Report from Engine Co. 82

Rating:
Summary: An American firefighting classic
Review: Dennis Smith's Report From Engine Company 82 was a huge best seller when it first appeared in 1972 and it immediately put its author into the rarified air of commercially successful authors. No small feat considering that 1 of every 3 books published fails to make any money at all and fewer than 1% sell more than a million copies, the way this book did.

Smith captured forever the day to day grind of inner city firefighters, before air masks were used regularly. He brings the reader into the last days of pre-modern, urban firefighting, the suffocating heat, the blinding smoke, the gut wrenching fear and most of all the camaraderie that comes along with a job that requires disciplined teamwork and exacting attention to detail.

Report opens up with a fire, of course, where Engine 82 and Ladder 31 are forced to breach or break through a wall to get a teenager out of a rear bedroom of a burning apartment. The first two firefighters from Engine 82 enter without air masks and take a terrible beating before they're relieved on the line by two members who are "tanked up." Smith takes the reader through the entire event, step by agonizing step.

Smith lets us see the teeming ghetto that existed around his Intervale Avenue firehouse at the time - today, that same area is covered with single family Nehemia Homes. He takes the reader through the emergencies (gas and water leaks), car accidents, false alarms and spectacular fires, from a firefighter's perspective. In it, he chronicles the death of a fireman, from Engine 82, who fell off the back of the rig, or backstep, while responding to a false alarm. In those days, firefighters still "rode outside" the rig, hanging off the back of the Engine or Pumper by holding onto straps that hung off a rear metal bar across the "backstep" or rear of the rig.

Dennis Smith worked in the early part of a quarter century period (from the late sixties to the late eighties) that saw 30% of all the buildings in NYC burned. Entire tracts of the South Bronx and huge swaths of Brooklyn were reduced to prairie like fields. Thousands of other buildings were made vacant.

I work in the same area today...about a mile and a half west of Engine 82 & Ladder 31. When I first arrived there in 1986 there were tons of vacant buildings, left over remnants from the firestorm of the previous decade. I've known lots of firefighters who went through that period. Most of them have been put out of the job with various forms of cancer, emphysema, throat disorders etc. The effects of swallowing all that smoke are well documented thanks to their sacrifices. Most of NYC's inner city firefighters from that period are dead now.

Of course, air masks are mandatory now (thank God!) and bunker gear has been mandated as of 1994. Despite all that, New York has lost over twenty firefighters in the line of duty over the past five years alone, 764 in its history - pre-9/11.

The book is divided into numerous vignettes which cover the range of incidents Engine 82 responded to, the squalor of the South Bronx, the good natured ribbing of firehouse life, while contrasting the job and that area, to his home and family life in Westchester County, about 30 miles north of New York City.

If there is any nit to be picked with this book, it's that the other firefighters are not very well developed characters. This may have been due to Smith's reluctance to expose the real people he'd worked with. Still, it's a quick and compelling read. Smith has an engaging story telling style and a good-hearted humility and strong sense of humanity that shines through the book. A must for fire buffs everywhere and an interesting behind-the-scenes story about our very recent history for others.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, exciting and revealing. A side of firefighting
Review: I read this book in the original version years ago and loved it. It let me know a side of firefighting I never new. New to this field, it was easy to understand and very emotion provoking.

Rating:
Summary: Had to read it again.
Review: I read this book many years ago. Many years before I became a firefighter paramedic. I saw it advertised on the Firehouse.com webpage and had the urge to read it again from my new perspective. I wasn't disappointed. I don't read at all, and I couldn't put this book down (again).

Rating:
Summary: A great book for any would-be firefighter.
Review: I remember reading this book when I was still in school. I was young, but it still left an impact I will not soon forget. I'm glad it is still available, I think it is a great read for anyone interested in becoming a firefighter. He really lays it on the line, holds nothing back. You are right there with him, in the fire, feeling the heat and danger. You've got to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Moving, Lyrical Look At New York's Bravest
Review: I understand why Dennis Smith is known as the "Poet Laureate" of the New York (City) Fire Department. His literary debut, "Report From Engine Company 82", truly is one of the most exceptional memoirs I've read, replete with his honesty, conviction, and determination to succeed as a fireman in - what was true in 1972 - the city's busiest fire station. Undoubtedly much of what he wrote back then rings true to the countless thousands of firemen who fight fire heroically in major American cities such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and of course, New York. It is also blessed with some of the finest memoir writing I've come across, graced with ample lyrical prose; only his recent "A Song For Mary" and Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" surpass it. Anyone who wishes to understand the lives of urban American firemen should read this elegant, slender tome.

Rating:
Summary: The most accurate and heartfelt account of firefighting
Review: I was in seventh grade in 1978 when I first read Report From Engine Co. 82, and no book I've read since has ever had as profound an effect on me. Dennis Smith and his brother firefighters on Intervale Ave. inspired me and, I'm sure, many others to become firefighters. The book is gripping and "in-your-face", taking you into some of the most dangerous and frustrating working conditions imaginable.

I just re-read the book, and doing so rekindled the respect and admiration for the heroes of the FDNY that it originally instilled in me 22 years ago. Recently a friend and I visited "The Big House" in the South Bronx, talked with the firemen, took pictures of the neighborhood, and brought Smith's book to life. The pull box at Charlotte St. & East 170th St. made infamous by Smith's book has been replaced by an ERS box; the crumbling, burning tenaments replaced by suburban looking homes. All that remains of the horrors that took place there in the seventies is the memories of daily heroism performed by the men of Engines 82, 85, Ladder 31 and 712 perpetuated by Smith's book.

Now a teacher, I'll be sharing Report From Engine Co. 82 with my class this year. I hope that with the use of this book, I can inspire the same respect, compassion, and concern for human life in my students that Smith inspired in me so long ago.

You don't have to be a firefighter or a "wanna-be" to love Report From Engine Co. 82. Treat yourself to it as soon as you can.

Rating:
Summary: TRUE STORY OF SOUTH BRONX FIREFIGHTERS
Review: MY FATHER WORKED IN ENGINE.82 WHEN THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN.ITS A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE THEN BUSIEST AND TOUGHEST FIREHOUSE IN THE CITY.THIS BOOK INSPIRED ME TO WALK IN MY FATHERS FOOTSTEPS.THIS BOOK IS A MASTERPIECE.

Rating:
Summary: I really enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the day to day
Review: operations and the comradery between the firefighhters. I did however find that, even coming in just over 200 pages, it managed to get repetitive.

Rating:
Summary: Still Relavent 33 years
Review: Report From Engine Cmapny 82 is required reading for students in Sociology, U.S History, American Studies and Urban Planning. Not to mention those aspiring to a career in the Fire Service.

Rating:
Summary: 5 Alarm reading
Review: The best book you would ever want to read on the men of the F.D.N.Y., You can all most fell the heat and the smoke covering your face, as you craw down the hall.