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On July 17, 1898 The City of Miami Fire
Department was formally created when five men
gathered in a Miami beer parlor to remedy the
outrageous cost of fire insurance in the city.
The premiums in Miami were the highest in the
nation, with annual rates at eight percent of a
structure’s value. This was due to the fact that
the all-wooden city had virtually no fire
service, and just eighteen months earlier on
Christmas Eve of 1896 - the year the City was
founded - half of downtown Miami had burned to
the ground. In order to bring insurance costs
down, the men agreed to form the Miami Fire
Department. Those in attendance became the first
volunteer firefighters. One of the men, Charles
H. Garthside, was elected as the City's first
fire chief.
Over the next hundred years, the rudimentary
fire service grew into a world-classprofessional department with a progressive
outlook - constantly at the forefront of
advancing technology. The Miami Fire Department
began the turn of the 20th Century without a
history, but the profound changes it underwent
during the age of advancing technology forced it
to look towards the future for its traditions.
Today the City of Miami Department of
Fire-Rescue retains a proud history of being at
the forefront of fire-rescue developments.
The early years of The Miami Fire Department
were crude – with the first fire fighting
equipment being only buckets and hand hose reels
that those five volunteers stored in a makeshift
station on Miami Avenue between 12th and 13th
Street. In 1904 the first fire truck was
purchased. It was a horse-drawn American-LaFrance
pumper called The Dan Hardee – named after the
chief at the time.
That same year, the first paid firefighter was
hired to drive the "truck". He was a skinny 18
year-old named Henry Chase with virtually no
experience. Because Henry was so young and
unproven, the other firefighters, all
volunteers, went on strike to oppose his
appointment. However, when the next alarm came
in, many of those same firemen jumped on the
apparatus Henry was driving and let him drive
them to the fire. On arrival, they learned that
it was a false alarm called in by Chief Hardee
to instill their confidence in the youthful
Chase – effectively breaking their “strike.”
Henry worked 365 days
a year on an annual salary of $540 – nearly ten
percent of the department’s $6,000 budget. His
job was to harness the two horses, Gus and
Harry, to the pumper. He drove them to the fire,
where the other firemen would meet them.
Henry Chase eventually became Chief of the
department in 1909, two years after the
construction of a three-bay station on land
donated by Henry Flagler. In 1911, Chief Chase
purchased the department’s first motorized
apparatus and installed 14 fire alarm boxes to
serve as the City’s fire communication system.
It was called the “Gamewell System.”
A second fire station was built in 1915, and the
volunteers were let go – making it a fully
professional department of 23 firemen. By 1916
the city also had a high-pressure water system
installed, and the last horse drawn units were
disbanded, also making the department completely
motorized.
Henry Chase left the fire department in 1917 to
enter private business but returned as Fire
Chief from 1935 to 1953. He ushered in an age
when the Miami Fire Department would become a
leader in the fire-rescue profession, beginning
with a tradition of being first in many areas.
The City of Miami became:
- The first fire department in the United States
to equip all apparatuses with 2-way radios
- The first fire department to employ fog nozzles
- The first fire department to equip all
firefighters with gas masks
In 1956, under Chief Newton L. Wheeler, it
became the first department to install an
emergency telephone alarm system, using
telephone alarm boxes to replace the Gamewell
lever-box system.
The Miami Fire Department was also the first
department to use “wet water", a firefighting
additive that is mixed with water to allow
better penetration of burning items. The Miami
Fire Department invented a “wet-water”
dispensing system that was modified to fit every
truck. Due to corrosion problems, it has since
been removed from use, but it was an important
experiment. With these improvements and more,
the City of Miami Fire Department would finally
receive its Class One rating in 1964 from the
Fire Insurance Office under Chief LL Kenney.
Perhaps the most notable firsts occurred in
medical-rescue – where developments were so
profound, that they actually expanded the
functions of the fire service, changed the name
of The Miami Fire Department to The Miami
Department of Fire-Rescue, and influenced
emergency medical systems world-wide. Such
advancements included:
- Use of doctors in conjunction with
firefighter-paramedics in the field
- Use of radios to communicate between doctors and
firefighters
- Use of a radio telemetry system to transmit
electrocardiogram (EKG) readouts
The Rescue Division of The Miami Fire Department
was formally created in 1939, but its initial
function was to give first aid to firefighters
injured in the line of duty, not to treat
citizens. The first rescue truck for public use,
Rescue One, appeared in 1941 at Station One. It
was basically a special extrication truck with
advanced first aid capability. Rescue One
carried heavy equipment, such as pulleys, hoists
and crow-bars, as well as some basic first aid
supplies, but had virtually no patient transport
capability.
