Last Updated: 17 September 2004

This page is intended to be a collection of cool sayings, writings, etc. related to the fire service. If anyone has come across something that they would like to see added here, please email it to me.

FTM-PTB
Rules to Live By in the Fire Service
The History of the Leather Helmet
Sleep Last Night?
The Wreck On Highway 109
The Blood of Heroes (Turn on your speakers!)

For The Men - Protect The Brothers

Mike Dugan, Captain, FDNY

A Mutt is someone or thing that will abuse and mistreat a Firefighter. This can be the City, the Mayor, the Chief in Charge, the habitual caller, or the homeless Person who starts a fire and leaves. These are people that have never crawled down a hall or made the last room in an effort to do their job. If they can't get the job done today well maybe next week will do. If we don't get the job done people might die and our brother and sister might also die. So we always lay it on the line and leave a little behind at every fire. I say that in a dark smokey hallway I can't tell the race, creed or sex of my fellow firefighter, I just know that they are with me. I don't care who or what you are as long as you are a firefighter and want to protect your brothers and sisters.

Leather forever. Stay low and let it blow!
FTM-PTB

Added by fellow FOOLS:

EGH - Everybody Goes Home (author unknown)
RFB - Remember Fallen Brothers (Michael Ciampo, Lieutenant, FDNY)
KTF - Keep the Faith (James L. Jester, Captain, Ocean City)
DTRT - Do The Right Thing (Bob Pressler, Lieutenant (Ret.) FDNY)

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Rules to Live By in the Fire Service

by Mark Wesseldine, FDNY

From Fire Engineering, February 1999

  1. You have begun a career in the greatest job in the world. You will find no other job where you will "look forward" to going to work every tour for the next 20 to 30 years.

    You have also become a member of the "greatest family" on earth. Anywhere you may be, you have brothers and sisters nearby, never be shy to ask for help.

  2. Train - Excellence through training. Don't say your training let you down. "I didn't know" doesn't count. When you stop learning, it's time to retire, you can always learn something. Have an open mind.
  3. This is a "team sport". If you're not a team player then don't try out for the team.
  4. Always wear your mask when possible, even during overhaul, statistics speak for themselves. Think of your family, dead at 50 is not macho.
  5. You are not going to get rich in this career, but you will live comfortably. You will have the respect of all...
  6. God has given you two ears and one mouth. So listen twice as much as you speak.
  7. Step up. When others are busy at a task, Don't be the last one to join in.
  8. Friends are easy to make, you have to work at making enemies.
  9. Think! Look when getting off the truck. Look when crossing the street at calls. Never run on a roof.
  10. Treat others the way you would want them to treat you.
  11. Don't be a whiner or complainer.
  12. Remember where you came from.
  13. Rusty tools and unattended equipment leads to no company pride.

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History of the Leather Helmet

The Leatherhead is a term used for a firefighter who uses the leather helmet for protection from the hazards we face everyday on the streets. The Leather Helmet, is an international sign of a Firefighter, a symbol that is significant in not only tradition from the early years of firefighting, but one of bravery, integrity, honor and pride. This helmet is a sign of who we are, not what we are.

Cairns & Brother has pioneered firefighter helmet technology since 1836. Introduced in that year, the New Yorker helmet has remained virtually unchanged through 166 years of faithful and steadfast service. The New Yorker helmet retains the same look and quality that generations after generations of firefighters have relied upon. They are made of stout tanned Western cowhide, a quarter of an inch thick, reinforced with leather strips which rise like Gothic arches inside the crown. The long duckbill, or beavertail, which sticks out at the rear, is to keep water from running down firemen's necks. Cairns & Brother's commitment to protecting lives is evident in their "systems," where engineered components synergistically work together for unparalleled protection in harsh environments. The original OSHA compliant leather helmet, it is individually hand shaped, hand trimmed, and hand stitched to meet the strenuous demands of todays most dangerous profession firefighting.

Although not a required component of the helmet, those of us who truly live the tradition wear a brass eagle adornment that graces the top of the helmet and secures its frontpiece. In our simple, childish way, we always believed that the eagle adorning our helmet meant something special, the spirit of American enterprise maybe, or onward to victory. We were wrong. The eagle, it seems, just happened, and has no particular significance at all. Long, long ago, around 1825 to be exact, an unknown sculptor did a commemorative figure for the grave of a volunteer fireman. You can see it in Trinity Churchyard today; it shows the hero issuing from the flames, his trumpet in one hand, a sleeping babe in the other, and on his helmet, an eagle. Firefighters were not wearing eagles at the time; it was a flight of pure fancy on the sculptor's part. But as soon as the firemen saw it, they thought it was a splendid idea and it was widely adopted. It has remained on firemen's helmets ever since, in spite of the fact that it has proved, frequently and conclusively, to be a dangerous and expensive ornament indeed. It sticks up in the air. It catches its beak in window sashes, on telephone wires. It is always getting dented, bent and knocked off. Every so often, some realist points out how much safer and cheaper it would be to do away with the eagle, but we who live the tradition always refuse.

Leather Forever!

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