours to see in daylight, the 2009 study concluded; visibility is why some US fire engines are painted lime-yellow rather than the traditional red.

What were Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley the first of when they dropped onto an Idaho forest fire in 1940?

Smokejumpers Robinson and Cooley parachuted into the Nez Perce National Forest on 12 July 1940, a year after test jumps in Washington state showed crews could land safely in rough, timbered mountains.

Which Norman Maclean book covers the 1949 Mann Gulch fire that killed thirteen firefighters?

Young Men and Fire, published in 1992 after Maclean's death, reconstructs the 5 August 1949 Mann Gulch blowup; the tragedy fed into the Ten Standard Firefighting Orders adopted in 1957.

The Pulaski, the standard wildland firefighting tool, combines an axe with what?

An adze-like grubbing blade backs the Pulaski's axe; ranger Ed Pulaski, credited with the design around 1911, had held his crew in a mine tunnel at gunpoint during the Great Fire of 1910, and all but five survived.

The Great Fire of 1910 torched about three million acres in Idaho and Montana in how many days?

Two days of hurricane-force winds, 20-21 August 1910, fused hundreds of small fires into one firestorm; at least 85 people died, most of them firefighters, and the shock set the Forest Service on fighting every fire.

The Granite Mountain Hotshots, 19 of whom died in the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, were based in which state?

Arizona: the crew belonged to the Prescott Fire Department and lost 19 of its 20 members on 30 June 2013 when wind drove the fire over them; the one survivor had been posted apart as a lookout.

Smokey Bear received so much fan mail that he was given his own what in 1964?

ZIP code 20252 went to Smokey in 1964 because so much mail was arriving for the real bear at the National Zoo, a cub rescued with badly burned paws from a charred tree after a 1950 New Mexico fire.

In 2001, Smokey Bear's slogan changed to 'Only you can prevent...' what?

In 2001 the line became 'Only You Can Prevent Wildfires', recognising that grasslands and other non-forest areas burn too; the original 'forest fires' wording dated from 1947.

Aerial retardant released from air tankers is dyed red for what reason?

To mark where it has been dropped: the red comes from iron oxide or a dye that fades in sunlight, so aircrews can see which strips of ground are already coated and aim the next load beside them.

International Firefighters' Day, 4 May, is the feast day of which patron saint of firefighters?

Saint Florian, a Roman officer martyred in 304, is the patron saint of firefighters and his feast day is 4 May; the date was adopted after five Australian firefighters died in a 1998 bushfire near Linton, Victoria.

What was tied to the neck of the patron saint of firefighters when he was thrown into the Enns River?

A millstone, in the usual telling: the Roman officer refused to renounce his Christian faith during Diocletian's persecution and was thrown into the Enns around 304; his cult later spread across central Europe.

How many FDNY members were killed in the September 11 attacks?

343 FDNY members died on 11 September 2001, by far the department's deadliest day; chaplain Mychal Judge, killed by debris in the North Tower lobby, was carried out by rescuers and recorded as the first certified fatality.

Until the Metropolitan Fire District took over in 1865, who fought New York City's fires?

Volunteer companies, fierce rivals that sometimes ran with street gangs, fought the city's fires until the state created a paid force in 1865; Boss Tweed had helped found one, the 'Big Six'.

The Paris Fire Brigade is unusual among big-city fire services because it is a unit of what?

Napoleon made the Paris brigade a unit of the French Army in 1811 after a deadly fire at the Austrian embassy ball of 1810; Marseille's firefighters belong to the Navy instead.

Scottish fire chief James Braidwood built what is often called the first municipal fire brigade in 1824 in which city?

Edinburgh's brigade made Braidwood's name: London hired him in 1833 to lead its Fire Engine Establishment, and he was still in charge when a falling wall killed him at the Tooley Street blaze of 1861.

Locked doors trapped 146 workers, most of them young immigrant women, in which 1911 New York fire?

Triangle Shirtwaist's owners kept stairwell doors locked to stop theft and unauthorised breaks, so workers on the top floors of the Asch Building could not get out; the deaths pushed New York to rewrite its factory safety laws.

Boston's 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire led to laws requiring exit doors to do what?

Swing outward: the club's unlocked doors opened inward and jammed under the crush, and fire officials testified that outward-opening doors could have saved some 300 lives; new laws also barred a revolving door as the only exit.

Chicago's Iroquois Theatre, which burned in 1903 with 602 deaths, had been advertised as what?

