Hal Bruno

I never met Hal but found his phone number in the visiting fireman and gave him a call. I asked if I could use the series of articles that he wrote in the late fifties about the Chicago Fire Insurance Patrol. I planned on using them for a book I was writing on that subject. He said to use anything I wanted and then volunteered to write the foreword for the book. He did a great job and I wanted to post it for all to see. 
 "In the last half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, at least twenty-three American cities were protected by emergency fire salvage companies that were financed and operated by local boards of insurance underwriters. Their mission was to respond to fire alarms along with the municipal fire departments and reduce the damage caused by smoke and water. They fought their way into burning buildings to save business records, other valuable items and cover property with their waterproof tarpaulins. The fire patrolmen braved the heat and smoke along side firefighters from the engines and ladder trucks – facing the same dangers while suffering the same painful and, sometimes fatal injuries.
In some cities they were called “Salvage Corps;” in others “Insurance Patrols” and none had a prouder history than the Chicago Fire Insurance Patrol. At its peak strength in the late 1920’s, the Patrol operated nine salvage companies and responded to more that 11,000 alarms per year. Organized on October 2, 1871 – only six days before the Great Chicago Fire – the Patrol served the city for eighty-seven years, saving property worth millions of dollars and earning numerous citations for heroism and outstanding performances. In many districts they arrived on the scene with the first-alarm units and, whenever it was needed, provided extra manpower to rescue trapped victims. Twenty-two Chicago Fire Insurance patrolmen lost their lives in the line of duty.
As a teenage fire fan in the 1940’s, I came to know and admire the Chicago Patrol. They wore black rubber coats and boots like other firefighters, but stood out because of their bright red helmets. While firemen were dragging hose and carrying pike poles and axes, the patrolmen had heavy salvage covers slung over their shoulders as they entered the building. At an extra-alarm, when a building was fully involved in flames and nothing could be salvaged, the patrolmen often took a second or third line off an engine company and went to work fighting the fire. At a smoky three-alarm fire in a cold storage warehouse fire in the stock yards, I saw a dozen semi-conscious firemen, including four Fire Patrol members, stretched out on a loading dock while being given oxygen from the inhalators. (The C.F.D. didn’t use air masks in those days.)
Back in the 1870’s, the Patrol’s first superintendent, Benjamin B. Bullwinkle proclaimed that “speed and efficiency” was the unit’s motto and it never changed. There was a sharp military discipline in the way they went about their job, glistening apparatus and spotless firehouses where every piece of equipment was in its place. I occasionally visited the Desplaines Street headquarters of Patrol 1 and 2 on a Friday or Saturday night and it was impressive to see their famous “push off’ when the “waker” bell rang. Patrolmen slid the brass poles, climbed into the back of the truck and were going out the door in thirty seconds. It may not have been as spectacular as the 1870’s – when overhead harnesses dropped on the horses and a complex rope contraption yanked the blankets off the bunkroom beds – but Superintendent Bullwinkle would have approved.
The Patrol’s vehicles were maintained by their own shop and ahead of their time in design. In 1937-38 they received the fully enclosed White trucks that looked like streamlined police paddy wagons but were painted red. The Patrol companies caught some long runs and the new Whites were a warm blessing on Chicago’s freezing winter nights. To my knowledge, these were the first fully enclosed fire apparatus in the entire region. In 1949, the sleek canopy-cab Fords started to arrive, with the C.F.D.’s traditional black-over-red paint scheme. Along with being fast and functional, these were some of the best-looking fire apparatus I’ve ever seen.
Perhaps most impressive were the patrolmen. They were tough firefighters and I sensed a great esprit on the Patrol companies. Some became my close friends and eventually joined the Chicago Fire Department, where they had outstanding careers. I wrote a newspaper story about Frank Surzynski, who served fifty years as a patrolman and was still active on Patrol 7 at the age of seventy-one. He had joined in 1909 when they had horse-drawn wagons and didn’t quit until the Fire Patrol was disbanded in 1959. “Ski” estimated that he had responded to almost 50,000 alarms and had a simple explanation to describe his dangerous job: “There’s only one way you can operate in this business. You have to go inside and cover the stock. The idea is to beat the water.”
Patrols and Salvage Corps across the country ran into hard times during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, when local underwriter boards began eliminating companies or completely shutting down. Chicago lost three of its nine units in this time period, but seemed secure in the boom years that followed World War Two. It wasn’t until 1958 that we first heard rumors that the Board of Underwriters was planning to disband the Fire Insurance Patrol and my paper, The Chicago American, went on a campaign to save them. Over a period of six months, I wrote a series of stories explaining what the Patrol did and how they saved property worth more than $2 million (in 1950’s dollars) every year. Back then, it cost $750,000 a year to operate the Patrol – a net gain of at least $1 ½ million for the insurance companies who contributed to its support.
The paper ran editorials rallying support for the Patrol and I started out believing that we actually had a chance to save them, but I was dead wrong. I should have known it was a lost cause when I asked an official of the underwriters what would happen if fire losses skyrocketed after the Patrol went out of business. His blunt reply: “We’ll just raise the rates.” How could you overcome that kind of cold-blooded logic? Needless, The American continued running my stories glorifying the Patrol until the bitter end on June 29, 1959, when they made their last run.
At one point, we thought the Chicago Fire Department might take them in as salvage companies. The underwriters offered to sell the vehicles and equipment to the city for $1, but balked when Mayor Richard J. Daley said they also wanted the stations and land as part of the deal. In retrospect, I realize that no one ever had any intention of saving the Chicago Fire Insurance Patrol. It was all a big act to counter my stories, but I don’t regret that we tried.
At the same time that Chicago’s Patrol was shut down, local underwriters boards abandoned Salvage Corps in Albany, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati and Worchester – leaving only New York with the nation’s first and last surviving Fire Insurance Patrol, with three companies still in service. Organized in 1839, the success of the New York Fire Patrol had been the inspiration and model for all that followed, including Chicago. They were still going strong on September 11, 2001, when Fire Patrol 2 responded on the first alarm as terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. Fire Patrolman Keith Roma was among the 343 firefighters killed while attempting to rescue victims caught in the Twin Towers.
Sadly, as this is written, the New York Board of Underwriters has resolved to close the Fire Patrol. An uphill battle is underway to save them and we can only hope that they’re more successful in New York than we were in Chicago. Unfortunately, fire departments all over America are caught in budget squeezes and badly understaffed, with barely enough manpower to operate their engine and truck companies. A few volunteer departments still have designated salvage companies, but in most cities there is no one to go inside and throw salvage covers in time to “beat the water.” Salvage has become a lost art for most departments and, as they told me long ago, when fire losses increase the insurance companies simply raise the rates. The little known story of the Chicago Fire Insurance Patrol, and the salvage corps in other cities, is a colorful and noble chapter in the history of America’s fire-rescue service. The patrolmen were true firefighters and risked their lives to save the property of every citizen, whether the fire was in a factory or a commercial building, a rich man’s mansion or a poor man’s tenement. Our thanks go to Keith Seafield and Michael Pack for telling the Chicago story."    RIP Hal!!