By Paul Hashagen

Today's firefighters are armed with elaborate flow charts that delineate the chain of command and define responsibility on the fireground. Even so, the modern fireground commander ultimately faces the same responsibilities and problems his or her Colonial counterpart had more than 200 years ago.
Since the beginning of organized firefighting in the U.S., it became obvious that centralized command was needed - someone would have to take charge and coordinate the efforts of those attacking the fire, salvaging goods and preventing fire extension.

In 1711, the City of Boston took steps to control the chaos that occurred during a fire and better organize the attack against the flames. Firewards, described as "prudent persons of known fidelity," were appointed. Each was given a five-foot red staff topped with a bright brass spike to "distinguish them in their office."

The firewards were "required upon notice of fire breaking forth, taking their badge with them, immediately repair to the place, and vigorously to exert their authority for the requiring of assistance, and using utmost endeavors to extinguish or prevent the spreading of the fire and secure the estate of the inhabitants; and due obedience is required to be yielded to them and each of them accordingly for that service."

When the first fire company was formed in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin in 1736, its efforts, and those of the additional companies that soon organized, were under the guidance of similar firewards. Firefighters setting up bucket brigades, operating pumps and pulling down burning roofing materials all fell under their control.

In New York City, Jacobus Stoutenburgh became the head of the volunteer fire department in 1761, with the title of "Overseer of Fire Engines." The department was reorganized the following year and Stoutenburgh's title was changed to "Engineer," then to "Chief Engi-neer" and finally to "Chief." (This is believed to be the first time any firefighter in the U.S. was officially known by the rank of chief.)

The rank of chief soon became popular with fire departments throughout the country, and the association of the speaking trumpet and a fire officer was starting. The earliest mention of trumpets in New York City was in 1752, when Jacobus Turck, who was in charge of the department at that time, was authorized "to purchase six small speaking-trumpets for the use of the Corporation."

The first trumpets were made of tin and were painted. The officers called cadence through the trumpets to keep the men on the hand pumpers in time on the noisy fireground. The trumpets soon were being made from brass and were being presented as gifts to members of the department. Chief officers used them for overall command at the scene of working fires. They also became part of the elaborate uniforms of the volunteer firemen.

The speaking trumpet was in use for many years as a communication device. It has carried on to this day in a small way as an insignia of rank in most departments - one trumpet for lieutenant, two for a captain, and crossed gold trumpets up to five in number to signify chief of department.

Trumpets carried on from the volunteer days to the beginnings of the professional departments. The rank of chief held even more power in the paid departments because firefighting was now a "job" and the firefighters' livelihoods rested on their job performance. The steam-powered fire engine made paid departments possible due to the smaller number of men needed, but even the reduced number responding had to run alongside the horse-drawn rigs until another means of transportation could be devised. Hose wagons and running boards on the hook and ladders took care of everyone except the guy in charge, the chief.

When New York City's paid fire department was formed in 1865, all battalion chiefs had to travel on foot to fire scenes. That rule remained in effect for 12 years, until a horse and buggy were purchased for each chief, except for two battalions in lower Manhattan where it was believed traffic congestion made buggies ineffective. The Brooklyn Fire Department outfitted its chiefs with horse-drawn rigs at the same time.

The first motorized chief's car in the country was the 1901 Locomobile donated to the FDNY by Chief of Department Edward Croker. This electric-powered runabout was promptly nicknamed the "Black Ghost" by newspaper reporters. With the reliability of automobiles still unproven, the chief kept a horse and buggy ready at all times.

Fire chiefs were now arriving on scene in a timely fashion, but not much else had changed - orders were still being shouted through trumpets or being delivered by runners.

In Great Britain, one of the most progressive and ingenious chief fire officers of all times, James Braidwood, developed a communications system of his own. Braidwood was 26 years old when he became the chief officer of the Edinburgh, Scotland, Fire Brigade. Seven years later, he was hired away from Edinburgh by the London Fire Brigade, becoming that department's first chief.

While chief of Edinburgh in 1830 (his title was actually Master of Fire-Engines), the young officer wrote a book describing his theories on apparatus and firefighting. His fireground command system worked this way:

"Amidst the noise and confusion which more or less attend all fires, I have found considerable difficulty in being able to convey necessary orders to the firemen in such a manner as not to be liable for misapprehension. I tried a speaking-trumpet; but finding it of no advantage, it was speedily abandoned. It appeared to me indeed, that while it increased the sound of the voice, by the deep tone which it gave, it brought it into greater accordance with the surrounding noise. I tried a boatswain's call, which I have found to answer much better. Its shrill piercing note is so unlike any other sound usually heard at a fire, that it immediately attracts the attention of the firemen. By varying the calls, I have now established a mode of communication not easily misunderstood, and sufficiently precise for the circumstances to which it is adapted, and which I now find to be a very great convenience."

Braidwood then listed various coded signals that directed specific companies to work the engine, add hose, turn left or right, move forward, stop or take other actions. In all, there were 36 calls the chief used on the fireground to control operations. Despite the young English chief's discarding of the speaking trumpet, in the U.S. it was the state-of-the-art fire communications tool for many years.

In an attempt to better fire communications in the FDNY, Croker issued Special Order Number 83 on Sept. 1, 1900. It stated, "For the purposes of issuing orders, while in the performance of duty at fires, in a proper manner, and to avoid the confusion generally resulting, from different members of a company shouting orders at the top of their voices, megaphones have been placed in various truck companies in the Borough of Manhattan, and the following instructions regarding their use at fires will be carefully observed:

"On all occasions in the future, when at a fire, a megaphone will be taken to the roof, for the purpose of conveying messages from the roof to the street by members of the Department, and the practice heretofore existing of shouting orders will be discontinued. Whatever orders are necessary to be given, will be sent through the megaphone, in a slow, loud and distinct voice. Chief officers issuing orders from the street, while in command of a fire will also use the megaphone wherever possible, instead of shouting their orders, or sending messengers."

