In August 2022, the Center of Fire Statistics of the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services (CTIF) launched an ambitious project to compile the history of at least 100 urban fire departments from the year 1900 onward. Titled “100 Cities, 100 Years: Evaluation of Urban Fire Risks,” this collaboration intends to illustrate how fire risk evolves across time and contrasts across the globe. The Houston Fire Department (HFD) accepted the invitation to be one of several departments in the United States to participate. By virtue of serving as the department’s accreditation manager, I received this assignment, because summarizing the HFD’s history and operations remains part of the Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE) agency accreditation criteria.
Challenges
Lt. Col. Dr. Peter Wagner of the Berlin Fire Brigade serves as the primary coordinator of the project. He provided each participating department with a template to describe the community and department’s history along with providing images of stations and apparatus.
Populating the spreadsheet with requested data (e.g., population served, area covered, call volume, casualties, damage, budgets, personnel, stations and apparatus) from 1900 onward posed a daunting task. The crux of the project in calculating historic fire risks depends on these data. Cutting and pasting from the department’s accreditation documents, such as the community risk assessment/standards of cover (CRA/SOC), wouldn’t suffice.
The HFD’s internal data served as the most trusted source of information but only for recent history. Texas records retention requirements only mandate that fire-related incident reports be maintained for five years. CPSE mirrors similar requirements for its agency accreditation program. In addition, records management system changes have complicated access and availability to legacy data.
The first stage in enriching readily available data consisted of deriving information from legitimate public sources online, such as the NFPA and U.S. Fire Administration. This addressed a good proportion of the data needs for the past four decades, which left the better half of the past century pending given that data collection nationwide only began with the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974.
I contacted other project contributors who faced similar obstacles, and we discussed how the project had unrealistic expectations. Despite our pleas, Wagner asserted more could be accomplished.
The Houston Fire Museum published a paperback of the department’s history in 2015. The book covers not only the origins of the department but also beginnings of signature services, such as the fire marshal’s office, EMS and hazmat response team. Narratives of historic fires and summaries of each fire chief’s tenure also are featured.
Members of the HFD published yearbooks. Select volumes were available in the special collections of Rice University’s Woodson Research Center. Former Houston Firefighter F. Scott Mellott loaned me the missing volumes. As an avid historian, Mellott also created a website that features department rosters from 1895–1933. It also chronicles each line-of-duty death in the department’s history.
Note: LODDs have diminished, but advances to firefighter safety didn’t come with a compromise in effectiveness in service to the community. These examples should demonstrate how history should be used as a springboard for progress rather than solely as a means to justify tradition.
Better understanding of how fire risk evolved
Additional information remained pending to conduct the quantitative analysis of HFD’s experience. Found at the special collections of the city library, city of Houston budgets and HFD annual reports that date back to 1946 had data that are related to expenditures, fires and casualties. The material remained in good condition over the decades thanks to the very controlled setting of the special collections facility. No photocopying or laptops were permitted.
Although the collection had several years missing, enough data were present to extrapolate the missing information.
The regular practice of publishing annual reports, however, ended in the early 1990s. The archives of the Houston Chronicle and the now-defunct Houston Post served as sources for data that pre-dated the available annual reports and budgets. The articles in those respective newspapers included interviews that cited the number of fires and casualties.
Reviewing the trends increased my understanding of how fire risk has evolved. Past threats have been addressed to the point that they now are near-nonexistent, while modern threats continue to emerge. Community risk reduction efforts and response strategies must accommodate for changing times.
Important lessons
Drafting the history of a cross-section of fire departments, including the HFD, isn’t a vanity project. Rediscovering parts of a department’s history can teach important lessons, including elevating our appreciation of the value of core functions of the modern fire service. For example, in 1970, the HFD began to provide EMS because of the dearth of emergency trauma care in the community. Further, the growth of the petrochemical industry and the public safety risks that it presents prompted the launch of the hazmat response team in 1978. Hurricanes in the 21st century exposed the need to acquire high-water vehicles.
History has taught us that not every expansion of services leads to positive results regardless of how well intentioned. During the encephalitis epidemic in the mid-1960s, the HFD equipped its engines with malathion insecticide and distributed the spray to the public at fire stations. Long-term issues emerged, as malathion damaged the engines. Since then, it’s been classified as carcinogenic. In developing our current strategic plan, I have used this as a precautionary tale on why we should guard against mission creep. Each individual department should assess its proper function and role in its respective community, which involves reviewing case studies of major events and analyzing historical service demands.
Honest assessment
Respecting history requires the recognition that not every moment can be packaged for positive public relations. The stories that are recounted in the Houston Chronicle and Houston Post that paint the department in a negative light often are hidden away from present consciousness despite their lessons having value today. Membership should understand the historical cultural issues on why, after the first female firefighter joined the department in 1975, the number of female firefighters remained at just two in 1987. Turmoil between elected officials and department membership in the 1980s shows how personal disputes become threats to public safety. Individual cases of betraying the public trust in more recent history can illustrate the importance of maintaining professionalism in the fire service.
In drafting material for this project as well as for the HFD’s accreditation efforts, I have attempted to provide an honest assessment of where things stand. Glossing over the negative aspects of the department’s history inhibits the future’s capability to learn from past mistakes. Hence, I submitted some of the department’s modern-day documents to the library’s special collections to help preserve its history.
Preserving history truthfully
Sometimes, history doesn’t provide a predictable trajectory for the future.
Notable predictions in the HFD’s 1989 yearbook did become reality. Technological advances did lead to electronic incident reports and online training. The responsibilities of on-duty personnel have increased, such as in regard to pre-incident plans and hydrant checks.
Other predictions never came to fruition. The number of fire stations remains at fewer than 100 rather than more than 200. Helicopters have yet to become “necessary” to transport personnel and equipment for major fires and routine support services.
Although we should be proactive in recognizing the opportunities and threats ahead, we must be humble enough to admit that we can’t know everything that lies in the future.
The narrative of the HFD merely serves as one chapter of the “100 Cities, 100 Years” project, which is nearing completion. Despite the name of the project, more than 165 separate entities with representation from every inhabited continent, including Cairo, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo, Vatican City and Wellington, provide contributions. Reviewing these contributions made me recognize the value of open government and a free press.
Although some information might be forever lost, I have confidence that the HFD data at least attempt to be accurate. Not all contributors could share that confidence, as one department from the former Eastern bloc noted that “all the statistics in the country, including the fire department, were ideologized and did not reflect reality” for the latter half of the 20th century.
The value in preserving history truthfully also served as a driving factor for the updated CPSE agency accreditation model to encourage departments to preserve documentation and memorability of notable events and historical significance.
Leonard Chan
Leonard N. Chan is the accreditation manager for the Houston Fire Department. He previously served in a similar role with the Cedar Park, TX, Fire Department. Chan serves as the chair of the Texas Consortium for Public Safety Excellence and is a principal member of the NFPA technical committee on fire analysts. He has mentored fire service-based research projects at Rice University, University of Houston (UH) and University of Texas at Austin and is an adjunct instructor for the UH Master of Public Administration program. Prior to joining the fire service, Chan served as legislative staff for the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission. He graduated magna cum laude from Rice University in political science, religious studies and history and holds a Master of Public Administration from UH.
