60th anniversary sees many changes in LV fire protection

Thursday, Aug. 1, 2002 | 9:49 a.m.

The Las Vegas Fire and Rescue Department has come a long way in the 60 years since it first began providing the city with full-time fire protection Aug. 1, 1942.

The Las Vegas Valley's original ragtag group of volunteer firefighters fought warehouse and brush fires using 2-inch hoses attached to Model T Fords in the early 1900s.

Today's firefighters have state-of-the-art fire engines and are trained to do flash flood rescues, clean up hazardous materials and serve as first-response paramedics to most major accidents in addition to fighting fires.

But while the job description of a firefighter has changed dramatically over the last 60 years, the one thing that hasn't changed is the camaraderie and heroism of the firefighters.

"There are only two things you can get from being a firefighter," said Cy Adams, who worked for the department from 1945 to 1959 and served as the first drill commander and battalion chief.

"One is the camaraderie because there is no better organization in the world, and two, you have to be crazy because who wants to go out and play in the water at 2 a.m.?"

Since its humble beginnings as first a volunteer department and then a three-man fleet, Las Vegas Fire and Rescue has continued to grow and expand its services to protect local residents from what firefighters call "the beast."

The first fire crews didn't have any kind of air packs or even protective clothing for firefighters, Adams said.

"In them days we had wooden houses and iron men, today we have iron houses and wooden men," said Adams, who ran the department's first rescue squad that had the county's only resuscitator. "We went in and ate the smoke the hard way."

Water pressure was also a big problem for early firefighters. They had only 2-inch hoses, and the city's water supply was minuscule.

"I remember pumping sand because there was no water left in the line," Adams said.

In Adams' day, firefighters worked 24 hours on and 24 hours off -- some 70 to 80 hours a week. Many of the men worked second jobs to provide a better life for their families because they were paid only for 48-hour weeks.

The job was a tough one then as it is today. Adams remembers one day in the 1950s on which they fought 21 fires in six hours because of high winds.

"The wind was blowing so hard that the water was coming out and making a right turn instead of going toward the fire," Adams said.

In those days police cars had to drive to the site of one fire to tell the men where to go next because there were no radios, Adams said.

Fire equipment has improved tenfold since Adams was a firefighter, but much of the safety equipment in common use today -- such as lightweight, flame-proof clothing and air packs -- didn't become available until the late 1970s and early 1980s, veterans said.

Fire Chief David L. Washington, who has been on the department for 28 years, said that even when the self-contained breathing apparatuses became available, many old-timers didn't want to use them.

"It was called slinging snot, and it was the macho thing to do to go without an air pack," Washington said. "It wasn't wise, and since then we've learned that the respiratory system needs all the protection it can get. That's a big transition I've seen over the years, that men are more inclined to wear safety gear."

Las Vegas firefighters today, however, do a lot more than just fight fires. The department's emergency preparedness marks it as one of only 44 Class One fire departments out of 35,000 in the country, as ranked by the Insurance Services Organization. This distinction lowers the cost of property insurance premiums for locals.

The department is advancing its ability to handle hazardous wastes and even the threat of a nuclear waste spill, but the majority of calls today, Washington said, are medical.

The expansion of services has transformed the one station, three-member department into a 12-station fleet with 565 members, Washington said. Another 68 people and three additional fire stations should be on line within the next year as the fire department continues to expand to meet the needs of the growing city, he said.

Not bad for a department turning 60 today.

"We're excited with the growth, challenged by it, but not overwhelmed," Washington said.