Alarms & Quick Responses

The Present systems of alarm for fire was first inaugurated in St. Louis in 1858.  This was only in a crude way and at that time consisted simply of large bells on the various engine houses and some of the churches.  When a fire occurred these bells would strike the district in which the fire occurred.  They would first strike the ward the fire was in and then would repeat on the boxes; that is, the alarm boxes would strike or tap the district.  For instance, if an alarm was given in the vicinity of Thirteenth and Locust streets, the bell would strike Ward 4, District 3.  In those days you would have to go to the box at each engine house, of course, had an alarm box and listen to the taps to get the district the fire was in.  That prevailed for three or four years, until they got to striking a regular station on the bells.  The bells were not all discontinued until about 1896 or 1897.  It was found that the bells were too cumbersome; that the men could not strike them very fast, and that there was quite a delay in receiving the station, so that the bells were finally abandoned.

This was followed by the installation of the “joker” as they called it.  This, of course, caused the Department to get the alarms quickly and enabled the firemen to get out of the house very much faster.

It used to be customary to have the horses harnessed in the stalls.  Prior to that the firemen used to run back into the stalls and halter the horses, put the harness on them and follow them out to their various apparatus, and when they could get out in two or three minutes they thought they were very fast.  Now the apparatus will cross the doors in six or seven seconds.  Formerly they left the harness on day and night to enable them to get out faster.  Chief Hale, of Kansas City, came here with a device for swinging the harness over the horses, which enabled the Department to get out much faster, and the City of St. Louis purchased the right to use this patent for $500.00.  Of course his appliance has since been improved on fifty per cents.  At that time they used big wooden frames with ropes hanging down and an open spray.  You had to have both horses under the harness before you could pull the rope on them; then the harness would all fall.  Today the Department has a simple frame with a hook on the harness that holds the collar up, and when the collar is pulled down it liberates this harness and straps under the horse’s breast.  It was much of an improvement on the Hale method and Hale himself adopted it.

Then, while other cities have paid out thousands of dollars in royalties on patents for the swinging harness devices, St. Louis with its original payment of $500.00 to Chief Hale has eliminated the payment of royalties, and this alone is estimated to have saved the city of St. Louis large sums.  At present the St. Louis Fire Department virtually manufactures its own harness at a tremendous saving to the taxpayer.

Vast improvements have been made in the fire alarm system since 1895.  The city has installed new circuits; put in copper wire to replace the old iron cables, that gave a great deal of trouble every time there was a storm.  It was found, in a number of cases, that the old alarm system, where,  by turning the knob, a bell notified everyone that an alarm was being turned in, that very often when a citizen wanted to send in an alarm he would just turn the knob and would think he had turned in an alarm and would not wait to pull the hook which sent in the alarm; he would go away without sending in the alarm and the city had several big fires on that account failure to get the alarm.  It was then recommended that the type of box be changed and that a box be substituted that had a little compartment 3x4 inches with a thin glass over the key.  You had to break the glass to turn the key and then pull the hook as they did previously.  Before the city got the boxes with the key, the key was kept in some drug store, grocery store, or somewhere near by, with a sign on the box where the key was to be found; in this way it was sometimes necessary to wake someone up in order to get the key, and this, of course, caused much delay.

When the alarm-gong sounds in the engine house the men composing a company spring to their post.  With the exception of those who have been excused from duty, all must be on hand.  Those who are upstairs in their quarters slide to the lower floor by means of poles, the waiting fire horses are trained to leave their stalls instantly and to place themselves at the poles of the fire engine.  The drop-harness falls on their backs and is quickly fastened by a single clasp.  The driver jumps on the box and the heavy machine comes swinging out of the ever-open portal.  After a quick turn, it goes rumbling down the street with engine bell clanging and sparks flying from its smokestack.  Ahead of it races the hose wagon, drawn by two galloping horses and freighted down with all the available men under the command of their company captain.  As they clatter to the fire the men on the hose wagon can be seen struggling into their slickers and reaching for their fire hats, while the bells of both engine emits a series of shrieks to clear the track for the race.

It is in truth a race, for since the fierce days of volunteer competition, it has been an invariable custom that the captain of the first company arriving at the fire shall assume charge of that fire.  Upon him falls all responsibility, and he alone has the right to determine whether he will call for more assistance by means of the telegraphic apparatus in the inner compartment of the alarm box.  Upon the arrival of superior officers he turns over the command to them.