The Rescue Division was not only limited to just
one vehicle, but its service was equally as
restricted – extricating victims from
catastrophes, but providing little beyond basic
first aid. The transportation was provided by
private ambulance services, which performed
“snatch and grabs,” or basic transportation with
no advanced life support. In the most severe
cases, the firefighters would ride in the back
of the ambulance with the patients, but they
would still provide nothing beyond rudimentary
first aid – or band-aids and oxygen.
Incredibly, the ambulance system was provided by
the funeral homes, and the ambulances themselves
resembled hearses. Patients were taken directly
to the funeral home if they died en-route. A
series of mass casualty incidents – plane
crashes that occurred every two or three years
in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s – exposed
the need for improving this system. Because
those emergencies stretched the local rescue
capabilities, they motivated the Miami-area fire
departments to explore ways of improving this
system.
The most influential person to change this
system walked into Miami’s Station One in 1964.
He came to teach the crew of Rescue One more
advanced first aid and a novel resuscitation
technique called “closed chest cardiac massage.”
The man was Dr. Eugene Nagel. The cardiac
technique, which had been invented just three
years earlier, would later become known as
cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Dr. Nagel,
a University of Miami physician and Assistant
Professor of Anesthesiology, was a fervent
advocate of this experimental technique.
Dr. Nagel was originally interested in combating
what was considered to be a major epidemic in
the United States -- pre-hospital cardiac
arrest. Since the CPR technique was so new, he
starting by teaching and testing the procedure
on dogs. The animals would be shocked into
cardiac arrest, then resuscitated using the new
technique of chest compressions and forced
ventilations. He found the firefighters to be
quick learners and soon began teaching even more
procedures that he deemed essential for what he
was calling his Cardiac Care Unit.
Dr. Nagel reasoned that the best people waiting
for emergencies were firefighters, and he had
faith that they could learn enough to intervene
with advanced life support to save lives. With
this trust in firefighters, he went to Station
One to apply his team concept in Miami, with one
innovation – using firefighters as the eyes and
ears of physicians.
The Miami Fire Department was the perfect place
to implement his plan. The Department had
already made history by becoming the first fire
department in the United States to use radios on
all its trucks for communication – actually
replacing the bugle, or megaphone device, as the
fire-ground communication system. This is still
such an historical symbol of firefighting that
it is used as insignia on uniforms today
worldwide.
Although Rescue One at that time was just a
renovated van equipped with an old doctor’s bag
and expired medications, Dr. Nagel found a group
of firefighters dedicated to improving the
rescue system. Those men included a member of
the original Rescue One, Manuel Padron, who
pioneered the rescue system as we know it today;
Randy Boaz, who fathered paramedic instruction
in South Florida; and Charlie Mathews, who
became one of the country’s first paramedics.
The biggest obstacle in Dr. Nagel's plans of
increased medical responsibilities for firemen
was doubt from the medical community. They
believed that firemen could not be entrusted
with the increased procedures and liability. As
a result, the 30 original firemen selected for
this rescue experiment were extremely careful
not to make any mistakes. Soon, Dr. Nagel began
teaching many more techniques that were
previously the domain of medical doctors. After
teaching CPR and how to splint bones, he taught
how to inject intravenous fluids, administer a
complex array of medications, defibrillate the
heart, and finally, how to intubate, or open an
airway with a mechanical device called a
laryngoscope.
Dr. Nagel was so confident that the firefighters
were competent enough to handle these new
techniques that he was willing to go to great
lengths to convince others to give them the same
level of trust and added responsibility. In
order to prove to the City Manager that the
firefighters were suitable for an expanded
medical role, he actually went into his office,
laid down on his desk and allowed the
firefighters he had trained to intubate his own
airway with a laryngoscope – all in front of the
City Manager.
Soon, the department would make more history.
The City of Miami Fire Department was the first
in the nation to make radio contact between
hospitals and firefighters in the field in 1965.
Around this time another Miami doctor,
University of Miami clinical professor Dr. Jim
Hirschman, was also making medical history with
radios. Dr. Hirschman combined his radio
expertise with a career as a distinguished
cardiologist. With this background, Dr.
Hirschman assisted surgeons off the coast of
Africa aboard the medical ship, the SS Hope, by
radio. Dr. Hirschman evaluated cardiac signals
sent from the ship’s EKG to his office in Miami,
and was then able to analyze the patient’s
situation and transmit life-saving advice to the
doctors who performed the emergency surgery.
