The city of New Amsterdam appointed eight of their most prominent citizens to the "Rattle Watch" in 1648. These men volunteered to patrol the streets at night carrying large wooden rattles. If a fire was seen, the men spun the rattles and directed responding citizens to form bucket brigades.
In smaller communities, everyone, including women and older children,
helped with the bucket brigade, bringing water to the pumper. But operating the pumping handles required strong, practiced and dedicated men. Many times, these men would get used to the routine of working together to fight fires in thier communties and would form into town and city fire companies. These companies also began to function as social organizations.
“Making a run” comes directly from those long-ago days when pulling the hand pumped engine on ropes, at a run, was the only way to get it to a fire.
Early hand pumpers were a source of tremendous pride for companies. Many members spared little expense in adorning their engines. In many cases also, the members’ pride was expressed in lavishly and artistically painted and gilded pumpers. That pride is still expressed today in the gold striping and beautiful painted logos that can be seen on contemporary fire trucks.
Ben Franklin is often said to have been the father of the American fire service and was part of the Union Fire Co. in Philadelphia. He was a big proponent of fire safety and his famous saying "
in the first place, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” was in regards to fire prevention.
The first fire engine made in the United States was constructed in 1654 by Joseph Jenks of Lynn, MA, who offered it to the Selectmen of Boston at the time of the first Great Fire.
Early paid firefighters most often worked shifts today which would be unheard of – 24 hours on duty, continuously, for a month, with only one 24 hour period off duty. In some departments, families were allowed to have Sunday dinner in the station with their firefighter husbands and fathers.
Beginning in the 1980s, fire departments began to extend the list of services they would provide, which placed increased training, knowledge and skill requirements on firefighters. These included advanced emergency medical services, hazardous materials incident mitigation, various technical rescue, plus natural disaster response and terrorism readiness.
