From the Vault:
July 27, 1968 Bronx firefighters battle a blaze that started on Elliot Place, spread along Jerome Avenue and into East 170th Street. An aggressive attempt was made to cut off the fast spreading blaze by making a stand in a supermarket. The supermarket ceiling collapsed injuring three firefighters. Regrouping, it took several hours, four alarms and the Super Pumper to extinguish the fire. In all 23 members were injured.
Tag Archives: firefighting
Valentines Day FDNY 1958
From the Vault:
Valentine’s Day 1958
At 6:51 pm Manhattan Box 334 was transmitted for a fire in a six-story loft building at 137 Wooster Street. At the height of the multiple alarm fire, three floors of the Elkins Paper & Twine Company building collapsed trapping numerous members. Five-alarms were struck, and hundreds of off-duty members descended on the scene despite heavy snowfall, bitter winds and icy conditions. Rescue 1 was joined by Rescue 2 in a major tunneling and shoring operation in hopes of reaching two FDNY firemen and four members of the Fire Patrol trapped in the huge, frozen pile of rubble.
Conditions were so dangerous a crane was brought in to remove a large overhanging section of the building that was threatening to crash down upon the rescuers. The operation continued on into the following day, despite another major fire, a fourth-alarm in a lower east-side tenement only blocks away.
Sadly, the six men could not be saved.
FDNY Sleds?
As far back as 1793 the volunteers of New York City had sleds built to help respond through the snow filled streets. In that year, because of heavy snow the December before, sleds were built for Engine Companies 17, 18, and 19. (19 even was allowed 2 additional members to help pull the rig- due to their longer responses.)
The cool picture of Black Joke Engine 33, shows their goose-neck pumper fitted with “runners” for hauling the machines through heavy snow. The other picture shows E-33 on the deck of a ship at the foot of Wall Street during the Great Fire of 1835. They were relaying water from a patch of open river to other pumpers on shore. Remember, all pumping then was done by hand!
* I have found no other mentions of the paid FDNY of using sleighs except the below photograph.