Absolutely fireproof was the billing in its ads and playbills when the Iroquois opened about a month earlier; the 30 December 1903 blaze killed 602 people and spread the use of panic-bar exit latches and asbestos fire curtains.

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 takes its title from the temperature at which what supposedly ignites?

Bradbury said 451 °F was the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns; he typed the first draft in nine days on a rented typewriter in a UCLA library basement, at ten cents per half hour.

Who directed the 1991 firefighting film Backdraft?

Ron Howard directed Backdraft, the Chicago-set film about firefighters on the trail of a serial arsonist; it spawned a Universal Studios Hollywood attraction that ran from 1992 to 2010.

What number does the fictional station in the NBC drama Chicago Fire carry?

Firehouse 51 is the show's fictional station; its exteriors are shot at a working Chicago Fire Department house, the quarters of Engine 18, and the 2012 series grew into NBC's One Chicago franchise.

The 1970s series Emergency! followed paramedics Gage and DeSoto of which fire department?

Los Angeles County paramedics Gage and DeSoto made a new job famous: paramedic programmes sprang up across the country after the show's 1972 debut, and the Smithsonian took in its props in 2000.

In which country is Fireman Sam's fictional home village of Pontypandy?

Wales: Pontypandy's name blends real Welsh towns including Pontypridd and Tonypandy, though the idea for the series came from a London firefighter, Dave Jones, who pitched it to the maker of SuperTed.

Which country launched the world's first emergency telephone number in 1937?

The United Kingdom launched 999 in London on 30 June 1937; within days a Hampstead burglar became the first person arrested after a 999 call. America's first 911 call came in Haleyville, Alabama, in 1968.

What is the single most common killer of US firefighters on duty?

Sudden cardiac death causes roughly 40 to 45 percent of on-duty US firefighter deaths in NFPA tallies: working flat out in heavy gear drives the heart rate to its peak, which can trigger a heart attack.

In the UK and Ireland, on-call firefighters paid a yearly standby fee plus a payment per call-out are called what?

Retained firefighters often hold other full-time jobs and are summoned by pager, so they have to live or work close to their station.

The private rescue firm Falck began and grew into a nationwide service in which country?

Denmark's Sophus Falck is said to have watched, aged 19, the disorganised fight to save the burning Christiansborg Palace in 1884; in 1906 he founded a private rescue corps to do better.

What did a 2018 Act of Congress order the CDC to set up in response to cancer among firefighters?

A national registry: the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act told the CDC to collect firefighters' cancer data, after a NIOSH study found they developed mesothelioma at about twice the expected rate.

Which kind of emergency accounts for roughly two in three calls answered by US fire departments?

Medical help makes up about 64 percent of US fire department calls; actual fires are under 4 percent, fewer than the false alarms.

Which word describes more than half of the firefighters serving communities across the United States?

Volunteers are the majority of US firefighters, and in Germany the share is higher still, at roughly 97 percent.

Which actor, an FDNY firefighter in the early 1980s, rejoined his old company to dig through rubble after 9/11?

Steve Buscemi served with Engine 55 in Manhattan's Little Italy while secretly taking acting classes, and after the attacks he worked 12-hour shifts at the site for a week.

Which 1984 comedy used the FDNY's Hook & Ladder 8 firehouse in Tribeca as the headquarters of its heroes?

Ghostbusters used only the outside of the Tribeca firehouse; the interior scenes were shot in a studio and a decommissioned fire station on the West Coast.

Why do most fire departments bar firefighters from growing a full beard?

It breaks the mask seal: facial hair stops an air mask sitting tight against the skin, the same reason many airlines have required pilots to shave.

What is the most common cause of death among the victims of building fires, ahead of burns?

Smoke inhalation kills most fire victims, largely because carbon monoxide binds to the blood's haemoglobin more than 200 times as readily as oxygen does.

In a standard wet-pipe system, what makes one ceiling sprinkler open and start releasing water?

Heat at that one head bursts a glass bulb or melts a metal link, so only the sprinklers close to the flames open rather than every head in the building at once.

When a US wildland blaze is declared 100 percent contained, what has actually been completed?

A barrier line around it is all that containment promises; the blaze inside can burn on, and counts as controlled only once it is completely extinguished.

The NYPD are nicknamed the Finest; which matching nickname belongs to the firefighters of the FDNY?

The Bravest is the FDNY's official motto as well as its nickname, and the department's ambulance crews have a motto of their own: the Best.

