Fire Service History
This group was created to explore the history of the fire service in the United States.
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From a Fire Service Historian: Part 4
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From a Fire Service Historian: Part 4
How fire departments went from volunteer to career
Political ambition and sketchy fire insurance companies pushed cities to convert volunteer departments to career
This is the last of a four-part series on professionalism in firefighting, specifically how it evolved out of the transition from urban volunteers to a paid fire service and how volunteers would later come to embrace the concept of professionalism itself.
About the author. Bruce Hensler served as a firefighter from 1976 to 2011 in career, combination and volunteer departments. He previously served as a fire program specialist in the Emergency Response Support Branch of the U.S. Fire Administration, retiring in 2017. He also previously served as deputy director of the operations division for the firefighter training program in Maine. Hensler has a master’s degree in public administration. His interest in history led him to write “Crucible of Fire: Nineteenth-Century Urban Fires and the Making of the Modern Fire Service.” More information about his book is available at nebraskapress.edu.
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1 Reply
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Interesting! I knew about insurance companies but didn’t understand the entire context. Thank you for sharing.
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