For centuries, combatting fires was largely an ad-hoc process involving “bucket brigades” of community members until fast-growing towns, with buildings made of combustible materials such as wood and thatch, began to proliferate in the 17th century.
The Great Fire of London in 1666 led to the development of pumps and the establishment of the first fire insurance companies. Policy holders were issued a badge, or fire mark, to attach to their building. But buildings were often left to burn until the fire company associated with the relevant insurer showed up.
A similar approach held sway in the major towns of the east and northeast United States, until Ben Franklin co-organized the all-volunteer Union Fire Company in Philadelphia in 1736, which sought to protect all citizens, regardless of their insurance status. The first municipal fire brigade in the world was established in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1824 and the first professional firefighting force in the United States appeared in Cincinnati in 1853.
Today, there are approximately one million firefighters across the United States, organized in more than 29,000 departments.
Pumps, Trucks, Clothing and Training
In 1721 and 1725, English inventor Richard Newsham patented designs for a "water engine for the quenching and extinguishing of fires," with a cistern that could hold 170 gallons of water. His hand-operated inventions, which were on wheels and hauled manually to fires, were the industry standard for much of the 18th century.
Not until 1829 was the first steam-powered fire truck developed, but the engines, which were devoted to powering the pumps, were heavy. In 1832, the New York Mutual Hook & Ladder Company No 1 purchased a horse to pull its fire truck, and soon fire departments across the country followed suit, with the horses often accompanied by Dalmatians, which would guard the horses and rouse them at the sound of the fire bell.
By 1925, horse-drawn trucks with steam-driven pumps had been all but completely replaced by gasoline-powered trucks. By then, as society became increasingly urban and buildings grew ever taller, most trucks came equipped with ladders mounted on turntables—known as Hayes ladders, after Daniel D. Hayes, who invented them in 1868.
Today, fire trucks come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes and can cost as much as $1 million. The firefighters who staff them are better equipped than ever, with advanced helmets (the first attempt at which was designed by Jacobus Turk in 1731), self-contained breathing apparatus, and fire-resistant clothing.
Advances have also improved tracking and containing fires. Thermal imaging cameras are now commonly used in rescue operations. Firefighting aircraft, including planes and helicopters, are deployed to help control fires by dropping water or foam over burns.
Changes in Fire
In some ways, fighting fires is safer than before. Martin Mullen, battalion commander with the Los Angeles Fire Department, explains that, in addition to the proliferation of modern equipment, changes in the construction of houses mean that structure fires can be easier to control. In other ways, houses of ever-growing size in increasing densities, packed with plastics flammable materials pose new challenges.
Since 1630, when the selectmen of Boston declared that "noe man shall build his chimney with wood, nor cover his house with thatch,” layers of fire codes have increased the safety of structures. Although, tragically, some of these have been in response to lessons learned the hard way.
In 1903, for example, a fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago killed over 600 people and led to such now-universal developments as “panic bars” on fire exits and illuminated exit signs. A 1937 explosion at a school in New London, Texas, caused by an undetected gas leak, prompted the addition of distinct-smelling hydrocarbons to odorless natural gas. And a 1985 conflagration that consumed the stands at Bradford City soccer club in England was the catalyst for a significant overhaul in stadium construction and safety in sports stadiums in the UK, including the banning of wooden grandstands.
According to Stephen Pyne of Arizona State University, author of several books on fire including Fire: A Brief History, a firefighter from the 19th century could swiftly adapt to being on a 21st century crew. But, he says, in many ways the very nature of fires is showing signs of change.
History is replete with examples of entire swaths of cities being consumed by flames—London in 1666, Chicago in 1871, San Francisco in 1906. According to Pyne, a combination of stricter building and fire codes and ongoing refinements in firefighting equipment and technique meant that, after the last of these, such city-wide fires seemed to be a thing of the past —until a firestorm in Oakland in 1991 heralded a new era.
The horrifying scenes in Los Angeles in 2025 mirrored those in Maui in 2023 and Jasper, Alberta in 2024; the common factor, Pyne notes, is that these started of a wildfires and ended up consuming towns that have spread into the wilderness, blurring the boundary between urban and rural. That matters, says Pyne, because whereas the goal of structure fires has always been to extinguish them as rapidly as possible, combatting wildfires is a more complex process, which can sometimes involve the setting of controlled, or prescribed, fires to remove combustible material.
However, what he calls “the gentrification of rural areas” has made that policy more challenging to implement, while climate change has reduced the number of days in which conditions make such burns safe to conduct. And, of course, that changing climate is creating hotter, drier conditions in which fires develop and spread much more readily.
That is one major reason why Mullen says that, even after centuries of implementing fire codes and refining firefighting techniques. “we’ve got more fires than we ever had.”
Fire—simultaneously our companion and our foe throughout our existence—remains a terrifying specter, and the bravery of professional firefighters remains our best defense.
