The Indianapolis journal., 1899-11-19
FIREMEN in TRAINING
BIG CLASSES AT THE SCHOOL OF IN
sTRUCTION IN NEW YORK CITY.
Teaching Men to Scale n Six-Story
Sport for the Old Hands.

Henry w McAdam, chief instructor in the
fire department of this borough. who has
been in the work of schooling firemen Tor
seventeen years. is putting the rank and
file of the Brooklyn department through the
regular course of training. He began with
the officers some months ago. The first Sc
lected Of the rank ana hie were the men
who are looking for promotion" they are
at the school now. The progress OF this
work will be interrupted from time to time
as it becomes necessary to instruct classes
of probationers. The instructor said this
morning that they were Of first Importance
in the sight of the department. He con-
tinued: I'm going to have every man of
the Brooklyn department over here, no
matter who he is. and put him through like
the recruits" At the required rate OF
progress it will be two years or more be-
fore the last raw Brooklyn fireman will
have passed through the school. Then,
required, the work will have all to be
done over again, for the instruction and
practice are never over for man for good.
School is held at headquarters on Sixty
seventh street There is spacious brick
foored courtyard there for practice, and it
is kept clean and free from encumbrances.
A wing Of the headquarters building, built
the school, opens conveniently on the yard.
1t is about twelve feet deep, twenty feet
wide and six stories high. 1t figures always
as the burning building" and it is so con-
structed that streams of water can be
thrown into any window without doing
damage to the building proper. Scaling lad
ders are here stretched from window to
window; men are let down from the roof
and Chamber over the cornice; the rooms
are flooded with water; dummies are thrown
out of the windows; men swing from ledge
TO ledge; everything that fireman Is called
upon to do in burning building is done In
this one from week to week. AT present IL
looks little the worse for wear. An en-
gine is kept in the courtyard there also Is
and soforth on wet days. There are fre-
extinguishing or lfe-saving appliances or
every common kind on hand, and in the
course of a week they are all in use at one
time another.
A REGULAR SCHOOL
School goes in at 9 o'clock every morning,
except Sundays, rain or shine, and keeps
until late in the afternoon, with an interval
at noon for dinner and rest. The term is
thirty days, time of probation during
which, however, the men are paid at the
rate of $500 year. The teacher keeps a
watchful eye over them not only to guard
and instruct them, but to estimate their
worth; if he thinks man is not ''up to the
mark" he rejects him. About per cent:
are rejected. If a man has not strength ana
courage the Instructor said to-day. ne is OF
no use to the department.. What you need
in man. said he, lis heart-a big heart
and some little nerve. A fireman with big
ter how dangerous it seems" So the teach
er weeds cut the men with small hearts,
because "a mans got to get along with the
heart he's got. All the instruction in the
@ a
days the class is shown how to make knots;
and how 70 keep the tools In order, ana
told how TO conduct themselves in smoke
filled subcelar and on hot roof and the
like
The men are first taught to build chain
of scaling ladders up six-foor wall and
climb up to the roof. This takes courage.
as il appeared this morning when the
Brooklyn men were going through the ex-
to the swaying single-barred, short-runged
ladders readily enough, and ran up lightly
passing with ease and confidence from lad
der to ladder. and so, at least. disappeared
over the roof others clutched the bar
nervously. mounted slowly and awkwardly
and tumbled over on the roof as though
hard and solid under foot. There was net
below nide and stretched substantially,
so that If there had been fall, the prob
ability of serious accident was small In
deed. in the seventeen years In which NC
Adam has been instructor, there have been
but two accidents, and they Were not Ia
ladder exercise the work looks like a game
of follow-my leader nervouSly played; ana
the pot" is kept boiling until some OF
the nervousness has worn OIL
SCALING A WALL.
Next comes instruction in behavior on a
window-sill-how to "straddle" it, and climb
in and ou., and stand up and swing from sill
to sill. This last is done with two ladders;
the man-five stories up-swings on one
scaling ladder from a sill and hooks an
other ladder over the next sill; then he
passes from one to the other in a swing.
How to come down with a lifeline alone,
and how to bring another man down. are
then taught There is good view or the
wall from Sixty-eighth street The chlldren
going home fir om school yesterday saw tne
n. en- hanging from the roof at a d didzy
height They stopped and exclaimed, and
crowd collected to watch. 1t took man man OF OF
the roof calmly, and slide down a long rope
with nothing but frail-lOoking little ap-
panee TO keep him IN fs}nb fTGm epple who lump
from windows takes long time and good
deal of nerve on the part OF the prooatio1n1oo 11o
erS. Dummies of from seVenty-nVe 10 lou
pounds are thrown out. to be caught IN a
hand-held net below. The half-doZen men
at the net keep their eyes on the wind ow,
which may be five stories high, ana MAKE
ready: the instructor stands behind and sig
nails TO the men above; then the dummy is
thrown, il may be TO the right or 1t may be
under it; if it strikes one of them, 1t will
kill him. When the men make first trial
Il takes the whole class to catch dummy
thrown from the fourth floor: when the
course is over, four men can eaten lOO
pounds thrown from the sixth. Running a
line of hose up a fire-escape is taught and
how to stretch line up a stairway, ana
how to control nozzle on ladder, and
how to run a line through cellar and
sub-celar-and all that. 1t takes every
hour of the thirty days to get through the
work planned.
IMAGINARY FIRES.
One day of every week there is what ap-
pears to be a game of fire" 1t is imagined
that the wing is ablaze, and that there are
inmates who can't get out save by way Of
the window or the roof. Then the engine is
started: the hose is turned on, and the dunn
mics are brought down the scaling ladders
or the lifelines. or caught in the nets. At
such times there is great excitement in the
| courtyard. At such times, too, various ex-
periences at other fires are made profitable
| to the new men. If, at a fire, a man has
done a daring or clever feat IL is Illus
trated at the school and practiced by the
pupils Situations of great danger in burn
ing buildings are repeated in the wing. Just
| how an inmate was saved by swinging him
| from window to window, or just how man
| escaped when IL appeared that he was
| surely lost-such incidents are acted over
again. with the window panes cool and
are taught resource, confidence and courage.
. 90 en- dvnr m