A History of Colonial Firefighting
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Colonial firefighting in the US was growing quickly, as were the colonial cities. Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Charleston all suffered greatly from fires. Efforts were made to organize firefighting units in the 17th century, but not until 1720 did fire companies come to exist. Then by 1775, most cities had excellent volunteer fire departments. Some companies drew social elites, such as Benjamin Franklin's Union Fire Company. Most companies were manned by artisans and laborers who received an exemption from militia and jury duty. The companies used Newsham pumps, together with leather buckets, homemade ladders, iron hooks, and canvas salvage bags. |
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During the colonial firefighting era, night watchmen equipped with noise-making rattles enforced colonial curfews and sounded the alarm. Curfews discouraged torches and required colonists to extinguish their home fires after 8 or 9 in the evening. Curfew is from the French, meaning "cover our fire". Fire wardens, equipped with staff of authority, enforced the fire codes and directed the companies at fires. As always the best firefighting programs were preventive. Towns with strict curfews and building codes that required masonry walls, chimneys, and slate roofs suffered the fewest fires. |
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Only 5% of the American colonial population lived in cities. Most Americans lived on farms or in tiny hamlets. Colonial firefighting in these American cities was fought with buckets of water and homemade ladders only. On the other side of the ocean, until about 1860 the English fire service consisted of volunteers from towns or parishes, private fire fighting brigades from estates or factories, or insurance company fire brigades. Many Church of England parishes maintained volunteer brigades, usually of dubious quality. Landowners and industrialists took pride in organizing their own brigades, which often responded to local fires. Most common were the insurance company brigades, which were England's primary defense against fire until 1860, when Parliament officially required municipal governments to establish fire departments. It is surprising that the world's leading industrial power of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries trailed most other European nations, as well as the United States, in its attention to firefighting. The current English fire service, however, is regarded as one of the world's finest. This information was compiled by the Hall of Flame Museum of Phoenix, Arizona.
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