Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [7]
There are four companies working out of the firehouse on Intervale Avenue. Engine 82 and Engine 85 do the hose work in the district. Ladder Company 31 and Tactical Control Unit 712 do the rescue work, the ladder work, and the ax work.
Until recently my company and Engine 85 responded to many of the same alarms. Then, two years ago, we responded a record number of times. Engine 85 went out 8,386 times in a twelve month period. Ladder Company 31 went to 8,597 alarms, and my company, Engine 82, went to 9,111. The Fire Department saw that a change was needed, and arranged that engines 82 and 85 would not respond to the same alarms. The plan worked. Last year my company’s responses dropped to 6,377, and Engine 85’s to 5,012. But the plan worked only for the engine companies; Ladder Company 31’s responses increased to 8,774. Another plan was then devised, and Tactical Control Unit 712 was created to respond only within the high incidence hours between three in the afternoon and one in the morning. The four companies on Intervale Avenue are now each averaging 700 runs a month. It is safe to say that ours is the busiest firehouse in the city—and probably the world.
An average of eight firemen die each year while doing their duty in New York City. Only six died last year, and I don’t want to think about how many will die this year, or next. Almost five thousand firemen were injured in the line of duty last year. The injuries cost the city 65,000 days in medical leaves.
There is a sign in the kitchen of my firehouse. It is inconspicuously hung, and it reads with a proper amount of ambiguity: THIS COULD BE THE NIGHT! We don’t talk about the hazards of the trade in the firehouse. There is no sense in talking about what we hope never becomes a reality for us, and for our families. It’s all part of the job, and like committed Calvinists we accept what’s written in the cards for us.
Just yesterday a man was killed. He was assigned to Rescue Company 1, and he was working on the roof of a burning warehouse. The roof had been weakened by the fire, and it gave in. The man fell through the roof and into an air shaft. He passed eight floors before he hit the bottom.
I was sitting in the kitchen of the firehouse when the bells came in. First five short rings, a pause, five more, a pause, another five, another pause, and the final five. Signal 5-5-5-5 has a special meaning to us. Put the flag at half mast, and listen to the department radio for the message.
There is a five-by-five cubicle at the front of the firehouse. Inside the small partition there is a man writing the signal in the department company journal. He turns the volume of the department radio up as we gather around it. This is the man assigned housewatch duty, and he knows what he has to do. After recording the signal, he moves to the outside of the firehouse and brings the colors to half-mast. He returns to the watch-desk and prepares to write the message in the company journal. His face is pensive, and he is asking himself the same question we all ask ourselves: I wonder if I know the guy?
The radio begins to squawk the message, and the housewatch-man begins to write. “The signal 5-5-5-5 has been transmitted, and the message is as follows: It is with deep regret that the department announces the death of Fireman 1st Grade Edward Tuite which occurred while operating at Box 583, at 1125 hours this date.”
None of us there knew the man personally, but we all felt the loss. We went about our work for the rest of the day without talking about it.
I had a friend we don’t talk about either. His name was Mike Carr, and he was an upstanding kind of a guy. He was the union delegate of Engine 85. Only a few days before his death I had mentioned to him that we should clean out an old locker and use it for our union business. It was a shabby old locker, but it could be used to store medical