America's first responders answer the call nearly two million times each year as our nation's first line of defense in every conceivable emergency. Virtually every community has a fire department, roughly 31,000 touchstones of reassurance in what has become an increasingly volatile world. Since Ben Franklin organized the first fire department, the Union Fire Company of Philadelphia, in 1736, firefighters have braved the hazards of smoke and fire to bring everyone out, no matter what the risk.
Now the spirit and essence of the firefighting community is celebrated for the first time in a definitive, magnificently illustrated, large-format book, published with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.
Written by an outstanding team, including historians, authors, and experts associated with the firefighting community, as well as several distinguished active and retired Chiefs and officers, Firefighters has over 350 pages of riveting and informative text and stories of the firefighting experience. Essays on urban, volunteer, wildland, even military firefighting; history; training; trucks and apparatus; emergency medical services; search and rescue; and terrorism bring to life these courageous people and their stories. The thoughtful incorporation of full-color and vintage photography and painting complements the text while adding the excitement that only spectacular illustrations can bring to a book.
Firefighters enables the history of America's bravest profession to be cherished permanently in a handsome package that all firefighters will be proud to own and--with its unique medallion-inlaid cover--to display. This book will be read again and again by past and present firefighters, their family and friends, and the countless others that have been inspired by the exploits of those who run towards danger.
