Key West boasts one of many largest collections of historic picket constructions within the nation. Credit score for the designation typically goes to historic preservationists, who acknowledged a long time in the past the worth in defending these properties and hanging on to the island’s historical past.
However one other entity was important in making certain these constructions stood lengthy sufficient to turn into a historic district — the Key West Fireplace Division, which was based 150 years in the past.
Key West will mark a century and a half of firefighters and first responders at a public celebration on Saturday, Oct. 11 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Truman Waterfront Park. The occasion will function a parade of fireside vehicles and hearth boats alongside the East Quay Wall, in addition to stay demonstrations, meals and free family-friendly actions.
150 years and counting
Metropolis officers created the Key West Fireplace Division in November 1875, 12 years after the Nice Fireplace of 1886 incinerated greater than 50 acres of Outdated City – though, again then, it was simply “city.”
The fireplace began subsequent to the San Carlos Institute on Duval Road, burned for 12 hours and destroyed 18 main cigar factories and 614 homes and different buildings. It has lengthy been urged the fireplace was deliberately set by brokers of the Spanish authorities to disrupt the help of the Spanish revolution in Cuba, which was being funded and inspired by Key West cigar staff, in keeping with the Key West Historic Marker Tour and the Key West Firehouse Museum.Â
On the time of the fireplace, the town’s solely steam-powered hearth engine had been positioned on a ship and despatched to New York for repairs, additional fueling suspicions concerning the timing and the trigger.
Consuming each picket constructing in its path, the fireplace tore by blocks of Fleming, Whitehead, Eaton, Duval and Simonton streets.
A yr after the fireplace, in 1887, Key West put in its first citywide hearth warning system within the type of a large brass hearth bell in a tower. Every neighborhood was assigned a particular quantity. When a fireplace was reported, the bell would toll out the quantity to alert the city to its location.
“My grandmother remembered, when the fireplace bell would ring, everybody would cease what they have been doing and take heed to the variety of bells to see if the fireplace was close to their home,” retired firefighter and historian Alex Vega instructed the Keys Weekly. Again then, he mentioned, Key West’s isolation actually demanded innovation and compelled folks and the federal government to seek out methods to guard the southernmost metropolis.
In 1875, the town created the Key West Fireplace Division to interchange the non-public, all-volunteer, Tiger Hose Co. that had operated till then. The primary division had 103 firefighters — nonetheless volunteers — and one paid hearth chief.Â
“Huge modifications have been made within the years following the good hearth,” mentioned Vega. “Town opened three hearth stations to unfold out its gear and personnel. It had three horse-drawn engines that used steam to pump water from hoses, and began putting in hearth hydrants throughout city.”
In 1906, the town put in 36, then 58, hearth bins all through the city that would talk by way of telegraph to the fireplace division.Â
“There was one in every neighborhood, and a delegated individual would have a key to their space’s hearth field to alert the division,” Vega mentioned.
As soon as telephones turned ubiquitous, the fireplace bins turned out of date, though a number of of them are on show on the Key West Firehouse Museum, 1024 Grinnell St., which is called in honor of Vega.
As expertise superior — combustion engines, telephones, hydraulic pumps, 911 capabilities, sprinkler programs, smoke detectors and numerous different improvements — so did the fireplace division.
“Many years in the past, the principle job of the fireplace division was to combat fires,” Vega mentioned. “At the moment, the overwhelming majority of calls are for ambulance and EMS providers, that are dealt with by the fireplace division.”
All firefighters at the moment are additionally emergency medical technicians or paramedics who reply to site visitors accidents, coronary heart assaults, hypochondriacs and sure, fires. At the moment’s division consists of an city search and rescue group, a dive group and a hazardous supplies crew. Firefighters are skilled to make use of the “jaws of life” to extract folks from automobiles and carry out different lifesaving duties.
“The job actually has numerous stress and strain that may result in PTSD for some guys,” Vega mentioned, recalling the horrors of deadly site visitors accidents, lethal fires, electrocutions and different tragedies. “And the truth that we’re such a small city makes it even more durable, as a result of we’re more likely to know the folks concerned.”
Regardless of the desperation and destruction he witnessed in his lengthy profession as a Key West firefighter, Vega can’t think about having performed anything. And he’s completely satisfied to share some insider secrets and techniques of the most well liked division on the town, as he joins present Key West firefighters on the division’s a hundred and fiftieth celebration on Oct. 11 at Truman Waterfront. Â