Dr. Nagel read about Dr. Hirschman’s success,
and when he learned that he also lived in Miami,
he contacted the accomplished cardiologist and
asked him to devise a similar “telemetry system”
to help The Miami Fire Department. Dr. Hirschman
then worked with City of Miami radio expert, Ben
Denby, to devise a more thorough version of his
“telemetry system.” It was a radio transmitter
that used a modulator to convert the heart’s
electrical signal into an audio tone in order to
transmit it over the radio.
Soon The Miami Fire Department made history
again when it became the first department in the
country to use radio transmissions of EKGs sent
from firefighters in the field to doctors in a
hospital base. As impressive as this was, it was
not so helpful in treating the patients, because
there was little the firefighters could do
legally in the way of treatments. However, the
radio transmissions did show that many patients
died who could have been revived with an
electrical cardiac shock called defibrillation.
A defibrillation hadn’t been performed in the
field before, because conditions had to be just
right. The patient had to be without any life
signs, or physically “dead,” so that
firefighters could not be charged with causing a
death. Moreover, the doctors in the hospital had
to be absolutely sure of this with the flawless
EKG transmission from the field.
In June, 1969, The Miami Fire Department became
the first fire department in the United States
to successfully revive a lifeless patient in the
field through defibrillation. By using radio
transmission of the EKG, combined with verbal
radio contact with doctors at Jackson Memorial
Hospital and the University of Miami School of
Medicine, the firefighters were authorized to
“shock” the first patient in the United States
who was revived from a lifeless state. This
development was soon done on the fire
departments of Los Angeles, Seattle, and other
metropolitan departments.
Dr. Nagel then asked Dr. Hirshman to both devise
a curriculum to teach the new “paramedic”
courses and to draft the law that would give
firefighters the legal right to implement the
new medical responsibilities they were being
entrusted with. This was then presented to one
of the state legislators and led to the creation
of law 10-D-66.This is the legal cornerstone of
pre-hospital emergency care in the State of
Florida.
The Miami Fire Department also became the first
department in the nation to use the MAST suit,
or Military Anti-Shock Trousers, an inflatable
set of pants that forces blood from the legs to
the more vital regions of the body. It has the
same immediate effect of transfusing two units
of blood, and it benefits patients going into
hemorrhagic shock, which is shock due to blood
loss. In 1972, the U.S. Military asked The Miami
Fire Department to test the MAST suits in Miami.
They were credited with saving many lives, and
it was adopted nationally.
Chief Herman Brice, (78-84) further expanded the
department’s medical capabilities by ensuring
that every truck on The Miami Fire Department
have medical treatment capabilities and that all
firefighters be cross-trained in emergency
medicine. All apparatuses were equipped with
medical gear, and every Firefighter was given
medical training.
The medical director from 1978-86, Dr. Bernie
Elser, is also credited with placing many new
medications on the trucks, further increasing
paramedic
capabilities in the field. He also trained the
paramedics in the use of these new medications,
as well as rode the rescue trucks himself. In
addition, he implemented new approaches for
trauma patients with an emphasis on early
treatment in the field.
Notwithstanding the local notoriety and the
international reputation, perhaps the most
meaningful praise for the development of the
modern rescue system is attributed to Manny
Padron, who is credited with telling Dr. Nagel,
“Thank you for teaching us more than just
letting the patients die in our arms.”
The City of Miami Fire Department would
ultimately change its name to The City of Miami
Fire-Rescue Department due to the changes made
in the firefighting service. The name Fireman
changed to Firefighter due to the inclusion of
females. Minorities would also join the ranks of
the Miami Fire-Rescue Department and quickly
rise to the rank of Chief – making significant
contributions to the department.
Technological developments were a big part of
the improvements being made in the national fire
service and The City of Miami Fire Rescue
Department would embrace the rapidly advancing
technology of the 20th Century and become a
leader in the fire-rescue service. The City of
Miami Fire Rescue Department would also become
one of the busiest fire departments in the
United States. In 1995 it was the busiest
fire-rescue department in the country based on
alarms per firefighter.
Much has changed since the turn of the last
century, from a bucket brigade to a world-class
fire-rescue department with expanded
responsibilities and many firsts in the
fire-rescue service.
The City of Miami Fire-Rescue Department looks
to the future with optimism and hopes to play as
significant a role in contributing to
fire-rescue service developments in the future
as it did in the twentieth century.
Written by Michael Trebilcock
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FIRE:
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