Braving the Flames by Micheels Peter;

Author:Micheels, Peter;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Published: 2014-05-11T17:23:23+00:00

Chapter 10. Captain Daniel J. Tracy Ladder 110, Brooklyn

I’m in the job twenty-five years. In 1958 I was kind of fishing around for a direction to follow. I was attending St. John’s University. I had been in the service. I had worked at several jobs, and I wasn’t happy in any of them. Opportunities at the time weren’t that good, and I didn’t see any future in what I was doing. Because I had several friends who were encouraging me to take this job, and because I admired fire fighters, I decided to give it a try.

I was a little nervous at the beginning, because I was assigned to a busy company. I didn’t know that places like that existed. I always thought that a firehouse was a neighborhood spot, very quiet, and they went out every once in a while. And here I was in the heart of the ghetto. The men were doing a relatively high number of runs, about 1,600 a year at that time. I think the only company that was doing more was 26 Truck up in Harlem, and they were doing around 2,000. The going in and out, which doesn’t even compare to what you have today, took me aback, and I wondered if I had made the right decision coming in to the job. I thought about leaving it.

I had a good friend named Eddie Wetzel. He retired as a battalion chief recently and became a deacon in the Catholic church. He said then, “Give it a chance. Stay around. See how you like it. Don’t give up too easily. Give it a good shot.”

And that’s what I did. And, of course, I fell in love with the job, as most of us do. I settled into the firehouse routine and got used to the idea that it is a demanding job. I found that not only was it demanding, but it is a very rewarding job. And, as I say, I’ve been in love with it ever since, and it’s been a great love affair.

At my first fire—the first one that wasn’t a mattress or a couch, I mean, or something hidden away in a rear room where you only saw smoke—I realized what a dangerous job we have. It was in a paint store. It was really a hardware store, but it had a lot of paint in it. It was on Livonia Avenue in Brooklyn, in an L-shaped structure. A wood frame building with the store on the ground floor and three stories of apartments above. We were the first due truck, the unit assigned to respond when the initial alarm is reported. Engine 283 had gotten to the fire ahead of us. Just as we pulled up, all the front and side show windows blew out, and a ball of flame rolled out into the street and enveloped the entire front of the building. That was the first time I had ever seen fire erupt out of a building, and I was absolutely astounded.

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