The Washington times., 1915-11-05
REAL TEST SHOWS
RESCUE co. s WORTH
Emergency Corps Easily Con-
quer Firemen's Worst Enc.
mies-Work In Helmets.

NEW YORK. Nov 5.-"The es-
compayn. known officially as Rescue
Company No. 1, is the most progressive
thing that has been done In the New
York Fire Department In many years,
said Robert Adamson, the fire commas
sioner. in discussing the report that a
second one of these companies was TO
be established In Manhattan In the near
But" ne continued, the scope Of
Its work is so novel from the depart
ment viewpoint that the present com
pany must be put to greater and more
varied tests than It has been subjected
to before we will consider adding
aecond rescue company to the force.
That We will have a second rescue COM
pany established downtown. however.
in the future may be set down as a
certainty, unless something extra
mot that these men In Rescue Com
pany No. 1 haven't come up to our ex-
pectations nor justified themselves in
the five months and half the com
kenlon told me the other day the work
the men did at one fire in New Cham
bers street not long ago. when they
went down into a cellar and cut off
leaking gas main that had knocked
out dozen men. more than paid for
the entire cost of the company up to
the present. But the department has
TO view an experiment such az this
from a good angie before II puts the
seal Of approval on It by extending Ms
scope.
Establish "Sm0ke Call"
'As IL works now the new emergency
rescue company, whose headquarters
are In Great Jones street. just off
Broadway, responds ~ all second
alarms In Manhattan sent out from be-
low Fifty-ninth street. and all third
alarms from below 18th street. In ad-
dition we have established a new signal
known as the smoke cali for Rescue
company No. 1. to which II will re-
spond anywhere in the greater city of
New York. although up the present
no such call has been sent In from out
side the limits of Manhattan since It
was established.
Up to the present. although the COM
pany has made good. II has not pecn
80 hardly pressed that. we need to
organize second company. That Is
fore. however. further tests Of the
work will have. to be made. 1t took us
a year to find the right kind of smoke
helmet with which to equip the men
and l sent a man all over Europe to
investigate helmets before the one we
wanted was found.
Fire Fighters Enemies.
In fighting fires the two greatest
enemies Of our department are thick.
heavy smoke and fumes coming from
acids and gas. Before we established
this emergency rescue company the
firemen had to measure the distance at
which they fought fire by their abil-
itv to withstand this smoke and sas
or acid fumes. Such smoke as came
from fire In the hold of a ship, from
burning sugar. from an explosion of
benzine. or what may be called an acid
fire. either kept. them at too great .
distance for really effective work or
else Knocked them out SO rapidly and
IN such numbers as to undo all their
bravery and willingness to go into the
danger belt.
The smoke masks have abled the
20 so into such places and stay for
half an hour at time without trou-
BILE. Since the company was organized
only one man has been knocked out,
and that was due to the fact that IL
was the first time he went into the
black smoke from an explosion Of ben.
zine. and then he came around ALI
right In minute or two. He went
ahead too fast. that was all. While
the company was in training prelimi-
nary to Re ng formally organ zed. Caps
tain McFlligott worked in a smoky fire
In his smoke mask for seventy five
minutes. which is the record thus far
As a rule, they get results long before
that.
mot long ago we had an ammonia
dre' In a big storage warehouse over
on the West Size The rescue conn.,
pany went in, found the leak, and stop
ped 1t inside half an hour. while the
other firemen could not get Within a
block OF the plant owing to the fumes
Chief Kenlon told me that a few years.
ago they had similar break In the
same warehouse. and 1t took the dee
partment six hours to get the best Of It.
The difference between the speed with
which the emergency company stopped
that leak and the time II took the un-
protected firemen to stop the previouS
one meant an enormous saving to that
warehouse.
Saves Many Lives.
There was a bad acid fire UP In
Fifty-eighth street the other morning.
Several firemen were knocked cut be-
fore the emergency squad arrived on
the scene. They located the trouble
and stopped the leak Of the acid In
mort order without any loss of life:
Yet at an exactly similar acid fire.
in Detroit not long ago fourteen per-
sons lost their lives.
These acid fires caused by the
bursting Of ammonia tanks and pipes,
have burned the bodies Of many
members of the rescue company.
have just succeeded In eliminating
this hazard by securing an overall
that will protect the mems bodies Just
as the Smoke helmets do their
shoulders. necks and heads. These
new overalls are made like the ones
worn ty trout fi/hormen when wading
In streams or pools, and we have
found they are absolutely impervious
to the ammonia fumes.
"All In all can safely say that no
one company in the fire department
Is SO valuable as this one. and we can
all be proud of the record II has made
during its existence,