Firefighters Risk Life and Limb in Defense of the Public

by Jeffrey Bingham Mead
Greenwich Time: October 12, 1986

Image credit: Greenwich Time. 

This week residents of the town of Greenwich pause as we do annually to salute our volunteer firefighters and their fire companies. It is Volunteer Firefighters Week. 

By recognizing our firefighters, Greenwich residents pay respect to a special group of men and women who by their own choice are committed to a brave cause and institution that is without doubt characteristically American.

Over a century ago, when the first volunteer fire company in Greenwich was founded, our local fire companies have evolved, thanks to the historic tradition of self-reliance. This tradition is found in many communities both great and small throughout the nation. It is coupled with an impulse that drives diligent citizens to been together for a common purpose to work with each other for the good of all.

Image credit: ConnecticutHistory.org

Despite the hazards inherent in firefighting, our volunteers, supplemented by a force of paid firefighters, continue to follow the tradition of serving the general public that goes back over many years. In Spencer P. Mead's Ye Historie of Ye Town of Greenwich, the author states that the first action taken to organize a fire company in Greenwich was in the 1870s, when a committee was appointed "to organize a hook and ladder company… also to adopt rules for the government of the company, to procure ladders, hooks, buckets and other such implements as maybe thought advisable."

The same committee was further assigned the task of selecting a site for building a fire house. This site, according to Mead, was close to an old armory building on the southwest corner of Greenwich Avenue and Elm Street. With the Armory building then temporarily available, the hook and ladder truck and other fire apparatus arrived, and with that the Amogerome Fire Company, as it is called today, went into business. In the years to follow, other fire companies would soon set up in the various neighborhoods of the town.

Whether it be a Currier and Ives print of a century ago or on a popular television show, we are all for the most part familiar with the glamorous side of firefighting. 

Image credit: Stamford Advocate. 

Just visualize it: the sounding of sirens, the racing of sleek fire trucks with the galaxy of flashing lights, commands echoed over radios and helmeted firefighters spraying powerful streams of water on a burning building. True, there have been many acts of courage, valor and heroism to rescue life and property. It is a spirit and a feeling of camaraderie that engenders firefighters to stand tall and to meet the challenges their line of work entails. They do so with the implement and education that few amongst us have.

Yet we must not forget a more somber side to the drama of firefighting. 

There are hours and hours of drilling, techniques to be taught and lessons to be learned. Wet, dirty hoses must be unpacked and repacked, and apparatus must be cleaned and maintained to serve at a moment's notice.

There are meetings to attend, decisions to be made and a host of other responsibilities. Most dangerous of all are those times when firefighters must venture into the hazardous environments of a burning building. While the task is to extinguish the fire itself, the firefighter must also search for those still trapped. They must perform their duties often in a hostile environment of heat, poisonous smoke and other adversities, which can mercilessly assault the physical body.

Image credit: Greenwich Time. 

Though we have been fortunate here in Greenwich, the evening news occasionally calls our attention to a firefighter who, in the supreme line of duty, lost his life, reminding us of the mortality we all share, and yet of the uniqueness of the firefighter who by the nature of his courage challenges death in the defense of other people's lives and property. With the adventure, the risks and heroism, there comes a pride.

When we see sleek, modern fire trucks roll out on a call, it is hard to visualize how we managed with bucket brigades and those antique fire trucks preserved today as relics of the past. 

Firefighting embodies a unique quality of commitment and spirit, providing a vehicle well worth joining for men and women from all walks of life to serve their neighbors and the town as a whole. 

This history of volunteer firefighting continues to be told, and today's successors to those who, over a century ago, began to build what we have today, still use the same vision and resolve to carry out their duties, ready to roll out at any time of the day or night for the protection of life and property.

Jeffrey Bingham Mead, who lives in Greenwich, is a direct descendant of one of the founding families of the town. He is a free-lance writer and a member of the Greenwich Historical Society.