Whistles and bells in the adjoining streets tell of the approach of more engines and of hook-and-ladder trucks swaying wildly form one side to another, while the men cling to the sidebars.  They are equipped with an extension ladder, carried on a frame, with the butt resting on a turn-table.  By means of side cranks attached to these ladders they can be raised to their full height in less that a minute.  The truck is further equipped with scaling- ladders, life-lines, life-belts, and other implements, such as hooks, axes, crowbars, strong saws and chemical fire-extinguishers.

High as it is, the water-tower is, of course, inadequate if the fire happens to be in an upper story of one of those high buildings that go by the name of “skyscrapers.”

Such are the chief mechanical equipments of the most thoroughly organized Fire Department.  Of minor equipments the most important is the scaling-ladder, introduced in this country by Chris Hoell of St. Louis fire fame.  Former Chief Bonner of the New York Fire Department expressed the opinion that this ladder has been the means of more rescues than any other ladder carried to fires.  The scaling-ladder consists of a light pole with short cross-pieces about a foot apart. At the end of the poles is a large hook so fashioned that it will hook over a window-sill or ledge without slipping.  One or two men run up these scaling-ladders, climbing up the front of a building from story to story.  An agile firemen can thus reach the roof of a house in almost as short a time as it takes to erect an extension-ladder, and innumerable are the hairbreadth rescues that have thus been made.  At the Windsor Hotel fire in New York, one man alone, by means of his scaling-ladder, saved four women from certain death.

After all, it was not the scaling-ladder that did this, but the man.  Even without his ladder that man would probably have saved lives.  In fighting battles, it is a recognized principle that the best victories are won by the men themselves.  Every well organized Fire Department, accordingly, makes it a rule to select its men with the most rigorous car, and, once selected, furnishes them with every possible incentive for doing their utmost.

The last thing to arrive is the water-tower.  These towers are designed to receive two streams of water on each side of the frame.  Within the frame of the tower is fifty-foot extension piece planted in a solid deck with a deck pipe and swivel nozzle, by means of which streams of water can be sent from the top toward any point of the compass.

The equipment that makes possible the departure of a fire engine, with steam up and its regular crew, from its house inside of ten seconds after the first clang of the alarm bell, is the result of many inventions and of persistent drill.  As it is essential that no time be lost in getting up steam in the engine, steam is always maintained under a pressure of from five to twenty pounds in the engine boiler by means of a stationary boiler in the basement, connected with the engine by a pipe which is disconnected automatically when the horses start off.  Electricity drops the stall chains in front of the horses at the same time it begins to ring the alarm.  The men, who sleep with one eye open, come down the poles faster that they could tumble down the staircase. 

The fire horses are trained as finely as the men they are the pets of the house and of the neighborhood.  Some of them learn in a week to run to their places at the signal; others require a month’s training.  The lessons are simple enough.  A raw horse is made to feel the whip as he hears the signal-bell.  If he is an intelligent animal, the two so soon become synonymous that he starts for his place the instant the bell rings.  Many horses seem to count the strokes.  A story is told of one horse that when changed from one engine company to another was wild to run when his old number sounded, and quite indifferent to the new one, which really meant business, and to which he responded only under protest.  The stories told in the Department about the horses are endless.  Sometime ago an old gray fire horse that had been attached to an engine was transferred to the hose truck in the same building.  The two rooms were connected by an open door.  One night there was an alarm.  The hose truck men were dismayed to find that their old gray had disappeared.  They thought that he must have been stolen.  The engine had left for the fire, and disgrace was imminent for the hose company.  Suddenly a horse was heard kicking in the engine stalls next door, and although it was not the missing gray, it was quickly forced into hose service, and the company got off a minute late.  At the fire there stood the old gray harnessed to the engine.  After the excitement was all over, the mystery was explained.  Upon hearing the familiar alarm the gray had trotted in next door, and finding a strange horse in his usual place, had pushed him out of the way back into his stall.  The firemen, in their hurry, had not noticed the substitution, and had harnessed the horses as they stood.  A good fire horse will last about six years, and will stand heat and excitement whenever men are driven back.