Firefighter Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
This firefighter trivia quiz has 108 free questions with answers and covers the whole world of firefighting: the Roman vigiles and Ben Franklin's bucket brigade, the Great Fires of London and Chicago, the tools of the trade (Halligan bar, Pulaski, Jaws of Life, turnout gear), fire science like the fire triangle and the classes of fire, wildland crews such as smokejumpers and hotshots, and the shows and films that made firehouse life famous. It works for a firehouse fundraiser, a Fire Prevention Week classroom session, a family quiz night or a probie's first-week ribbing. Questions run from easy ones any kid can answer to genuinely hard department history that only a chief would know. Every answer was checked against primary sources and encyclopaedia entries before publishing, so you can read the answers out loud with confidence.
30 of 108 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which emperor created the Vigiles, Rome's corps of firefighting watchmen, in AD 6?
Augustus
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.
Q 02The first known fire pump was devised in the third century BC by Ctesibius, an inventor in which ancient city?
Alexandria
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.
Q 03The Great Fire of London in 1666 began in a bakery on which street?
Pudding Lane
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.
Q 04After the 1666 fire, London's first fire brigades were run by whom?
Insurance companies
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.
Q 05Which firefighting tool did Dutch painter Jan van der Heyden's Amsterdam workshop develop in the 1670s?
The fire hose
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.
Q 06Which American founding father co-founded the Union Fire Company, a colonial bucket brigade?
Benjamin Franklin
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.
Q 07Which US city created the first fully paid, full-time professional fire department in 1853?
Cincinnati
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.
Q 08Molly Williams, remembered as America's first known female firefighter, is said to have hauled a pumper through what in 1818?
A blizzard
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.
Q 09Which Wisconsin forest fire, the deadliest in American history, burned on the same night as the Great Chicago Fire?
The Peshtigo 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.
Q 10Who later claimed to have invented the story that Mrs O'Leary's cow started the Great Chicago Fire?
A newspaper reporter
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.
Q 11US Fire Prevention Week marks the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire in which month?
October
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.
Q 12Which president proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week in 1925?
Calvin Coolidge
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.
Q 13The three sides of the classic 'fire triangle' are heat, oxygen and what?
Fuel
Q 21George Hurst invented the Jaws of Life around 1961 after watching a slow extrication at what kind of event?
A stock car race
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.
Q 22The first permanent fire pole, installed in a Chicago fire station in 1878, was made of what?
Pine wood
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.
Q 23Why did Dalmatians become the traditional fire station dog?
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.
Q 14In the US classification system, a fire involving cooking oils and fats is which class?
K
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.
Q 15Burning magnesium, titanium or sodium is classed as which type of fire in the US?
D
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.
Q 16What do firefighters call the moment when built-up heat makes everything in a room ignite almost at once?
Flashover
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.
Q 17What does the acronym SCBA stand for on a firefighter's back?
Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus
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.
Q 18A PASS device worn by firefighters sounds an alarm when what happens?
The wearer stops moving
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.
Q 19When the FDNY at first would not issue the Halligan bar, designed by one of its chiefs, what did many firefighters do?
Bought their own
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.
Q 20A Halligan bar paired with a flat-head axe is known in the fire service as what?
The irons
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.
They ran alongside horse-drawn engines to clear the way
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.
Q 24Under the NFPA colour code, which cap colour marks the strongest hydrants, flowing 1,500 gallons a minute or more?
Blue
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.
Q 25Which DuPont meta-aramid fibre became the classic flame-resistant shell fabric of turnout gear?
Nomex
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.
Q 26In most US fire departments, a white helmet identifies whom?
A chief officer
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.
Q 27Canadian fire helmets often replace the traditional eagle ornament with which animal?
A beaver
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.
Q 28Why do many fire stations hang their used hoses in a tall tower?
To dry them out
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.
Q 29A tiller truck is distinctive because it has what?
Two drivers with separate steering wheels
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.
Q 30On the fireground, which company is responsible for pumping water and stretching hose lines?
Engine company
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.