Daily camera., 1898-06-08
HEROES WHO FIGHT FIRE
Their Risks Increase In the Ratio
Of Our Progress.
Modern Buildings and Their Con-
veniences Add Enormously to the
Work Of the Firemen-Security
Built Upon Their SacriAoe.


him to expose it recklessly-that is to
say, needlessly. From the time when
he leaves his quarters in answer to an
alarm until he returns, he takes risk
that may at any moment set him
face to face with death in its most cruel
form. He needs nothing so much as
clear head; and nothing is priced so
highly, nothing puts him so surely in
the line of promotion; for as he ad-
vances in rank and responsibility, the
lives of others, as well as his own, come
to depend on his judgment The act
of conspicuous daring which the world
applauds is oftenest to the fireman a
matter of simple duty that had to be
done in that way because there was no
other. Nor is it always, or even usual
ly, the hardest duty, as he sees it. 1t
came easy to him because he is an ath-
lete trained to do such things, and be-
cause once for all it is easier to risk
ones life in the open, in the sight OF
ones fellows, than to face death alone,
caught like rat in a trap. That is the
real peril which he knows too well, but
of that the public hears only when he
has fought his last fight. and lost.
How literally our everyday security
of which we think, if we think of at
all. as a mere matter of course-is built
upon the supreme sacrifice of these de-
voted men, we realize at long intervals
when a disaster occurs such as the
one in which Chief Bresnan and Fore
man Rooney lost their lives three years
ago. They were crushed to death un-
der the great water tank in Twenty
fourth street factory that was on fire.
Its supports had been burned away An
examination that was then made OF the
water tanks in the city discovered 5000
that were either wholly unsupported,
except by the roof beams, or propped
on timbers, and therefore direct men
ace, not only to the firemen when they
were called there, but daily to those
living under them. 1t is not pleasant
to add that the departments Just de-
mand for a law that should compel
landlords either to build tanks on the
wall or on iron supports has not been
needed yet; but that il, unhappily, an
old story.
Seventeen years ago the collapse of a
Broadway building during fire con-
vinced the community that stone pill
lars were unsafe as supports. The fire
was in the basement, and the fremen
had turned the hose on. When the
water struck the hot granite columns
they cracked and fell, and the building
fell with them. There were upon the
roof at the time a dozen men of the
crew of truck company No. l, chop
ping holes for smoke vents. The ma
jority clung to the parapet, and hung
there till rescued. Two went down
into the furnace from which the flames
shot up 20 feet when the roof broke.
One, Fireman Thomas 1. Dougherty,
was a wearer of the Bennett medal, too.
His foreman answers on parade day,
when his name is called, that he "died
on the field of duty" These, at all
events, did not die in vain. Stone col
umns are not now used in supports for
buildings in New York.
So one might go on quoting the perils
of the firemen as SO many steps for
ward for the better protection OF the
rest of us. It was the burning OF the
St. George flats, and more recently OF
the Manhattan bank, in which dozen
men were disabled, that stamped the
CT q G
faulty and largely delusive. One might
even go further, and say the fireman's
risk increases in the ratio of our prog
ress or convenience. The water-tanks
came with the very high buildings,
which in themselves offer problems to
the fire fighters chat have not yet been
solved. The very air7shafts that were
hailed as the first advance in tenement
house building added enormously to
the fireman's work and risk, as we'll as
to the risk of everyone dwelling under
the roofs by acting as so many huge
chimneys that carried the fire to the
open windows opening upon them in
every story. More than half OF all the
fires in New York occur in tenement
houses. When the tenement house
commission of 1894 sat in this city,
considering means Of making them
safer and better, it received the most
practical help and advice from the fire.
men, especially from Chief Bresnan,
whose death occurred only few days
after he had testified as witness. The
recommendation upon which he in
sisted are now part OF the general tene-
ment house law.]acob A. Riis, in Cen
tury.