Customer Reviews

Boston on Fire: A History of Fires and Firefighting in Boston

5 star:		(3)
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I loved this book. This is a carefully crafted and well researched collection of tales about fires out of control and what are very scary risks, even up to the present day.

It starts from times when there were no machines to fight fires, dirt roads downtown, little or no water available, and nobody on the payroll. Stories cover fires in and around Boston that wiped out entire neighborhoods and changed hundreds of lives. The story of the famous Cocoanut Grove fire of late 1942 is right from the front line and for me, brought the recent Station Nightclub fire to mind.

As a bridge to further study, it has detailed references to source material drawn upon, but I have to think that none of it can be more captivating than this compendium.....

A person would not expect to find a history of fire fighting in Boston to be a difficult book to put down. I bought this volume mostly because I had enjoyed the author's earlier story of the Cocoanut Grove Fire and I'm delighted I did. I had no idea of all the inovations in fire fighting that were first invented or applied in Boston. I happened to start reading the book at the back when I was thumbing through it and came across a description of the fire at the Vendome Hotel on Commonwealth Avenue. I'd witnessed that fire while passing by on my way to work. I then read the book from that point to the end before starting to re-read it from the beginning. It was amazingly accurate because I'd been alive and read about many of those recent fires at the time. The great fires from the past were even more fascinating.The author did a wonderful job of making what could have been boring, boring, boring, into a history that was riviting, riviting, riviting. It's a great read even for non-sparks and fire fighters.

Stephanie was our guest speaker for our Oct 2010 Boston Chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineer's technical meeting. Her presentation was about her research into the historical fires in Boston and this book was really good in the technical aspects uncovered in the research and the human toll the fires had. It is a really good read.