Leather Helmets and Iron Men

Nobody goes to fires anymore. There was a day when an entire town turned out to fight a fire devouring a neighbor's house or a place of business. At one time in America, it was everybody's responsibility to fight fires: passing buckets, straining with manual water pumps, or pulling a fire wagon. Later, if people weren't actually helping to put out conflagrations, they were chasing fire engines. They went to watch; to encourage the brave men who took the heat, who handled the hoses, the ladders, and the axes. But today, nobody goes to fires - nobody, it seems, but professional fire fighters. And people don't seem to pay them much attention anymore, despite the fact they perform one of the most dangerous jobs in America. Across the nation, fire fighters battle 300 blazes every hour. One of them is killed every three days, many times attempting to save the lives of strangers. Half the firemen are injured each year. And still nobody pays them much attention.

LEATHER HELMETS AND IRON MEN

Well, almost nobody. George F. Getz, Jr. does. In fact, Getz has devoted a good portion of his life to making sure people remember what firemen have done for us throughout our history.

He has assembled a mammoth collection of fire-fighting equipment: from leather helmets to a huge aerial ladder truck; from a wooden rattle alarm that resembles a New Year's noisemaker to magnificent "parade carriages," which were useless for fighting blazes but boosted the prestige of competing fire companies.

Getz has gathered his collection, much of it restored to its original grandeur, in the Hall of Flame antique fire-engine museum in Phoenix. There, more than 80 restored fire vehicles and hundreds of smaller items vividly recall the fascinating history of the American fireman: sometimes a gentleman and an aristocrat, sometimes a roughneck and a bully; but always a courageous individual who ran hell-bent into danger at the first sound of an alarm.

Getz, who at 83 leads a vigorous life running his investment and realty firm in Scottsdale while keeping close tabs on his museum, has never been a fire fighter, although he was named honorary chief of two fire departments.

His interest began on his 47th birthday when his wife, Olive, presented him with a 1924 La France fire engine that he had seen and admired some weeks before. He thought it would be great for driving the kids around. It proved to be the driving force behind his fabulous collection.

"I discovered that nobody was saving this old equipment," Getz says. He leans back in his chair, a stocky figure sporting a bola tie bearing the brand of his former ranch near Kingman. "I thought it was a shame nobody was preserving them."

At first it was easy, Getz says. People heard about his budding collection and contacted him. Later, it became difficult to find pieces, and prices skyrocketed. "But people still give us old equipment," he says, "because they know we'll restore it to its original condition, if it can be done. Just last week, Gene Autry gave us a Moreland pumper, built in 1930.

"We like to restore them exactly as they were, and sometimes that takes a lot of detective work, finding out how they were painted, searching for original parts. Sometimes we go through newspaper archives or try to find a descendant of the original builder."

In his office, Getz is surrounded by fire-fighting memorabilia, from valuable antiques to kitsch: whiskey decanters disguised as fire trucks and helmets, plates, mugs, statues, toys, a fire-extinguisher lamp, a plaster Dalmatian, photos of fire-men heroes of the last century, scale models, and the calendar with the classic nude pose of Marilyn Monroe that decorated so many fire stations.

But the kitsch stops here. In the collection itself, authenticity reigns. And Getz glows when he talks about each piece and the place it holds in fire-fighting lore.

His enthusiasm is shared by Peter Molloy, the museum's executive director, who has a doctorate in the history of science and technology. A scholar, he reveals interesting facets of fire-fighting history of which few are aware. Some of the exhibits that don't seem particularly impressive become much more so when he tells the story that lies behind them.

One of these exhibits is a hook on a long pole. It was used in colonial days when wooden houses with shingled roofs and wooden or plaster chimneys posed a fire hazard, particularly when the structures were packed closely together for protection.

The house where the fire started usually was written off as lost by the time fire fighters arrived, so they concentrated on throwing water on adjacent buildings. The hook? It was hurled over the roof of the burning building to peel it off, then used to haul down the walls.

Leather buckets like those in the Hall of Flame were everywhere in colonial settlements. In New Amsterdam (later New York), citizens were required to put a bucket of water on their doorsteps at dusk in case a fire broke out while they slept. Fifty buckets hung outside City Hall. Teams of young men patrolled all night, and when they discovered a fire, sounded their rotating wooden rattles to rouse the neighborhood.

Philadelphia proved to be even more progressive than New Amsterdam when it came to fire prevention, thanks to some who were among our country's greatest patriots. William Penn insisted that buildings be constructed of brick and stone, with tile roofs. The bricks, carried as ballast in ships, led to Philadelphia being called "The Red Brick City."

But Ben Franklin had an even greater influence. His journal, the Pennsylvania Gazette, campaigned for more and better fire-fighting equipment and clean chimneys. His "ounce-of-prevention" maxim referred to using caution in carrying hot