The author has wanted to contribute with his experiences and pay homage to this specialty so he elaborated the chapters that make of Defying danger an original book with testimonies, opinions, anecdotes, relevant events, so far unknown, in which the professionalism and the courage of the operatives of this Body were decisive. Connected to the boldness of this task, it is observed how with its development the technique and the knowledge were increasing in each risky operation, for it would be impossible to ignore the prevention for its importance and teachings to eliminate or reduce to the minimum catastrophes of big proportions. Within these pages there are chapters about: fires, rescues, collapses, forest fires, cyclones, mental patients, on top of the confrontation to criminal sabotages where always, the combatants of the Dirección de Incendios do their job facing dangers and risks to their lives.

Defying Danger

By Roberto Valdes Martinez

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2012 Roberto Valdes Martinez
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-1286-1

Contents

History of the formation of the Fire Brigade...........................1New York firefighters Visit Cuba.......................................6The fires..............................................................11The ships and planes...................................................15Fires with chemical products...........................................29Schools and day care centers...........................................47Official buildings.....................................................53At the electric company sites..........................................60Stores.................................................................63Military unit..........................................................68Storehouses............................................................70Theater................................................................74Press..................................................................75Carpentries............................................................98Hotel..................................................................102On vehicles............................................................105Factories..............................................................110Apartments.............................................................113Rescues................................................................115Collapses..............................................................123Cyclones and sea penetrations..........................................125Accounts with mental patients..........................................136A letter to Che........................................................150Prevention Against fires...............................................153The command during catastrophes and fires..............................156The extinction means...................................................159Fires at forests and sugarcane fields..................................168The Zoo chimpanzee.....................................................173Firefighters National School...........................................182List of the combat means and the types of services.....................184

Chapter One

History of the formation of the Fire Brigade

If fire, when discovered, became a blessing, with the pass of time, has been a devastating element in some cities. To fight it come up in some countries the first fire brigades, but these did not have the adequate techniques or tools to control fires of big magnitude. In some occasions they could not but watch how the fire consumed big buildings and everything at its reach.

The first specialized machines that appeared on the XVII century were simple buckets on rollers or wheels. The water was taken to the fire by means of containers handed by hand to hand.

The invention in Holland, in the year 1672, of the hide pipe hand sewn allowed firefighters to get closer to the fire without endangering their equipment and allowed them more precision in the direction of the water flow. At the same time pumping systems were developed that allowed to draw water from rivers and ponds.

At the beginning of the XIX century copper rivets substituted the seams in the pipes, which could reach up to 15 meters long and were joined by bronze adaptors.

In 1870 started to be built a rubber pipe covered with cotton. The steam pumping machine was used in big cities in between 1850 and 1860. With the introduction of the internal combustion engine at the beginning of the XX century, the firefighters got motorized. The first car with a single engine for the pump and propulsion was built in the United States in 1907. In 1925 the motorcars had totally replaced steam cars. The pumps evolved into the centrifuges used nowadays in almost all the big cities.

In Cuba this activity goes back to November 13th 1696, when in the present day municipality of Santa Clara, in the center of the country, the first group of this kind was founded. Some others, like the one in the town of Batabanó, come up afterwards but for a short time and so were not officially acknowledge. On and on they start being organized in the rest of the localities until the first firefighters appear in Pinar Del Río.

During the colony, the authorities issued edicts and ordinances with the objective of taking measures to avoid the surging and spreading of fires, so as to provide themselves with the necessary extinction means.

The XIX century sets the appearing of the fire brigades as official entities, due to the increase of fires, their proportions and the human and material losses. On January 14th 1831 was created in Santiago de Cuba the Brigade of Truthful Firefighters, whose organization and structure was recognized by the colonial authorities on July 3rd 1838. It was established in Santa Clara on June 1832, made official in 1856 by the General Captainship. That of Havana was created on December 12th 1835 by decision of the General Captain, Don Miguel Tacón. Its regulations were approved by Royal Order on May 10th 1838.

The Brigade of Truthful Workers and Firefighters of Havana opened its first quarter on Obrapía Street and it was called San Felipe, with four pumps pulled by horses: the Virgin of the Unprotected, the Spain, the Gamiz and the Zencowiech, in addition to a stair car and an auxiliary one.

By then the commercial capital had reached great development in the country, and the insurance companies determined, for their own benefit, to create a Voluntary Fire Brigade, made up of commerce young people. Their quarter was inaugurated on September 19th 1873 and was established at number 19 of San Ignacio Street. They rendered their services with the pumps: Colón, Cervantes and Havana; in addition, they had a sanitation department with four doctors, a pharmacist and 21 sanitarians.

The rivalry between both brigades was incessant; they even disputed the water intake when arriving at the fires, making harder the extinction works.

On the night of May 17th 1890 happened the biggest catastrophe of those times: the fire at the hardware store of Juan Isasi, on the corners of Mercaderes and Lamparilla Streets, at the Old Havana. Municipal and commerce firefighters turned up at the fire.

The sneaking of merchandises and chemical and flammable products caused an explosion in which 38 people died, among them firefighters, police agents and spectators. There also were numerous wounded and mutilated.

The incident impacted so much the public opinion that even humorous magazines dedicated condolence notes and the most important literary personalities offered up chronicles, articles and poems to the event. The funeral of the victims constituted one of the biggest mourning demonstrations remembered in that period. When summing so many names to the firefighting martyrdom, the popular emotion went from admiration to the most fervent idolatry. As homage to remember these "Soldiers of Humankind", a monument was built at Colón Cemetery, where every May 17th firefighters keep guard of honor.

The fire brigades of the neocolonial republic did not have a good situation and their expenses were covered, partially, by the government at each instance and mainly by public collect. Same as in colonial times, the voluntary character of its affiliates was of military structure and organization. In 1935 they were nationally instituted, under the...