Salaried Fire Department Established Cincinnati, OH (1853)

Salaried Fire Department Established Cincinnati, OH (1853)

By the 1700s, independent volunteer fire companies began receiving payment for their services from the insurance company or the property owner. Property owners displayed fire markers outside the building to indicate that they were insured; in some cases, no marker meant no effort would be made to fight the fire. In other cases, only the first arriving companies got paid, which led to fierce competition. Volunteers sabotaged each other's equipment and fought off later-arriving companies, often using fire-fighting equipment as weapons. Often, the building burned down while the firemen brawled. Fire Department Orgination. Early in 1853 the Cincinnati, Ohio, Fire Department Committee formulated a plan that would entirely change the way fires were fought in America. To end the frequently violent competition between companies, the plan called for full-time, paid city employees to fight fires using a horse-drawn steam engine. The steam pumper would allow four or five men to spray more water on a fire than hundreds of volunteers using hand pumpers. The City Council on 16 March 1853 authorized the plan and the creation of a Fire Department, effective 1 April.