Herds of which animal have been used across North America since 1990 to clear dry brush from fire-prone hills?

Goats have cleared unwanted vegetation for centuries, and the modern revival began in 1990 when herds were sent onto West Coast hillsides thought to be in danger of burning.

Station 19, the ABC drama about firefighters, was spun off from which long-running hospital series?

Grey's Anatomy had already produced one spin-off, Private Practice, and Station 19 kept its parent's Seattle setting.

Which Dalmatian in firefighting gear has been the mascot of the National Fire Protection Association since 1951?

Sparky the Fire Dog was created to teach fire safety to children, which makes him the fire service's answer to the forest rangers' Smokey Bear.

Which distress word, said three times over the radio, does a trapped or lost firefighter use to call for rescue?

Mayday was coined in the 1920s by a radio officer at Croydon Airport, who based it on m'aider, 'help me', for the benefit of crews flying the Paris route.

Why do firefighters cut holes in the roof of a burning building?

To vent heat and smoke: clearing them upward lets crews find trapped people and reach the flames, and without it unburned gases can build toward an explosion.

In the PASS technique taught for using a fire extinguisher, which action does the letter P stand for?

Pull the pin comes first, then aim, squeeze and sweep, with the nozzle aimed low and swept from side to side across the base of the flames.

Which colour of flag names the US National Weather Service warning for weather that helps wildland blazes spread?

Red flag warnings go out for very low humidity and high or erratic winds, and since 2019 forecasters can go one step higher with an 'extreme' version.

Which name do US fire departments commonly give the flared, pointed badge worn on uniforms and painted on trucks?

The Maltese cross is the popular name, yet the fire service badge has curved arcs between its points and is strictly a different shape, the Firefighter's Cross.

What nickname do US firefighters give a new recruit who is still serving a trial period on the job?

Probie is short for probationary firefighter, the stretch in which a newcomer's skills are honed, tested and evaluated before the post becomes permanent.

Which comedian co-created the FX drama Rescue Me and starred as its troubled firefighter Tommy Gavin?

Denis Leary built the series around a firefighter visited in dreams by the ghost of his cousin, one of the colleagues he lost on September 11.

The real bear cub that became the living Smokey Bear was rescued after a 1950 forest fire in which US state?

New Mexico's Capitan Mountains were where the five-pound cub was found; he lived out his days at the National Zoo and died in 1976.

Fire science added which fourth element to the classic fire triangle to create the fire tetrahedron?

A chain reaction is what keeps flames feeding themselves, and combustion stops as soon as any one of the four elements is taken away.

In the US system of fire classes, a Class C fire is one that involves which hazard?

Live electricity earns its own class because water or any other conductive agent can give it a path straight back to the firefighter holding the hose.

On the NFPA 704 'fire diamond' posted on chemical stores, the blue quarter rates which kind of hazard?

Health risk is scored in the blue quarter from 0 to 4, beside a red quarter for flammability, so crews can read a building's dangers before going in.

Halon, once the favoured extinguishing gas for museums and mainframe computer rooms, was banned for damaging what?

The ozone layer was the casualty: production ended in most countries in 1994 under the Montreal Protocol, though halon stayed the extinguisher of choice aboard airliners.

Which radioactive element is found in tiny amounts inside a household ionisation smoke detector?

Americium-241 ionises the air inside the detector so that drifting smoke changes the reading and trips the alarm; the amount is small enough to be exempt from the rules for larger radioactive sources.

What do firefighters call the late stage of a job spent hunting for hidden hot spots that could rekindle?

Overhaul is the careful search of the burned area for any remaining heat, the unglamorous step that keeps a blaze from flaring up again after the crews have gone.

A forest blaze that races through the treetops, largely independent of the flames below, is which kind of fire?

Crown fires travel through the canopy rather than along the forest floor, and the moment a blaze climbs up into the treetops is known as crowning.

What do wildland crews call a fire they light on purpose in the path of an advancing blaze?

A backfire burns off the vegetation an advancing blaze would feed on, and it can also change the direction of the main fire's rising column of hot air.

What do meteorologists call a spinning column of flame and ash that rises from a large blaze?

Fire whirl is the meteorologists' term; 'firenado' is a loose nickname, because most of these vortices never stretch from the ground up to a cloud base as a true tornado does.

The Incident Command System used at US emergencies was first devised to fight blazes in which state?

