Accounts tell of Emperor Nero intentionally setting the Great Fire of Rome in July 64 AD so he could free up space for a new palace, the Domus Aurea. Rumors at the time had it that Nero and his coterie engaged in bacchanalian depravities while Rome burned as it was his intention to build his edifice on the smoldering and scorched earth.
Thereafter, probably so that his newly built palace would not burn to the ground unintentionally, Nero would transform himself from a do-nothing goat to a trailblazing hero in firefighting lore.
He formed history’s first organized fire brigade, the Corps of Vigiles. Each of the 7,000 members of the corps was assigned a specific task, like lugging water jugs or wielding fire buckets or axes, the latter to rescue people trapped in burning houses.
We may surmise that the term “bucket brigade” originated with Nero’s Corps of Vigiles, ditto with the idea that some present-day politicians have been resorting to arson to clear their jurisdictions of informal settlers or “squatters” (before the term became pejorative), after getting themselves elected by those very same people.
Among us Filipinos, there’s a saying that it’s better to be robbed many times over than to be hit by fire even once. True, fires can be so devastating with their potential to exact unimaginably high costs in terms of properties and lives lost. The infamous Firebombing of Tokyo by the Americans during World War 2 should illustrate the point.
On 9 and 10 March 1945, 279 of 334 American B-29 bombers dropped 1,655 tons of napalm firebombs that in minutes turned 16 square miles of Tokyo — with its wood-and-paper dwellings — into an inferno whose fires were made more intense by the reported strong winds prevailing at the time.
Just imagine training an electric fan on your barbeque grill to fan the flames. That must have been how it was in Tokyo with the intensity multiplied by thousands, resulting in 100,000 confirmed dead — higher even than the low end of the 70,000 to 150,000 estimated dead from the Hiroshima atomic bomb detonation.
March has always been Fire Prevention Month and Women’s Month and so we take time out to thank our gallant firefighters — both from the Bureau of Fire Protection and the many hundreds of volunteer fire brigades, men and women, all risking their own lives and limbs every time they respond to fire calls.
The BFP, the equivalent of Nero’s Corps of Vigiles, is at the cusp of a 10-year modernization program, while the volunteer fire brigades — under their umbrella organization Association of Philippine Volunteer Fire Brigades Inc. — are also upping their game in helping the BFP.
Last 1 March, the BFP held its nationwide fire prevention motorcade to remind Filipinos that fire prevention is always better than fighting fires. On Sunday, hundreds of volunteer brigade fire trucks, ambulances, and command vehicles held their fire prevention drive in Manila.
For the volunteer fire brigades, with many of their members being women, their motorcade — a show of force — was reassuring to ordinary people that alongside regular BFP units, community firefighters — civic-minded citizens — are always ready to lend a helping hand.
Most fire volunteers are not paid even allowances and they, in fact, are the ones who contribute to the upkeep of their vehicles by paying their monthly dues.
One female fire volunteer, call sign Emperor 12, summed up what they’re getting from being volunteers when she said: “It’s our way of helping others. There’s no greater joy than getting heartfelt thank yous from those people who had been saved or whose properties escaped destruction. We help without waiting for rewards or praises. One needs to volunteer to help others to know or appreciate what it’s all about,” she added.
The fire volunteer brigades’ Sunday drive stopped traffic at intersections, but people did not mind. Their firetrucks, ladder trucks, and water tankers were a welcome sight, with the volunteers atop them. Many of their units were small, too, the better to penetrate areas like slums which the bigger firetrucks cannot enter.