5 fire chiefs who changed fire education

In modern firefighting’s early history two chiefs, James Braidwood and Eyre Massey Shaw, stand out as leaders and teachers. Both led efforts to modernize London’s fire forces and both authored the fire service’s earliest texts in the English language.

Their writings covered fire department organization, fire attack, apparatus design and building construction for safety. America’s earliest counterparts to Braidwood and Shaw were Edward Crocker and John Kenlon, both chiefs of the Fire Department of New York.

Crocker and Kenlon came up to command-level rank in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As part of a rapidly growing metropolitan fire department, they were in the right place at the right time to influence the fire service.

The first fire colleges and fire academies began to appear after 1920, as the need for trained firefighters became increasingly evident. While on-the-job training would prevail in smaller paid departments and among the volunteers for many more decades, all began to use planned drills for local organized training.

Two textbooks, “The Fire Chief’s Handbook” and “Fire Service Hydraulics” and the so-called “Oklahoma Red Books” served as the basis for drills, classroom training and fire science education into the 1970s.

Chief Lloyd Layman

With the NFPA as his publisher, Chief Lloyd Layman of Parkersburg (W.Va.) Fire Department offered the fire service “Attacking and Extinguishing Interior Fires” in 1952 and “Fire Fighting Tactics” in 1953. Much of the theory presented in these two books came from his military experience. His theory of fog attack is still debated today.

After leaving Parkersburg, he served as the director of the Fire Office, Federal Civil Defense Administration; it was the first federal position having an advocacy responsibility to the nation’s fire service.

In this position he played a major role in preparing the Fire Safety and Research Act of 1968, but died before its enactment.

In the 1970s, two books on tactics and operations appeared, “Fireground Tactics” by Emmanuel Fried in 1972 and “Firefighting: Principles & Practices” by William E. Clark in 1974; both men were FDNY chiefs.

Clark and Fried

Chief Fried was battalion chief of the 44th battalion in New York City and his command was possibly the busiest in the world at that time. A man of his era, he had a blunt approach to things and relied heavily on his common sense.

He retired in 1958 and wrote “Fireground Tactics,” which became a standard fire science program textbook for strategy and tactics classes.

Fried came out of retirement to head the Hinsdale (Ill.) Fire Department and later assumed the position of chief of the Chicago Heights (Ill.) Fire Department. He again retired in 1972 and lectured until his death in 1987.

William E. Clark was a strong advocate for occupational safety. He started as a firefighter in New York City in 1937, served 20 years and retired as a battalion chief. He subsequently held a number of fire service positions, focusing especially on training firefighters.

Clark also founded the International Society of Fire Service Instructors, serving as its president from 1962 to 1965. Chief Clark penned the forward for Chief Fried’s book, noting that while he was a fireman on Ladder 120 (FDNY), Fried, then a lieutenant, saved Clark’s life. He saved it not by an act of bravery, but rather “by an almost instinctive judgment of fire behavior that saved us both by a matter of seconds.”

Chief David McCormack

The next chief on this list of game-changers is David M. McCormack. He started with the FDNY in 1954, serving until 1975. In 1965, he was the youngest captain in the department.

A person who knows such things said that one the stations where McCormack was a captain was behind the famous (but now closed) Mamma Leone’s Restaurant.

In 1968, he became the youngest battalion chief in the history of the department. He retired as a deputy chief and was elected president of New York City’s 2,600-member Uniformed Firefighters Officers Association.

In 1972 he encountered a number of fire and police line-of-duty widows picketing city hall. Wanting to know the reason for the protest, he learned they were surviving on a $3,000-a-year pension from their husband’s death without an adjustment for cost of living.

He successfully fought for legislation in Albany, N.Y., to provide an adjustment. The Police and Fire Line of Duty Widows of New York City, honored him in 1974 for his efforts.

In 1975, he was appointed as the first superintendent of the National Fire Academy — then located in Washington D.C. and known as the National Academy for Fire Prevention and Control. Chief McCormack also served on the NFPA committee that put together Standard 1710.

Variously described as cantankerous, he nonetheless made his influence known. One fire service blogger notes this McCormack saying, “We can tell any lie we want to as long as we don’t start believing them ourselves.”

Chief Warren Isman

Though a relatively recent example of leadership, we can’t forget Chief Warren Isman. He was a notable leader in the contemporary fire service who died unexpectedly in 1993 and is someone to remember. Chief Isman applied innovative solutions to difficult problems facing the modern fire service and used his degree in physics for training firefighters in dealing with hazardous materials.

Born in New York City in 1938, he attended college, graduated and moved to Washington, D.C. In 1966, he joined the Rockville (Md.) Volunteer Fire Department. He became an instructor for the University of Maryland Fire Service Extension Program (now the Maryland Fire Rescue Institute).

In 1972, he joined the newly formed Montgomery County (Md.) Department of Fire and Rescue Services as the training captain. He rose through the ranks to become chief of the department and then in 1983 took the chief’s position in Fairfax County, Virginia.

He was noted author and lecturer, writing three textbooks and numerous articles on subjects from pumps and hydraulics to incident command to hazardous materials.

Chief Isman chaired the NFPA technical committee on hazardous materials for response personnel and the IAFC committee on hazardous materials. He was known for his generosity with his time and commitment to teaching firefighters.

These innovative and determined chiefs advanced fire service knowledge in their time and paved the way for future leaders to build off their work.