California's fire agencies developed it in the 1970s, after the devastating 1970 fire season, including the Laguna blaze, showed they could not coordinate with one another.

Which star played the fire chief battling a skyscraper blaze in the 1974 disaster film The Towering Inferno?

Steve McQueen shared top billing with Paul Newman only after the credits were arranged diagonally, with one name at lower left and the other at upper right.

Which actor played the firefighter trapped in a burning warehouse, opposite John Travolta, in Ladder 49?

Joaquin Phoenix's character relives his whole career while he waits for rescue, starting as a fire academy graduate posted to his city's busiest firehouse.

In 9-1-1: Lone Star, Rob Lowe's fire captain leaves Manhattan to rebuild a firehouse in which Texas city?

Austin's Station 126 has lost all but one of its crew when Owen Strand arrives, the same rebuilding job he once did for his old company after September 11.

Which 2017 film starring Josh Brolin tells the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots?

Only the Brave grew out of a GQ magazine article about the crew and was first announced under the plainer title Granite Mountain.

In which 1987 romantic comedy does Steve Martin play a small-town fire chief sensitive about his enormous nose?

Roxanne moves the 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac to a modern fire station, where the witty chief falls for a visiting astronomy student.

In North American usage, what does each additional 'alarm' in a two- or three-alarm fire represent?

More units sent out is the usual meaning: the higher the alarm number, the more vehicles and firefighters have been called to the scene.

Which actor, known for his deep drawl and moustache, voiced Smokey Bear in public service ads from 2008?

Sam Elliott shares a birthday with the bear: he was born on 9 August 1944, the very day the Forest Service authorised Smokey as its symbol.

The 'Fill the Boot' collections run by US firefighters since 1954 raise money to fight which disease?

Muscular dystrophy became the chosen charity of the firefighters' union, the IAFF, in 1954, and the boot drives are launched each year on a National Boot Day.

Which Texan became world famous for capping blazing oil wells, including those set alight in Kuwait in 1991?

Red Adair was 75 when he went to Kuwait, and his 1962 battle with a pillar of flame in the Sahara inspired the John Wayne film Hellfighters.

What starts nearly 85 percent of the wildland blazes in the United States, by National Park Service figures?

Human activity is behind most of them, from unattended campfires and debris burning to discarded cigarettes and arson; lightning is one of only two natural causes.

Which director's 1989 romantic fantasy Always follows pilots who bomb forest fires from the air?

Steven Spielberg was remaking the 1943 drama A Guy Named Joe, and his main change was to move the story from the war to a modern aerial firefighting base.

The 'two-in, two-out' rule for crews entering a burning building is a regulation of which US federal agency?

OSHA wrote it into its respiratory protection standard: two firefighters go in together as buddies while two more wait outside, one of them tracking the pair inside.

Firefighters dread a BLEVE, an explosion that follows the rupture of which kind of container?

A pressurised liquid tank that splits open loses pressure all at once, so its superheated contents flash to vapour: a boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion.

The National Fallen Firefighters Memorial stands at the National Fire Academy in which Maryland town?

Emmitsburg has been home to the memorial since 1981, and Congress raised it to the rank of a National Memorial in 1990.

In hydraulic ventilation, what do firefighters aim out through a window to drag smoke from a room?

A cone of spray aimed around the opening entrains the smoke and carries it outside, a trick for moments when the other ways of clearing a building are unsafe.

Which nickname was given to the Bedford fire engines that troops crewed during UK firefighters' strikes?

Green Goddess engines were built for a Cold War civil defence force, then mothballed after 1968 and brought out again when regular crews walked out in 1977 and 2002.

In LCES, the safety routine US wildland crews set up on arriving at a blaze, what does the L stand for?

Lookouts head the list, followed by communications, escape routes and safety zones, all of which a crew must have in place before it starts work on a blaze.

Which FDNY chaplain, a Franciscan friar, was recorded as the first certified fatality of the September 11 attacks?

Mychal Judge had prayed over the dead outside before going into the North Tower lobby, where the emergency command post had been set up.

Which of these South American countries is one of the few in the world where every firefighter serves unpaid?

Chile's local fire corps are staffed entirely by unpaid members and all belong to a single national board, the Junta Nacional de Bomberos.

Which city's fire department is often cited as the largest in the world by number of staff, ahead of the FDNY?

Tokyo's department dates only from 1948, a product of Japan's post-war reorganisation of government, and has its headquarters in the Otemachi district.