New York Police Fire Patrol, forty volunteer smoke eaters called the Red Heads after their red leather fire caps who mastered the blasting technique in shifts at night. “Three hundred more buildings burned up on the same spot a year later,” Broderick told the Council. “That’s when we lost Old Number Twenty-two, a silver engine decorated with oil paintings. She could throw a stream of water six stories high. By God, she was ‘The King of All Fire Engines.’ ”
“The King of All Fire Engines,” Brannan said, wrapping his tongue around the words, trying them on for size. Yes, he liked the sound of that. It might be a way for him to humiliate Broderick, whose power was growing. A ragged scarecrow standing in the shadow of a twisted metal building inched closer. He might have been from Sydney Town, which the Ducks ruled, but unless he spoke and betrayed an Australianaccent there was no way to tell. He just as easily could have been a Hound. “San Francisco has to change its habits or even greater calamities lie ahead. These workers”—Broderick swept out his arm toward the devastation—“are constructing new buildings from the scorched wood of yesterday’s fire on the same spot and in the same careless way that has already caused us so much misery.” He paused. “The ocean winds make the smallest fire unstoppable, so we can begin by examining what we don’t have. We have no fire department, equipment, nor fire or building codes. What do we have? We have oilcloth, canvas, and cotton-batting shacks and clapboard warehouses. It boils down to three missing essentials: men, equipment, and water.”
“Last May,” the alcalde explained, clearing his throat, “the board appropriated money to begin digging a well and a reservoir. We passed a law that required townsfolk to keep leather buckets of sand in their kitchens to put out home fires.” Geary’s eyes strayed to the upper side of the Square where, until a day ago, he had dwelled in a modest room.
“And what came of this ‘law’?” Brannan said. “Nothing!” He returned to his carving. A considerable pile of wood shavings lay at his feet.
“Alcalde,” Broderick said, “the few cisterns we have in San Francisco are empty at low tide.” In New York City the Great Croton Aqueduct brought water swarming with tadpoles to a reservoir at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, where a crude pipeline of iron pipes nine to twelve inches in diameter carried water to hydrants plugged with cork. “After water, our next requirement is men. Fighting fire is backbreaking, man-killing labor, so we need fifty to sixty men—tough men—for each engine. When the alarm sounds, a man has to drop everything, run to the firehouse, and haul a two-thousand-pound engine over steep hills by rope and then pump for his life. Every municipality of importance has a chief engineer who coordinates the armies of competing fire companies. In New York, ours had a team of assistants and watchmen to run the essentials. We paid him twelve hundred dollars a year.” Geary winced as if shot by a musket ball. The Boomtown, packed with instant millionaires, was curiously without funds. “San Francisco is flat busted,” the alcalde said. In August, when he was sworn in, he disclosed that they were without a dollar in the public treasury, without a single police officer or watchman, and had no means for confining a prisoner for an hour.
“In short,” Broderick said, “you are without a single requisite necessary for the promotion of prosperity, for the protection of property, orfor the maintenance of order.” The last prerequisite was equipment. “We lacked equipment in New York, though not so much as San Francisco does. Only forty-nine of our units were engine companies. Of those, only nine were hook and ladder and of those, only six were hose companies. Alcalde, what do we have on hand in the way of water wagons?”
Two weeks earlier the first fire engine in the city had arrived
“The King of All Fire Engines,” Brannan said, wrapping his tongue around the words, trying them on for size. Yes, he liked the sound of that. It might be a way for him to humiliate Broderick, whose power was growing. A ragged scarecrow standing in the shadow of a twisted metal building inched closer. He might have been from Sydney Town, which the Ducks ruled, but unless he spoke and betrayed an Australianaccent there was no way to tell. He just as easily could have been a Hound. “San Francisco has to change its habits or even greater calamities lie ahead. These workers”—Broderick swept out his arm toward the devastation—“are constructing new buildings from the scorched wood of yesterday’s fire on the same spot and in the same careless way that has already caused us so much misery.” He paused. “The ocean winds make the smallest fire unstoppable, so we can begin by examining what we don’t have. We have no fire department, equipment, nor fire or building codes. What do we have? We have oilcloth, canvas, and cotton-batting shacks and clapboard warehouses. It boils down to three missing essentials: men, equipment, and water.”
“Last May,” the alcalde explained, clearing his throat, “the board appropriated money to begin digging a well and a reservoir. We passed a law that required townsfolk to keep leather buckets of sand in their kitchens to put out home fires.” Geary’s eyes strayed to the upper side of the Square where, until a day ago, he had dwelled in a modest room.
“And what came of this ‘law’?” Brannan said. “Nothing!” He returned to his carving. A considerable pile of wood shavings lay at his feet.
“Alcalde,” Broderick said, “the few cisterns we have in San Francisco are empty at low tide.” In New York City the Great Croton Aqueduct brought water swarming with tadpoles to a reservoir at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, where a crude pipeline of iron pipes nine to twelve inches in diameter carried water to hydrants plugged with cork. “After water, our next requirement is men. Fighting fire is backbreaking, man-killing labor, so we need fifty to sixty men—tough men—for each engine. When the alarm sounds, a man has to drop everything, run to the firehouse, and haul a two-thousand-pound engine over steep hills by rope and then pump for his life. Every municipality of importance has a chief engineer who coordinates the armies of competing fire companies. In New York, ours had a team of assistants and watchmen to run the essentials. We paid him twelve hundred dollars a year.” Geary winced as if shot by a musket ball. The Boomtown, packed with instant millionaires, was curiously without funds. “San Francisco is flat busted,” the alcalde said. In August, when he was sworn in, he disclosed that they were without a dollar in the public treasury, without a single police officer or watchman, and had no means for confining a prisoner for an hour.
“In short,” Broderick said, “you are without a single requisite necessary for the promotion of prosperity, for the protection of property, orfor the maintenance of order.” The last prerequisite was equipment. “We lacked equipment in New York, though not so much as San Francisco does. Only forty-nine of our units were engine companies. Of those, only nine were hook and ladder and of those, only six were hose companies. Alcalde, what do we have on hand in the way of water wagons?”
Two weeks earlier the first fire engine in the city had arrived
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