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Where there's a feast, there's fire in Boston - Busy station's holiday mean gets cold - By Ellen Barry, Globe Staff, 11/26/99
One of the lesser-known hazards of working at Engine 33 and Ladder 15 of the Boston Fire Department is that there might be food, but there might not be time to eat it. And so, at 11 on Thanksgiving morning, the head chef from the Top of the Hub laid out before a half-dozen firefighters a piping hot meal of roasted squash soup, Caesar salad, turkey with apple sage stuffing, toasted garlic bread, pumpkin cheesecake, and several crates of cream-filled petit fours. The men of Engine 33 and Ladder 15 loosened their belts.
Then, at 11:15, the first call came in. ''I have not sat down and had a full meal since I got here,'' said John Maguire, 40, one of the newest members of the company, who seconds later was strapping on an oxygen tank and pulling on rubber boots in the back of the engine. ''It's the same with sleep. I lay down at night, it's usually about five minutes, and I'm out the door. I'm telling you, I got that unfortunate streak going.''
For the firefighters, much of yesterday was spent traveling back and forth between routine turkey fire scares - known as '' food on the stove'' - and their own rapidly cooling meal, which they were forced to abandon several times. In two hours, three calls came in, and it was almost 1 p.m. before they got to the cheesecake.
This company is among the most desirable postings in the department. Other firefighters call it ''Hollywood,'' because, they say, so many attractive women walk by on Boylston Street. But it is also the busiest. And more things burn down during the holiday season; it is such a truism that the firefighters barely think about it. In 1991, when the Centers for Disease Control monitored monthly deaths by fire, they numbered around 200 per 100,000 people through the summer, then doubled in November, and soared past 500 in January. There are some common-sense explanations: People spend holidays in their houses, where 80 percent of deadly fires take place. They are also using portable heaters or other electric appliances whose cords fray and spark.
''There's always loss of life on the holidays,'' said Lieutenant Robert Moriarty, 50, whose helmet is warped and sooty from what he estimates as a thousand fires. In Lynn, five people had died a day before. ''The scourge of fire affects us all the time. It's an impending doom.''
Still, by early yesterday afternoon, the most dangerous situation the company had faced was the near-injury of one firefighter, who climbed into Ladder 15 with a steak knife in his back pocket. But the company has suffered its share of losses and has not forgotten them. On the station wall hangs a framed photograph of Lieutenant Stephen Minehan's gleaming black casket.
Wendell Sumpter, 47, a 15-year veteran of the company, said he never smoked cigarettes until five years ago, when Minehan died trying to rescue other firefighters from a burning warehouse in Charlestown. He has worked as a firefighter for 23 years, and he has developed an awareness of danger that sometimes wakes him up in the middle of the night. ''Some nights it's too quiet,'' he said. ''You wake up, you make sure that everybody is all right.''
Over the years, veterans like Sumpter have developed what he calls a ''sixth sense'' - the sense to know you are out of danger when you catch sight of the fire, he said. Or the way a house inhales and exhales smoke just before a backdraft blows the windows out, Moriarty added.
But all of them have the firefighter's particular talent for switching momentarily from rest to full-bore action and back. ''My old lady complains that she'll be talking to me and I doze right off,'' Sumpter said. That quality came in handy at 11:38, when John Maguire put down his turkey to respond to an alarm at 333 Massachusetts Ave. Maguire is a big man - he was a truck driver until he was admitted to the force last year - but he flew down the stairs and slid into the engine in seconds. ''I got one bite in,'' Maguire said, ''but I have a good sense of humor.''
This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 11/26/99. © Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.