Exactly how long the megaphone experiment was in effect is not known. Photographs of fire scenes from that era do not show chiefs with megaphones, so like many other ideas it was tried and eventually things reverted back to the way they were before - shouting at the top of one's voice.

Communications and fireground command would stay relatively the same for many years. In December 1913, the FDNY experimented with a two-way wireless telegraph system between the Manhattan Fire Dispatcher's Office and the fireboat James Duane. Although it proved successful, the idea was abandoned due to the around-the-clock manpower needed to keep the system up.

Boston had a similar idea, but instead of a telegraph the department installed two-way radios between the dispatcher and the city's fireboat. This first fire department radio system went into service in October 1923. The question of the reliability of radios and the restrictive federal laws governing the radio usage made the adoption of radios by the fire service a slow process. Some departments installed radios in chiefs' cars, but many of them used police department frequencies.

With the introduction of Rescue Company 1 to the FDNY's firefighting force in 1915, another step was taken toward control of operating forces remote from the officer in charge. One of the tools that made the rescue company unique was the Draeger smoke helmet brought from Europe and adopted for use by the new unit.

The company was outfitted with eight smoke helmets, four of which were on its rig and the others left in quarters in reserve. Two of the eight smoke helmets were equipped with telephones inside them and connected to a telephone set outside the affected area by 250 feet of wire. The officer could clearly communicate with his men as they worked their way deep into a building.

One use of the helmet at that time was to let a rescue fireman enter areas filled with ammonia fumes (used for refrigeration) and shut off the necessary valves to stop the leak. The telephone system worked well, except for difficulty in keeping the telephone wires from becoming snagged on obstacles. Beyond the two helmets with telephones, the rest of the fire department operated in smoke without mask protection and without direct contact with chiefs.

Even in the 1930s, the control a chief was able to achieve at any incident was about the same as in his father's time - and even his great-grandfather's time, for that matter. Horses had come and gone and motorized firefighting equipment was bigger and more powerful than ever, but the ability to communicate at the scene of a fire and thereby control the operation was still limited. In the late 1930s, loudspeakers were placed on some fireboats and rescue-type trucks. These had limited success in conveying orders of vital importance, such as backing out of buildings in danger of collapsing, but the definitive answer was yet to be found.

In September 1939, the FDNY set up a radio laboratory in a workshop above the quarters of Engine Company 39 and Ladder 16 in Manhattan. Primary experiments involved the development of pack radio equipment for transmission of messages within a fire area. The department also conducted a thorough search of the commercial radio gear available at the time, but found none that could perform as needed at the scene of a fire.

The department's standards held that a radio must be lightweight, compact and simple to operate, have a long operational life, leave the operator's hands free, be able to communicate with other similar packs at an operation, be sturdy, reasonably waterproof and dependable, have sufficient range to cover a fire area, and be easy to service and adjust.

Considering the advanced system of communications we have grown used to in recent years (pagers the size of a deck of playing cards and cell phones that fit easily in your pocket), it is interesting to note what was state-of-the-art in 1940. After field trials, a two-way radio was developed by the FDNY radio lab.

The pack set, or as it was more popularly called the "Walkie-Talkie," operated on an ultra-high frequency and measured nine inches across by 131�2 inches long, and was five inches thick. The set weighed 131�2 pounds and contained dry-cell batteries that gave it an operational life of between 60 and 100 hours. The pack fit on the back of a firefighter, who used headphones to monitor transmissions and then answer via a microphone.

The set was used with great success at many incidents, including ship fires. One set was used by a chief aboard the S.S. Lafayette (also known as the liner Normandie) during multiple-alarm fire in February 1942. (Firefighters on the deck of the burning ship also teamed up with Navy personnel and used flags in a semaphore system to communicate with units on land.)

A significant event in communications occurred in 1948, when scientists at Bell Labs invented the transistor. This development made smaller, more powerful and less expensive portable radios a reality. Technology advanced in leaps and bounds in the 1950s and '60s as portable radios began appearing all over the fireground.

The fire chief now faced a new problem - too much information for one person to handle at one time. The FDNY addressed this problem when it placed two International "Metro" vans in service as field communication units.

In the 1970s, a series of large-area wildland fires burned through Southern California. The fires raced across jurisdictional boundaries and involved state and federal forests. Numerous fire departments and other agencies became involved, but the lack of a common plan of operations and difficulty in one agency communicating with another caused a variety of problems.

After the fires, a number of the involved agencies worked together to develop a plan to better manage these emergencies. Their plan evolved to the incident command system now widely used within the fire service to manage fires and other emergency situations.

The fire chief who had become a fireground commander is now an incident commander (IC) and must coordinate the function areas under his command. To better equip the IC, many departments added large command post vehicles to their fleets for major operations. This proved to be beneficial to the fireground commander, but not every department can afford a large vehicle to serve in this capacity. Many fire chiefs also realized that because most alarms do not escalate to major proportions, a large vehicle was not needed. Many departments have upgraded the chief's car from simple transportation to a command vehicle, using custom command modules. Some departments have even expanded this concept to create specialized first-responding medical vehicles.

We've come a long way, from speaking trumpets to faxes, but one constant is the firefighter willing to battle the flames. Looking at modern command posts and all equipment available to fireground commanders, it's still nice to see the crossed gold trumpets on their collars.